New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Israel later this year is in the “right order”. He said that he hoped he will travel there with a “bipartisan” delegation. Delivering the keynote address at an international conference here, he also said terrorism has become a “major cementing factor” contributing to growing Indo-Israeli ties.

“We have the PM’s visit to Israel coming up. (Israeli) President has set a precedent (by visiting India) and for this PM to undertake this visit this time after he has shored up his relationship with the Arab world in the Gulf countries, is in the right order, the right way to do it,” Mr Tharoor said.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin’s visit to India last November had set the stage for PM Modi’s historic visit to the Jewish state which is likely to take place in the middle of this year.

“Many expected the order to be reversed, but that would have been a mistake because of India’s dependence on West Asia for oil, and the 6-7 million Indians working in the Gulf countries, those positions should not have been jeopardised,” said Mr Tharoor.

“Having shored up the position of the Indian government in those areas, I think the PM can travel with confidence to Israel, feeling in many ways that what he is doing is something that speaks for India’s independent foreign policy without in anyway compromising its relationship with anybody else. And, I certainly hope that he travels with a bipartisan delegation of people from across the political spectrum,” Mr Tharoor added.

He further highlighted the common bond between the two nations, “So, the sense that we are facing similar threats from similar sources, this certainly contributed to the growing closeness, enhanced defence cooperation, increasing intensification of cooperation in areas of counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing and sale of weapon systems from Israel to India, of which the most famous example is the Phalcon.”