India must seek a broader regional engagement beyond bilateral immediacies in the Middle East. India’s diplomacy in the Middle East is again under pressure from conflicting parties of the Arab-Israeli crisis. India’s traditional policy of favouring a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent and viable Palestinian state remains unchanged. Nevertheless, much has changed about how India reinterprets the meaning and the context of its Palestine policy.

After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Indian media and right-wing public opinion had overwhelmingly supported the Israeli military response in Gaza. New-Delhi-based Arab diplomats expressed their unease over the increasingly hostile public opinion towards Palestine.

Beyond the balancing act

The ruling Bhartiya Janta Party’s pro-Israeli gestures are no secret to the Arab diplomats. They knew that a BJP-led government in New Delhi would start a new chapter of relations with Israel beyond the traditional “balancing act.” The BJP and its eco-system of support see Israel as a country that always stood with India in times of crises with Pakistan. Israel, aware of India-Pakistan disputes, fully used this as an opportunity and kept its normalisation efforts with Pakistan secret to avoid India’s sensitive public opinion. Those who are aware of Israel’s efforts to normalise ties with Pakistan understand that two Muslim nations, Pakistan and Indonesia, remain top priority for Israel and its Western backers who facilitated the Abraham Accords.

Saudi Arabia, too, supports Pakistan-Israeli relations, as Pakistan remains its key traditional ally. In this context, the India-Israeli ties may not stay exclusive and may not be specifically Pakistan-centric in the long term. Israel, along with Pakistan and Turkey, was a key supporter of Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno Karabakh in 2020, while Armenia relied on Indian military supplies. Since the Gaza-Israel conflict started, India has faced a different challenge.

First, there is a strong pro-Israeli public opinion that is ingrained in the ideology of the ruling party and its supporters in India. Second, under Narendra Modi’s decade-long rule, India has decided to end the previous reluctance and isolation from regional affairs, reprioritising its relations with Gulf countries.

How China fits in

In an ongoing competition for influence in the Gulf between the United States and China, India has joined the West-led efforts to support the Gulf countries’ security and stability. This is a bid to check the growing Chinese influence in the region. India is ready to offer strategic and security support to the region in the newly upgraded relations. The China-brokered Iran-Saudi normalisation has also helped India.

For India, Iran’s real strategic value is not in the Gulf but in Central Asia and South Asia, where Iran supports India’s efforts in multiple connectivity projects. In this sense, India’s advancing relations with Israel have received little or muted objection from Iran. When news broke about India supplying arms and ammunition to Israel amid military conflict, neither Arab states nor Iran reacted. The supply of ammunition, yet to be confirmed officially, is a significant statement on India’s recalibration of Middle East relations.

All official statements of India’s Ministry of External Affairs have underlined that Hamas’ actions on October 7, 2023, were acts of “terrorism,” a position taken by most of Western governments and silently supported by their Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. India has previously welcomed the Abraham Accords, a Donald Trump-era initiative to re-engineer the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict outside the UN resolutions. Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar, and Iran have refused to jump on the bandwagon of the so-called new peace process.

Crisis shapes the future

The ammunition supplies to Israel may bring more support for India within Western capitals. However, the Arab-Israeli crisis continues to shape the future balance of power in the Middle East, mainly against the Western countries and their Gulf allies. Saudi Arabia has been more cautious and sensitive to the crisis because its domestic politics is more susceptible to widespread anger and unrest if it is perceived to be supporting Israel at the cost of a Palestinian state. Iran, with its regional ambitions, enjoys popular support in Lebanon, Yemen, and parts of Gulf societies. 

Whether the Arab states accept Iran’s role in the Arab-Israeli crisis or not, it remains an influential player whose support is crucial to maintaining any peace mechanisms. The brief military confrontation between Iran and Israel has alarmed the European powers about losing their say in the region if the US continues to disregard Palestinian demands.

The biggest loser

Egypt, on the other hand, is the biggest loser in the crisis despite having supported Israel for decades. Egypt is also wary of alternative routes being created by the India-Middle East Economic Corridor. The Israeli plans to carve out a new canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean via the occupied Gaza are not going well with Egypt. That is the reason why Egypt must protect Hamas despite its abhorrence of Hamas’ ideological patron, the Muslim Brotherhood.

India is seeking opportunities for defence exports as the Modi government focuses on developing a robust defence industry. However, selling ammunition to Israel during a war showcases arms exports as a political statement. India’s quest for a regional strategy, however, has to be in compatible with the realities of the region where India is situated. Its geopolitics will, therefore, be tested less in the Atlantic and more in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf.

Regional actors show little faith in American leadership and are searching for a new security architecture, which is less dependent on the US and Europe and willing to resolve regional crises.

In the post-Gaza war period, regional powers like Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia may actively seek the participation of Russia and China in the region. India must, therefore, be ready for a broader regional engagement beyond bilateral immediacies.

-360info