J.N. Dixit, India’s former National Security Adviser and one of the country’s most seasoned diplomats, once wrote that the establishment of relations “with South Africa and then with Israel” was the most significant achievement of his tenure at the Ministry of External Affairs. Few comments capture so neatly the quiet shift in India’s moral compass during the early 1990s. What had once been a foreign policy anchored in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and the Non-Aligned Movement was now tilting toward the emerging strategic triangle of Washington, Tel Aviv, and New Delhi. Three decades later, that tilt has hardened into one of Asia’s most consequential alliances.
The historical roots of the India–Israel connection reach far deeper than the 1992 establishment of formal diplomatic ties. Jewish communities have lived in India for over two millennia. The Cochin Jews of Kerala, who trace their lineage to ancient traders arriving after the destruction of the Second Temple, built some of the oldest synagogues in the Commonwealth and enjoyed relative security unknown to Jews in most of the world. Further east, the Bene Israel settled along the Konkan coast, while smaller Baghdadi Jewish communities flourished in Kolkata and Mumbai. Even in India’s far northeast, the Bnei Menashe of Manipur and Mizoram—who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel—have in recent decades re-established religious and cultural links with Israel. These intertwined legacies gave both nations a foundation of shared memory long before geopolitics bound them together.
When India formally recognised Israel in 1950 but withheld full diplomatic relations, it was acting within the logic of post-colonial solidarity. Support for Palestinian self-determination was considered integral to India’s moral standing in the developing world. Yet by the early 1990s, that posture had lost its strategic utility. The Cold War’s end, the collapse of the Soviet Union—India’s principal defence supplier—and the global turn toward liberalisation forced New Delhi to rethink. Economic reforms under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991 coincided with a shifting global order in which Israel was becoming an indispensable partner for the United States. Establishing relations with Israel thus became not only a matter of diplomacy but a statement of intent: India was entering the world economy and aligning with its new security architecture.
The years that followed saw a steady deepening of the defence relationship. During the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan, Israel’s rapid supply of surveillance drones and precision-guided munitions filled a critical gap left by other hesitant powers. Israeli firms soon became integral to India’s military modernisation, supplying radar, missiles, and electronic warfare systems. Cooperation later extended into counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which Jewish targets were explicitly struck. Israeli expertise in homeland security, border surveillance, and cyber technology found eager clients in India’s expanding security apparatus.
The relationship, however, is not merely about weapons. It is also about ideas—about two nations that see themselves surrounded by threats and justified in adopting extraordinary measures of self-defence. Israel’s militarised ethos and its narrative of technological resilience have appealed to successive Indian governments. For the Hindu nationalist right, Israel represents a model of a small but assertive nation that defends its majority identity against perceived existential enemies. What was once discreet military cooperation has thus evolved into an open political fraternity.
India’s silence on Israel’s more controversial actions has grown louder with time. After supporting a United Nations inquiry into Israel’s conduct during the 2014 Gaza war, New Delhi abstained from a similar vote in 2021. By then, the notion of “strategic neutrality” had become a convenient cover for convergence. Israel’s defence industry now ranks among India’s top three suppliers, while Indian corporations such as the Adani Group have become major investors in Israeli infrastructure, including the Haifa Port—a symbolic gesture of trust between the two states.
Last week, this relationship entered a new phase. The Israel–India Joint Working Group on Defence Cooperation convened in Tel Aviv, co-chaired by Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and Israeli Defence Ministry Director-General Major-General (Res.) Amir Baram. The meeting concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to expand industrial and technological cooperation. Though official statements were spare on details, it follows reports that India will acquire medium-range surface-to-air missile systems from Israel Aerospace Industries worth around $3.75 billion, and that six commercial aircraft will be converted into aerial refuelling tankers for the Indian Air Force for nearly $900 million.
In New Delhi, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar described India as a “global superpower” and thanked it for its swift condemnation of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. He noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first world leaders to call Benjamin Netanyahu on that day, a gesture Israel says it will not forget. The symbolism was deliberate: India and Israel now see themselves as partners in the same fight against what they term the “forces of terror.” For both, the language of counter-terrorism has become a moral umbrella under which all manner of military cooperation can flourish.
This alignment carries deeper implications for Asia. The United States, wary of China’s rise and eager to contain Russian influence, sees India as a democratic counterweight in the Indo-Pacific and Israel as its most dependable outpost in the West Asia. The emerging “West Asian Quad” (I2U2)—linking India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States—is less a formal alliance than a shared investment in technology, trade, and security. Yet it also represents the consolidation of a political order in which human rights concerns are routinely subordinated to market and military logic.
Still, the relationship is not without contradictions. India continues to rely heavily on Russian arms and energy, and despite its closer ties with Israel and the West, it avoids direct criticism of Moscow. This balancing act shows that New Delhi’s strategic posture remains transactional rather than ideological. But it also reveals a certain convergence of attitudes: both India and Israel see themselves as civilisational states navigating a hostile world, entitled to secure their interests by whatever means necessary. Each looks to the other not merely for hardware but for validation of that worldview.
What began as cautious diplomacy in 1992 has thus become a test case for Asia’s future alignments. India’s partnership with Israel is neither a simple story of economic modernisation nor a moral decline. It is a mirror held up to a changing continent—one in which nationalism, technology, and security are rewriting the rules of power. For Israel, the relationship offers a vast market and a dependable ally outside the Western sphere. For India, it offers access to technology, intelligence, and a symbolic partnership with a nation that has mastered the art of survival in a turbulent neighbourhood.
The India–Israel partnership is no longer merely a diplomatic success story; it has become a testing ground for a new Asian order. Whether this alliance will make the region more secure or simply more heavily armed remains uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the distance between Tel Aviv and New Delhi has never been shorter — and that the space for moral hesitation, once the hallmark of Indian diplomacy, has all but vanished. Ironically, in the face of terrorism that not only spreads violence but also deploys highly sophisticated propaganda to reshape global narratives and conceal its own crimes, the world seems to offer scarcely any meaningful alternative.
