PM Modi-Netanyahu bond offers foundation for lasting India-Israel partnership: Report

Jerusalem: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu have brought renewed energy and momentum to India-Israel relations, with their close personal equation helping strengthen mutual trust and accelerate bilateral engagement, a report has stated.

It noted that while full diplomatic relations were established in 1992 and security cooperation continued under successive governments, the two leaders have played a significant role in elevating the partnership, bringing greater visibility to longstanding ties and taking them to a new level.

“Some relationships between states are best explained by interest. Others only make sense once you add something harder to measure: trust. The bond between Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu belongs to the second kind. Commentators call it a ‘bromance’ and treat it as chemistry or choreography, a photograph on a beach or an embrace on a tarmac. That reading is too small. The warmth between the two men is the visible surface of something deeper, a confidence between two old societies that each recognise in the other a long memory, a stubborn continuity and an unwillingness to disappear,” a report in ‘The Times of Israel’ detailed.

“Whoever forms Israel’s next government inherits that confidence. The question is whether they will understand what they have been handed,” it added.

Highlighting the factors that make India-Israel ties distinctive, the report said that both countries are ancient civilisations that endured major catastrophes before emerging as modern states. It added that both face challenging neighbourhoods, where terrorism and national security remain key concerns.

“And, India’s Jewish communities, in Kochi, Mumbai and elsewhere, lived for centuries as part of Indian life, an unusual record in Jewish history, and one that gives the two societies a shared past that few other pairings can claim. Defence, agriculture, water, cyber and technology cooperation grew from that soil. The contracts followed the confidence, not the other way round,” the report mentioned.

According to the report, the lasting significance of the PM Modi-Netanyahu relationship will be determined not by their personal rapport or regular meetings, but by whether the partnership remains strong beyond their tenures. It noted that friendships between leaders often end with their departure from power, but a truly enduring partnership is one that survives beyond those who built it.

“That is the responsibility facing Israel’s next government. It should not manage the relationship as a diplomatic gesture, or discard it as an inheritance from a rival. It should treat it as a national asset to be institutionalised, shielded from partisan contest and extended into society. If it does, the personal chemistry of two leaders will have become something far more lasting, a trust between two peoples that no longer depends on anyone’s presence to survive,” the report stated.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

IANS

[email protected]