The Incomparable Israel-India Alliance

"It is a privilege and an honour for me to stand before this distinguished House. I do so as the Prime Minister of India, and as a representative of one ancient civilization addressing another."

"I bring with me the greetings of 1.4 billion Indians, and a message of friendship, respect, and partnership."

"India has also endured the pain of terrorism. We feel your pain. We share your grief. India stands with Israel, firmly with full conviction, in this moment and beyond."

"Like you, we have a consistent and uncompromising policy of zero tolerance for terrorism, with no double standards."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi 

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on February 25, 2026. (Photo by ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just concluded his second visit to Israel. His first took place in 2017, becoming the first prime minister of India to visit Israel. He spoke of the acknowledgement of much in common, historically, culturally and politically between the two nations. In speaking of India's high alert over terrorism, addressing the Knesset, it is clear that Islamist terrorism that has kept Israel on guard since 1948, is the very menace that India too has faced, and from that very same year-before, when Pakistan divided from India and a mass exchange of population took place through partition.

 

The Partition offer made by the United Nations between Israel and those calling themselves Palestinians failed to conclude with two states side-by-side, when Israel gratefully and ebulliently took up the offer and the Arab Palestinians rejected it. That rejection has continued with each offer Israel has made through negotiations where concessions were never enough for the Palestinians demanding the ultimate concession of  Israel's dissolution and the land 'from the river to the sea' turned over to the Palestinians; land historically and ancestrally Judean. 

 

India and Pakistan continue to confront one another over the disputed border of Kashmir. India aspires to live in peace with its combative neighbour, while knowing that there will be eruptions of violence emanating from Pakistan into India. Internally, India hosts the third largest Muslim population globally as citizens, about 14 percent of its population. Distrust between the fractious nature of Muslim vs Hindu can flare at any time. India with its vast population base and huge ethnic/religious/ideological groups must also grapple with threats from its Sikh population that promotes a geographic schism in the Punjab called Kalistan. 

 

But it was a fundamentalist Islamist Pakistani group that launched a massive attack on India's financial hub in south Mumbai that brought home the extremist hatred of religious domination through jihad when a dozen coordinated attacks in 2008 shut the city down for three days while Indian security forces battled with murderous armed terrorists shooting and setting off explosives in a catastrophic scene of pandemonium and bloodshed, where in total 175 civilians, security personnel, and nine attackers, were killed. Bodies of many of the dead hostages showed signs of torture or disfigurement. 

 

Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008, fire engulfs a part of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India. Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India’s financial capital,taking Westerners hostage and leaving parts of the city under siege. The terror lasted for three day which killed 195 people. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)

"[India honours the ancient Jewish communities of India]: the Bene Israel of Maharashtra, the Cochini Jews of Keralam, The Baghdadi Jews of Kolkata and Mumbai, and the Bnei Menashe of the North East have enriched India."

"In my home state, Gujarat, there is a school set up by a Bene Israeli family -- Mister and Missus Best. It is an excellent school, and of course, it is called the Best School!"

Prime Minister Modi  

Cochin Jews, c. 1900.

 

India is forced to arm itself in readiness for the prospect of defending itself against further violence from Pakistan. Like Israel, India is also a nuclear power ... as is Pakistan. Pakistan battles its own insurgent Islamists as it happens, as well as preparing itself for conflict with Afghanistan where skirmishes have already taken place between the two through accusations by Pakistan that Afghanistan is giving haven to Pakistan's Taliban that threaten Islamabad. The irony being that Pakistan had sheltered and its Intelligence Services had trained the Afghanistan Taliban.

 

According to the Stockholm International Research Institute, 34 percent of Israel's total arms exports between 2020 and 2024, valued at roughly $20.5 billion have gone to India. Israel supplies India with "missiles, seekers, radars, sensors, electronic warfare suites, UAV technologies, and a host of force multipliers." 

 

India represents one of the few geographies where persistent antisemitism has not made its way into the culture; Jews have lived safely in India for centuries; unlike the Jewish experience throughout Europe where diaspora Jews have lived for millennia. In India no pogroms threatened the security of Jews living there, no expulsions took place, nor state-institutionalized persecution. Much less ghettos imposed upon Jewish-Indian enclaves.  

 

Times of Israel

"Israel is often called the 'startup nation'." 

"Our aspirational spirit aligns naturally with Israel's innovation ecosystem. I see a lot of synergies in areas such as quantum technologies, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence."

"We are also working with Israel on creating cross-border financial linkages using our Digital Public Infrastructure." 

Prime Minister Modi