New Delhi: India should be more explicit in its support for Israel by taking the side of Tel Aviv, especially as it is the only democracy in West Asia, said the Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat Tuesday.
“How can India play a bigger role (in West Asia)? I think by taking sides and saying, ‘hey we are against terror’ and supporting the only democracy, our friend in West Asia, Israel is a huge help…When (Narendra) Modi comes up and says we (India) are behind Israel, it is a big help,” said Barkat, in response to a question from ThePrint, during an interaction organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in New Delhi.
The former mayor of Jerusalem added, “We do not take that for granted at all. The world now understands that the US, India, the major players in the world are saying that this is the wrong way and the right way,” with regards to supporting Tel Aviv’s position in West Asia.
India has been firm in condemning Hamas’ 7 October, 2023, attacks on Israel, which saw the death of nearly 1,200 Israelis and saw another 250 taken hostage into the Gaza strip. It has maintained that the hostages taken by Hamas need to be returned immediately, but has also raised the issue of large-scale civilian casualties as a result of Israel’s military operations in Gaza over the past 13 months.
Last week, Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar during an interaction in Rome, maintained that “international humanitarian law cannot be disregarded” and that a ceasefire is the need of the hour. Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’ attacks has left at least 44,000 Palestinians dead.
India has continued to release funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), while maintaining high-level contact with the leaders in Tel Aviv and Tehran to prevent a wider escalation of the conflict in West Asia.
Barkat was all praise for US President-Elect Donald Trump, believing that unlike the current administration of president Joseph Biden, which has “restrained” Israel from its retaliation in West Asia, the next American president would focus on “aligning the economy with global geopolitics”.
The Israeli ministry was clear that the threats in West Asia for Tel Aviv is not just the Iranian regime, but also Qatar, a country which he called as the “biggest” sponsor of terrorist networks across the world.
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Start-ups in Israel can scale up in India
Barkat, who is in India for the two-day Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit 2024, reflected on the economic ties between the two countries, explaining that there is a shortage of nearly 170,000 less-skilled labour jobs in Israel and is looking towards New Delhi to fill that gap.
In November 2023, India and Israel signed a labour mobility framework agreement, which has seen around 6,400 Indians hired by Israeli companies since April this year through the government-to-government mechanism. Another roughly 6,000 Indians have been hired by private firms, according to data published by the Ministry of External Affairs last week.
The Israeli economy minister promoted Israel as the start-up nation, pointing out that there are over 10,000 such firms in the country, which has a population of around 10 million people—a ratio of one start-up for every 1,000 people.
“Israel is a hub for innovation. We do not have the skills for scaling up given the size of the population…It makes much more sense for us to set up businesses here rather than attempting to scale up for a market of a billion people in Israel,” said Barkat.
To this extent, Barkat hopes to create a “foundation” for India-Israel economic ties, with a free trade agreement and other similar pacts which could “compliment” the value New Delhi could bring to Tel Aviv in the future.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)