India will once again undertake the tight-rope walk between Israel and Palestine, without seeking to ruffle feathers in either the Jewish State or the Arab world.
India will once again undertake the tight-rope walk between Israel and Palestine, without seeking to ruffle feathers in either the Jewish State or the Arab world. Ahead of a likely visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel and Palestine later in 2016, the government on Tuesday announced that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj would visit Palestine and Israel.
Ms Swaraj will visit Palestine first on January 17 followed by Israel on January 17 and 18. The visit follows that of President Pranab Mukherjee in October 2015.
Though it has strategic defence ties with Israel and has bought defence equipment worth billions of dollars from the Jewish state in the past 13 years, India — in the current tenure of the Modi Government — has been at pains to point out that its support to the Palestinian cause remains.
Significantly, the ministry of external affairs on Tuesday said in New Delhi that India’s relations with Israel “are independent to its relations with any country in the region”.
The MEA also pointed out that Palestine would be the first destination in the first visit to the West Asian region by the minister and that this “in itself reflects the importance India holds for Palestine in its engagement with the countries of the region”. The MEA also said that the visit to Palestine “will also reaffirm India’s continued political, diplomatic and developmental support to Palestine”. At the same time, the MEA also pointed out that “India and Israel share a close and multi-faceted relationship”.
Meanwhile, the Israeli embassy said that Ms Swaraj “had visited Israel in 2008 as chairperson of the Indo-Israel Parliam-entary Friendship Group”.
On the proposed visit to Palestine, the MEA said, “During her visit, the minister will meet with the Palestinian leadership and review India-Palestinian bilateral relations. India shares traditionally close relations with the state of Palestine and (is) contributing actively through capacity building and human resource development initiatives with Palestine. The visit will also reaffirm India’s continued political, diplomatic and developmental support to Palestine. The minister will also inaugurate the Palestine Digital Learning & Innovation Centre in Ramallah. The visit will deepen the mutual understanding at the political level and boost bilateral en-gagement with Palestine.
