States of Matter. Lay of the ‘Promised Land’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in publishing an op-ed for the morning newspapers on July 4, the day he was scheduled to land in Tel Aviv. The occasion, in the two authors’ words, represented how the “natural partnership” between the two countries was growing “stronger from year to year”. India and Israel were “two modern, vibrant democracies” that drew on “rich historical traditions while striving to seize the promise of the future”.

Netanyahu was by Modi’s side through most of his visit and the two were in perfect harmony over a shared interest in combating terrorism. It was axiomatic that countries united by democratic values should find common cause in defeating the forces of disorder.

Another powerful signal from the visit was the de-hyphenation of India’s relations with Israel. The Palestinians, for a quarter century a guest that India brought along, though with growing reluctance, would no longer disrupt the feast of concord.

A minor niggle remained. Recognition for Israel is only complete with the effacement of a vast period of history between an imagined golden age of Judaism and the “return” of the exiles to their land. This comes with the assertion that Jerusalem will be the eternal and indivisible capital of the nation.

In an interview with the Israeli media prior to his visit, Modi manoeuvred carefully around the question: “India supports all efforts to find an acceptable solution to all pending issues, including Jerusalem.” There was then a reference to “both sides” of the bargain, allowing the Palestinians in to the feast, though by the back door.

Israel clearly requires another leap of faith from India. For many years after the pretence of a “peace process” broke down, Israel chose to speak to the Palestinians exclusively through aerial bombardment, artillery and assassinations. Ehud Barak, a former military commander-turned-prime minister, went through that pretence of offering peace without honour, which the Palestinians could be blamed for rejecting. Another former military commander of surpassing brutishness, Ariel Sharon, took his place to effectively end any dialogue except through force.

Just two weeks before Modi and Netanyahu embraced in their celebration of democracy, Barak emerged out of oblivion to sound the alarm that Israel — if not there yet — was on the “slippery slope” towards a state of apartheid. His alarm was not misplaced. Avraham Burg, a pedigreed member of the Ashkenazim political elite and a former speaker of the Knesset, had been there in 2003, warning of apartheid not as future possibility, but accomplished fact. “We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East... Do you want the greater land of Israel? No problem. Abandon democracy. Let’s institute an efficient system of racial separation here, with prison camps and detention villages.”

The “demographic problem”, as it is called in Israeli political discourse, has been an obsessive concern since the Zionist State was founded. Israeli strategy was typically framed around large-scale population transfers to firmly entrench Jewish possession of the land. When that proved impractical beyond a point, unilateral separation was dreamt up, in a formal alliance between Barak and Sharon. The “two-State solution”, for all practical purposes, ended with Barak’s phony peace offering of 2000, but has occasionally re-emerged as a means of relieving the demographic embarrassment.

In 2008, in its last effort to restart the peace process, the George Bush administration hosted both sides in Annapolis in the US.

Israel was then supposedly recovering from a long spell of right-wing ultra-nationalism. Liberals invested in peace — such as they were — held power.

In the secrecy of Annapolis, Israel’s foreign minister at the time, Tzipi Livni, put forward the demand that talks would only resume if the Palestinians recognised Israel in eternity as a Jewish State. This meant that the refugee right of return would be extinguished and the citizenship status of Israel’s small Palestinian minority plunged in uncertainty. Condoleezza Rice, then the US Secretary of State, was appalled: “... it struck me as a harsh defence of the ethnic purity of the Israeli State.... It was one of those conversations that shocked my sensibilities as an American. After all, the very concept of ‘American’ rejects ethnic or religious definitions of citizenship. Moreover, there were Arab citizens of Israel. Where did they fit in?”

After a brief flirtation with the thought of a Jewish ethnocracy built on a few final rounds of Palestinian dispossession, the US under Barack Obama’s administration pulled away. Today’s clueless Donald Trump administration, with its clouded vision and moral obtuseness, is unlikely to retain that sliver of scruple.

Netanyahu has positioned himself as the eternal dissenter in any overture towards peace, avoiding any commitment except to his own political pre-eminence. Today, with practical exigencies compelling him to decide, he has in secret talks reportedly put forward two conditions: the recognition of Israel as a Jewish State and its permanent security control over Palestinian territories. His predecessors may have been avid practitioners of the art who turned away in horror at the appellation. Netanyahu has no difficulty embracing the reality of apartheid as fulfilment of the Jewish people’s destiny.

In the ardour of their embrace, Modi and Netanyahu had little time for these inconvenient details. For India to speak of shared values with Israel at this time, is to put its own credentials under a cloud. Complicity in apartheid is very poor testament to democratic commitment.

Sukumar Muralidharanteaches at the school of journalism, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat

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