A Succinct Commentary On Modi's Reticence On Israel Versus Hamas!

The ignoramuses, predominantly the often zealous, unenlightened, hoodwinked, and deluded Indian Right, are staggered, traumatized, crestfallen, downhearted, infuriated, irked, and vexatious because the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [a man of spirit] didn't acknowledge India's moral succor to Israel over the past two weeks, amid its heart-rending and exasperating conflict resulting in retaliatory combat [lit. a tit-for-tat] and bloodshed with Hamas, the terrorist organization-cum-governing authority of the hostile Gaza Strip. The Right-wing had flooded the microblogging site Twitter with the bombardment of the electrified hashtag #IndiaStandsWithIsrael, impregnated with outright intimacy for Israel's clampdown on Hamas's citadels encompassing tunnels, buildings, laboratories, arsenals, etcetera. The disintegrated-cum-devitalized Left, Islamists, jihadists, and perfidious ones, some bestowed with a verified badge, countered the Right with the onslaught of the hashtag #IndiaStandsWithPalestine, manifesting compassion and solicitude for the subdued children and women, as deemed by their prejudiced, anti-Semitic, partisan, predisposed, and Islamized cerebral. And this became the inducement of digital warfare, with individuals from across the political and intellectual spectrum combating by the armament of hashtags and tweets. Alas! this is the peculiarity and incongruity of the digital epoch we are respiring in.

Netanyahu tweeted on 16th May, articulating gratitude to 25 nations, incorporating the U.S., and wrote, 'Thank you for resolutely standing with Israel and supporting our right to self defense against terrorist attacks', in which he excluded India, one of his most true-blue ally. The U.S.'s unambiguous endorsement for Israel was anomalous, as derived from the pages of Democratic foreign policy towards the Middle East and Israel, in particular in the past.

The unenlightened chauvinists must apprehend that, formally, a state is represented by its head of state, de facto, by the President or the Prime Minister, and in some cases, by a chancellor, dictator, autocrat, oligarch, or a totalitarian leader. The redundant netizens or a throng with a peculiar agenda, propaganda, or motive can't coerce a continental-sized nation like India to alter its stance on certain issues, which can have repercussions on its national interests and bilateral ties in the fullness of time. Since Prime Minister Modi has pursued a sagacious policy of reticence on this conflict or low-scale war, the Israeli Prime Minister hasn't acknowledged India. It's an explicit comprehension of India's ostensible introversion and non-intervention in this death-dealing conflict. In the past, whenever obligatory, Netanyahu had acknowledged and applauded Prime Minister Modi; for instance, (1) When India granted Chloroquine to Israel in April 2020, on the inceptive outbreak of COVID-19, the official Twitter handle of the PM of Israel had tweeted, 'Thank you, my dear friend @narendramodi, Prime Minister of India, for sending Chloroquine to Israel; All the citizens of Israel thank you!', with a shot of Netanyahu and Modi's cordial handshaking attached; and (2) In 2019, when India voted in approbation of Israel's resolution to nullify observer status to a Palestinian non-governmental organization at the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), favoring Israel, the same Twitter handle had tweeted in June 2019, 'Thank you Narendra Modi, thank you India, for your support and for standing with Israel at the UN.'

Israel has always been vehement, outspoken, and candid about its inviolable bilateral ties with India, but India has voluntarily and astutely abstained from meddling or interloping in Israel's conflict with the Gulf countries, Hamas, and Palestinians in the Middle East; The two clear-cut rationales could be its dependency on the Gulf countries for oil barrels and its population residing and employed in the Persian Gulf. The Middle East plays a vital role in India's economy as it furnishes virtually two-thirds of its aggregated oil import, and Indians waged in the Persian Gulf are a substantial stake in the gross remittance received from abroad. Bilateral trade is also burgeoning in recent years especially with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Prime Minister Modi's Link West Policy, which is frequently reckoned by India's strategic thinkers and public intellectuals as Modi's bona fide Middle East Policy, aims to embolden India's ties and trades with the Middle East under the Modi doctrine. We must bank on our Prime Minister, our diplomats, and strategists, as they are enlightened of the art of not offending or disgruntling several trustworthy allies for an ally. That's why we see an equilibrium in India's foreign policy when it votes in opposition to Israel in the UN. In late 2017, almost every country incorporating India voted in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council to shun the rather astounding US proclamation of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel during the initial juncture of the often-contentious and stupefying Trump administration. Despite being a staunch ally of Israel, and enjoying an amicable-cum-intimate relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, India has sometimes steered clear of embracing Israel overtly, given its affable bilateral relationship with the cash-rich and resource-abundant Arab nations. India was also propelled to denunciate Israel's disproportionate use of force in Gaza during the 2014 Gaza War amid the Operation Brother's keeper ensuing the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas militants. So, we terminate that managing a bilateral relation with Israel is a delicate, knotty, and vexed task for India. But thankfully, we have the forte and leadership to do so. You see, India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, T.S. Tirumurti, gave a cogent and equitable statement on Sunday to the Security Council, 'Immediate de-escalation is the need of the hour, so as to arrest any further slide towards the brink. We urge both sides to show extreme restraint, desist from actions that exacerbate tensions, and refrain from attempts to unilaterally change the existing status quo, including in East Jerusalem and its neighbourhood'. Also, the quintessential goal of India's foreign policy is not to meddle in domestic conflicts or affairs of a sovereign country, potent enough to defend its sovereignty and integrity.

Indians must cease acting as Israeli sycophants on Twitter. It diminishes the cachet of the country among the overseas handles, monitoring these dimwits incessantly from dusk to dawn. They become nothing short of a laughing stock. Comprehending and executing foreign policies are an intricate and often perplexing task, and should be left to the geopolitical pundits and policy-makers. Tweeting twaddles and superficial comments tarnish the global image of modern, high-octane, and emerging "Atmanirbhar Bharat" [self-reliant India (although the term has a more subtle meaning than its literal sense)], meticulously chiseled by our diplomats, strategists, and policy-makers for decades. If you are unenlightened, misinformed, or partially informed, it's recommended to maintain a pin-drop silence, it's innocuous to your intellect. It won't mortify you in front of the global public (seeking opportunities to abash India and Indians), and more importantly, it won't besmirch India's international image!

Jai Hind!