India doubles down on pro-Israel policy saying ‘national interest’ drives arms transfers

India will be guided by its “national interest” before reconsidering the transfer of weapons or arms sales to Israel, the country’s external affairs minister has said, in yet another sign that Delhi is committed to providing diplomatic and military cover for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

On Thursday, several opposition politicians took the opportunity to use the Q&A session in parliament to probe India’s external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, on India’s policies, including its decision to abstain from several UN resolutions on Gaza, as well as to clarify its position on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Jaishankar said that India officially supports the two-state solution but if resolutions did not adequately condemn terrorism or the holding of hostages, in reference to the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Delhi could not sign them.

“As a country that has suffered from terrorism, India cannot support resolutions that underplay such acts. Resolutions must be well-drafted, balanced, and reflect the entirety of the situation,” he said.

On the ICC warrants, Jaishankar said that India was not a signatory to the ICC and had not taken a formal position on the matter.

The Indian government has been under scrutiny over the past several months with reports that Indian arms, ammunition and technology were making their way to Israel’s army for potential use in operations in Gaza.

In late November, MEE found that an AI weapons system used by Israeli ground forces in Gaza was co-produced by the Indian company, Adani Defense and Aerospace.

The revelations stirred concerns among activists and politicians over Indian complicity in Israeli war crimes, culminating in several attempts to pressure the government to impose an arms embargo on Israel. These efforts have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

In September, the Indian Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking to suspend military exports from India.

Israel ‘stood by us’

India is the largest purchaser of Israeli weapons, accounting for around $1bn of trade per year. Since 2017, both countries have considered their partnership a “strategic relationship”, with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office often making a public spectacle of their friendship.

When asked whether Delhi had any intention to consider a call by Palestine’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian to impose an arms embargo on Israel back in May, Jaishankar said that while India was a responsible member of various international regimes, with a fully-fledged export, control and licensing process, it made decisions based on what was best for the country. 

“The issue of India’s exports, including India’s exports of anything which directly or indirectly has any military implications, is guided by our national interest and by our commitments to various regimes,” Jaishankar said.

“Where Israel is concerned, it is a country with which we have a strong record of cooperation in national security. It is also a country that has stood by us at different moments when our national security was under threat.

“So when we take any decision, we will bear in mind, obviously, the larger circumstances, but we will definitely be driven by our national interest in this matter,” the minister added.

Jaishankar said that India had increased its aid to Palestinians – from $1m to $5m per annum. But given that India has refused to endorse an arms embargo on Israel and has instead been accused of sending combat drones, bombs and components for the Israeli military as it conducts a “genocide” in Gaza, the increase in aid is likely to be seen as little more than lip service.

At a separate foreign policy event held by the Asia Society in New York on Thursday, Nirupama Roa, India’s former external minister, defended India’s Palestine policy, arguing that even if India had moved notably closer to Israel and the US over the past few years, it would be wrong to say Delhi had abandoned the Palestinian people.  

“It would be incorrect to say that India has abandoned the interests of the Palestinian people,” Rao said in response to a question from MEE.

Rao, who was India’s external minister between 2009-2011, said Palestine had always been a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy, given its relationship with the Arab world.

However, Roa cautioned that any peace deal that excluded the Palestinian people would come to Israel’s detriment.

“Otherwise, peace will never come to that region, and even Israel’s, you know, stability for the future, I think, comes into question because it will always be a nation under threat, and it will always look at its neighbourhood as threatening it. So that is really not a good place to be in for any country,” Rao added.