Photo: Embassy of Israel in India
Defence Cooperation among nations, beyond the seller--buyer relationship, is generally the upshot of fraternal ties between each--- emerging from common strategic goals, ideological affinities and, importantly, a shared regional or global overview in today’s troubled times. Located in different and disturbed regions of the world and with, not so dated, full-fledged diplomatic relations, the growth in military cooperation, in recent times, between two nearly disparate nations---India and Israel—is nothing short of astounding. In particular, over the last three decades, both nations have established cooperation that spans high technology, agriculture, tourism and space but the most striking has, unquestionably, been in the field of defence. That this cooperation has limitless potential will be merely emphasizing the obvious.
Diplomatic Background
The UN had mandated in 1947 the partition of Palestine into Israel and an Arab state which was opposed by India, more to retain its hold on the emerging oil- rich Arab world. India, continued with its pro-Arab policies right throughout the first 45-50 years after independence, primarily, owing to its energy dependence and the massive inflow of foreign exchange being sent to India by its citizens employed in the Arab world. It was in 1950, though, that India had recognized the State of Israel. However, it did not accord formal recognition to the latter apart from permitting Israel to open a consulate in Bombay (now Mumbai), primarily to cater for the large number of Jews who inhabit India’s commercial capital.
India did not maintain any deep diplomatic relations with Israel and these were largely informal in nature till the early 1990s.However, in both the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars and even later, Israel did provide some light weaponry, ammunition and information. Reportedly, even former Indian PM Indira Gandhi had directed in Sep 2018 her RAW chief, RN Kao, to establish linkages with the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad while India’s external agency was under raising. What is not very well known is the fact that prior to the 1971 operations, PM Indira Gandhi had also requested Israeli PM Golda Meir for supplying India with some equipment and ammunition which the former diverted from its export to Iran consignment to India ( till the fall of Shah of Iran’s regime, Israel and Iran maintained cordial relations).
Despite India’s diplomatic and economic outreach to the Arab world, right since its independence in 1947, it was only in 1992, under PM Narasimha Rao’s directions that India formally established diplomatic relations with Israel. In 1997,President Ezer Weizman became the first high ranking Israeli to visit India. It was as late as 2000 that the first minister from India, Deputy PM LK Advani visited Israel to establish joint counter terror mechanisms with Israel , then followed by the visit of India’s Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. In 2003, Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli PM to visit India opening up diverse vistas for cooperation between the two nations including in defence.
The last few years, especially in the NDA regime, has seen a marked upsurge in visits to each other by the senior political hierarchy of both the nations. In November 2014, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Israel to discuss border management while in October 2015, President Pranab Mukherjee became the first Indian head of state ever to visit Israel. Later, PM Narendra Modi made a landmark visit to Israel in July 2017 as the first Indian prime minister to visit the Jewish state. This was reciprocated by an equally high profile visit of Israeli PM Netanyahu to India in Jan 2018 who brought a 130 member delegation to India to discuss and ink various agreements in diverse fields.
Defence Cooperation Till Date
Currently, India is the largest buyer of military equipment from Israel and the latter is the third largest defence equipment supplier to India, after Russia and the US. As is well known, India, ofcourse, has the unflattering distinction of being the world’s largest importer of defence equipment in the world---- a fact not lost on the technologically advanced nations of the world to tap India’s huge arms market! From a meagre 1 million US dollars of military equipment imports from Israel in the mid-nineties, by 2009 military imports from Israel had touched a whopping 9 billion US dollars. Defence cooperation also encompassed intelligence sharing and joint military training.
Apart from a variety of munitions and communication equipment, in smaller numbers, from Israel in the last 40 years or so after our independence, it was only in 1996 that a major deal was signed between the two nations. Many security analysts term 1996 as a watershed in India-Israeli defence cooperation. 32 Searcher UAVs and laser-guided bombs, manufactured by the Israeli giant company, Israeli Aerospace Industries Ltd (IAI) were contracted. In addition, Israeli expertise was also utilised to upgrade India’s large but aging MIG 21 fleet. In 1997, the Barak-1 SAM (surface to air missile) was inducted into the Indian Navy. Barak-1 has the ability to intercept anti-ship missiles as the Harpoon sea-skimming missiles, which the Pakistanis had acquired along with Lockheed P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft, from an indulgent US. It is also pertinent to note that like Russia and France, Israel did not criticise India after the 1998 Pokhran 2 nuclear tests. Israel also supplied, at short notice, a few essential munitions during the 1999 Kargil operations against Pakistan. In addition, HALE variety of UAVs was also procured later for the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. These ‘eyes in the sky’ with their powerful Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Forward Looking Infrared cameras (FLIR) have proven to be an effective surveillance and intelligence gathering mechanisms.
The turn of the century witnessed a growing upsurge in India buying state-of-the-art weaponry and platforms from Israel. Apart from frequency-hopping radio sets like the Tadiran and night vision equipment for its armoured formations, 3 Phalcon AWACS fitted with IAI radar equipment mounted on Russian IL 76 aircraft were inducted into the Indian Air Force in 2003 at a cost of 1 billion US dollars. In a significant move, India also signed a 2.5 billion US dollars deal with Israel in 2007 for the design, development and production of anti-aircraft systems and missiles, namely the Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MR-SAM). The MR-SAM has a range of 70 kms and an indigenous content of 80 percent. The MR-SAM has been gradually inducted in by other nations and is considered to be a leading air defence system for the three services. Plans are afoot to jointly manufacture a lower range SAM too for India’s aircraft carriers.
In 2008, the Israeli military satellite TecSAR was launched by the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO). In the earlier years, media reports had also suggested Israeli satellites providing vital information to the Indian government.
IAF Phalcon AWACS
Current Initiatives
In the past couple of years, many joint forums have been set up to provide a fillip to defence cooperation between the two nations. The India-Israel Industrial Research and Development and Technology Innovation Fund (14F), Indo-Israel CEO Forum, the India-Israel Innovation Bridge, an online platform to encourage and facilitate collaboration between various Israeli companies and Indian ‘start-ups’ has also been established. MOUs between ISRO and the Israel Space Agency (ISA) have also been signed.
The Government of India has been encouraging Israeli companies to sign MOUs with Indian companies to give a momentum to the “Make in India” and “Make with India” initiatives of PM Narendra Modi. Eli Alfassi, of Israel’s leading aerospace and defence conglomerate, the IAI, recently stated that the “ IAI has led many joint programmes evolving with India providing aerial refueling capabilities, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), airborne early warning aircraft, various radars and many other defence systems and capabilities.” He further added that their systems and platforms were in service with the three Indian services and other government agencies and they were all working together for mutual benefit while leveraging this partnership for further expansion. Significantly, Eli Alfassi also expressed that “aligned with the evolving Indian policies, as part of the offset obligations, we have been buying Indian subsystems and services worth nearly $ 800 million from 80 Indian suppliers. We intend to increase our work here, adding more Indian suppliers in the future.”
In addition, IAI, Dynamatics Technologies Ltd and the Sun Group are working to establish a JV for UAVs, striving for development and production to make futuristic UAVs. Another planned JV with Mahindra will be in the realm of defence electronics, radars and communications. With Bharat Forge Ltd, IAI will be working towards smart munitions. The Israeli Golan Industries Division also signed a MOU with the Indian Taneja Aerospace and Aviation for the manufacture and marketing of aircraft seats for civil and military aircraft while Wipro and the IAI have forged a strategic alliance for the manufacture of composite aero structure parts and assemblies. Elbit (ISTAR Division) of Israel and India’s Adani Group have also announced a JV to manufacture UAVs in India. Cooperation between the two nations is, in short, rapidly diversifying and growing in the fields of defence and security.
PM Netyanyahu’s Visit to India: Jan 2018
Since his tenure as Gujarat CM and after taking over as the Indian PM, Narendra Modi did display a marked inclination to upgrade Israel-Indian relations and a revision of India’s unqualified traditional support for Palestine. However, as the Indian Express recently pointed out that “after originally signaling this pro-Israel shift, Modi embarked on a course correction by mid-2015 and effectively resumed the policy of multi-engagement of all relevant West Asian actors. Before traveling to Israel, Modi had visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran” and also hosted the Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas in New Delhi in mid-2017. Nevertheless, India-Israel relations are unmistakably on the upswing especially in the defence sector notwithstanding India’s traditional fraternal ties with the Arab world and Iran. During PM Modi’s visit to Israel in 2015 ties between the two nations were upgraded to a “strategic partnership.”
PM Netanyahu’s visit to India in Jan 2018 was after a long break by any Israeli PM (PM Sharon had visited India in 2003). This highly publicised visit saw the inking of nine agreements and many MOUs in the fields of space cooperation, oil and gas, agriculture, cyberspace, counter-terrorism and homeland security. The Israeli PM also stated that “Indians and Israelis know the pain of terrorist attacks. We remember the horrific savagery in Mumbai” and called for synergy among the two nations to combat terror. On defence cooperation both the prime ministers issued directions to their establishments for developing more joint business models and partnerships for JVs and joint manufacturing including transfer of technology, research and development in the defence and security fields. They both desired, according to reports published in the Israeli newspaper, Jerusalem Post, “viable, sustainable and long term cooperation in the defence industry.”
Areas of Differences Between India and Israel
Though, unquestionably, India-Israeli ties are on the upswing in diverse fields, yet a few differences in opinion exist in mutual diplomatic ties and in defence aspects. However, both these remain publicly understated and have not affected the cordiality between the two nations. India has not wavered from its traditional stance for support to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The existence of Palestine remains an anathema to the Israelis and, somewhere, India could play a major role in bringing these two warring people reduce their political differences. In addition, Iran, an arch enemy of Israel, is building its south eastern port of Chahbahar with Indian investment and assistance, which irks Israel. Nevertheless, India’s energy dependence on Iran, its strategic interests in the region and the consequent development of Chahbahar Port for conferring much needed connectivity to India towards Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics is also a strategic imperative for India, which the Israelis do acknowledge.
As regards China, since decades, Israel has maintained excellent trade and defence relations with the former. China has been a buyer, in substantial quantities of modern defence equipment from Israel, reverse-engineered many of Israeli cutting edge technologies and is utilizing the same for its alarmingly growing arsenal. China-Israeli defence ties, though primarily commercial in nature, do impact India’s defence preparedness and it will be prudent on India’s part to impress upon Israel to not sell everything and anything to the financially powerful and geo- politically assertive Chinese.
Conclusion
Faced with the common scourge of Islamic extremist terrorism and the need for developing strategic military and commercial, mutually beneficial ties with each other, India and Israel have made more than a promising start. As Israel endeavours to tap India’s gigantic arms market, it will be prudent for India to reach out to the technologically highly advanced Israeli industry, imbibe their cutting edge technologies and jointly develop, manufacture and market modern weaponry for themselves and to friendly foreign countries. In India’s march towards acquiring a globally powerful profile, Israel will have a major role to play. Hopefully, both nations will synergise their human resource availability, technological abilities, innovative genius, diverse resources and financial muscle to jointly move forward to newer vistas and untapped frontiers.
Lt Gen Kamal Davar (retd)