By Ankit Panda
Much is being made of India’s decision to abstain on a recent UN HRC vote on the 2014 Gaza Conflict. Is it justified?
India was one of five countries–the others being Kenya, Ethiopia, Paraguay, and Macedonia–to abstain on a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) vote on July 3 adopting the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict. The report largely condemns Israel’s actions during last year’s Operation Protective Edge, a seven-week-ling military operation by Israel into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Indian vote is being seen as emblematic of the ongoing rapprochement between the governments of India and Israel. India’s new government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is partly recalibrating New Delhi’s approach toward Israel, development that will no doubt be welcome by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 41 HRC members voted in favor of the resolution and the sole vote against came from the United States, Israel’s traditional ally and supporter at the United Nations.
As I’ve written in The Diplomat before, Israel has climbed its way up New Delhi’s diplomatic agenda since Narendra Modi came to office in May 2014. Modi will become the first Indian prime minister to travel to Israel since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1992. An Indian “rapprochement” with Israel, however, traces its origins to before Modi’s ascendance. As Nicolas Blarel also recalled in The Diplomat, India’s previous BJP-led government, which was in power from 1999 to 2004, was similarly seen to have initiated a recalibration of New Delhi’s policy toward Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s landmark visit to Delhi in 2003 appeared to represent a sharp turn in New Delhi, but that momentum was short lived. Afterward, India’s Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government maintained close ties with Israel–certainly as an important defense partner–without considerably showing support for Israel in the Arab-Israeli policy.
Read the full story at The Diplomat