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From: "Dick Eastman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [APFN] Vijay Prashad is no dope.
(India-Israel-China geopolitics)
Where did the nuclear-bomb rattling India-Pakistan conflict
come
from? Why the sudden silence?
http://www.between-lines.org/archives/2002/feb/Vijay_Prashad.htm
Vijay Prashad is most recently the author of 'War Against
the Planet: The Fifth Afghan War, US Imperialism and Other
Assorted Fundamentalism' (New Delhi: Leftword Books, 2002).
To obtain a copy, please write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=============^=======================================
Imperialism, Israel & India Hindutva-Zionism: An Alliance of
the New Epoch
Vijay Prashad, February 2002, BETWEEN THE LINES
On 7 August 1958, Jawaharlal Nehru explained why India had
no diplomatic personnel in Israel even as India recognized
that country two years before. "This attitude," he told the
Parliament "was adopted after a careful consideration of the
balance of forces. It is not a matter of high principle, but
it is based on how we could best serve and be helpful in
that area. We should like the problem between Israel and the
Arab countries to be settled peacefully. After careful
thought we felt that while recognizing Israel as an entity
we need not at this stage exchange diplomatic personnel."
No stranger to the dispute, in 1947, just as India suffered
the partition of the subcontinent, the government proposed a
plan as a member of the United Nations Special Committee on
Palestine to create a federal state with autonomy for the
Jewish residents of Palestine. The plan was rejected, and
India joined the Arab nations to oppose the partition of the
region. Nehru opened the doors to diplomatic association in
the 1950s (notably when the Director General of the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Walter Eytan, visited India in
1952), but with the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the growth of
Arab nationalism, the government remained reluctant to
established diplomatic ties. For almost four decades, the
Indian government, mainly led by Nehru's Congress Party,
stayed close to Arab nationalism and refused to engage in
diplomatic relations with Israel as long as the Arab-Israeli
problem remained unsettled, though clandestine relations
began as early as the 60's. [See below]
1992 - A Turning Point In Congress Party-Led Government;
Normal Diplomatic Relationships Then, in 1992, the Congress
Party-led government sent an envoy to Israel and diplomatic
relations began in earnest. There are two reasons for the
turnabout; one the Congress Party's entry into the
neoliberal regime set-up by the IMF in cahoots with global
capital, and two the Congress Party reassessed the world's
power equation in the post-Cold War era and saw itself as a
player in the Indian Ocean region, akin to Israel's role as
the gendarme of the oil lands on behalf of the US.
If Israel could attain semi-world power status by its
ruthless foreign policy and lack of concern for the values
of non-aligned cooperation, then India, now a pretender on
the world stage, should follow the same playbook. But even
the Congress-led government was chary about a full-fledged
alignment with both the United States and Israel, mainly
because of deep ties with the Arab world as well as because
of economic and military ties with powers that still opposed
US imperialism (Russia, for instance).
>From 1998- Hindu Right Government Coalition- Military And Political Cooperation With
>Israel The ground shifted in 1998 when the Hindu-Right forged a coalition government,
>exploded nuclear weapons and proceeded to reach out to both the United States and
>Israel, trying to create a Washington-Tel Aviv-New Delhi entente against Communism
>and Islam - the two problem ideologies as posed by US political scientist Samuel
>Huntington's style of fundamentalist geopolitics. When the Indian Defense Minister
>Jaswant Singh visited Israel in July 2000 he said that the relationship between the
>two countries was strained due to 'domestic polices because of a Muslim vote bank.'
>The anti-Muslim tenor of this statement played to the Zionist galleries and offers us
>a window of why the forces of Hindutva are so eager to make an anti-Islam alliance
>with those of Zionism.
Over the past three years, the relationship has flourished
with high level delegations making trips to each country,
and with trade in harmless and harmful (namely, arms) goods
on the increase with each year. This year the two
governments plan a large celebration for the tenth
anniversary of normal diplomatic relations, with
presidential visits and with, perhaps, stamps released in
both countries to commemorate the friendship. In addition,
the right-wing Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee
plans to release his newest book of poems in Hebrew. Even as
the Arab-Israeli troubles continues and as the Israeli-right
emboldens itself in its war against the PA, the Hindu-Right
led government crafts a special relationship with Israel.
Hindutva - Zionism Alliance "Against Islam" Before the 1967
War when Israel demonstrated its military might to the
world, the Hindu Right did not hold any special brief for
that west Asian country. In fact, the leaders of the Hindu
Right held Hitler in reverence, an ideological affinity that
circumvented any turn toward Israel. V. D. Savarkar, one of
the Hindu Right's main founders, was feted by the Nazi press
in the 1940s for his enthusiasm at the Blitzkrieg. His heir,
M. S. Golwalkar, reflected on the Holocaust and concluded:
"Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany
has shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and
Cultures, having differences going to the root, to be
assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in
Hindustan to learn and profit by." Indeed, this philosophy
remains at the heart of the Hindu Right's ideology, what is
known as Hindutva.
A reassessment of Israel came in the aftermath of the 1967
Six Day War when Israel defeated the Arab armies soundly,
enlarged its frontiers and without apology held onto its
ground despite international pressure. The Hindu-Right was
disappointed that India's defeat of Pakistan in the war of
1965 was not followed by a similar humiliation of the enemy.
Israel slowly became the model, not only for its military
brashness, but also for the possibility of a
Hindutva-Zionist alliance against Islam.
When the first al-Fatah delegation made an official visit to
India in the early 1970s, the Hindu Right political party
was the only one to conduct protests against its presence
(here the Hindu Right and the Pakistani Right, namely Zia-ul
Haq within the military, meet, because Zia had just led his
troops alongside Jordan's King Hussein's Bedouins against
the PLO in Black September 1970 [where the Jordanian regime
moved to crush the PLO militarily after gaining the pretext
to do so after 4 PFLP hijackings, three of which landed in
Jordan].
Hindutva's alliance with the Jewish-Zionist state is not so
strange after all, because at the ideological level Hindutva
is much like Zionism, for both extol the importance of the
Race-State, and both cast aspersions at the presence of a
Muslim minority. If the activists of Hindutva yell 'Jao
Kabristan ya Pakistan' (Go to the Graveyard or Pakistan) to
Indian Muslims, those of radical Zionism follow Golda Meir
[former Israeli Prime Minister, Labor] in the belief that
'there is no such thing as a Palestinian.'
An Indian-born analyst at the Zionist Freeman Center in
Houston (Texas) makes just this connection: 'Islamic
fascists see Bharat [India] as a soft spot to propagate
their irrational creed and foment violence. India tries to
placate them. Israel expels them [as it did in 1948 and
1967]. This is what Bharat should do. If they hate Hindu
Rashtra so much they are free to leave for dar-ul Islam.'
India must learn from Israel, to act against Pakistan, for
instance, in much the same way as the Israeli Defense Force
acts against the Palestinian Authority.
The visits of official delegations from the two countries
indicate their mutual interests. When the Israelis travel to
India, in train come a number of arms manufacturers and
military personnel. So during the 21 November 2001 Israeli
visit to the Indian Defense Ministry in New Delhi, the team
included the head of weapons development and infrastructure
in the Israeli Defense Ministry, 'Mapat' (Major General Dr.
Yitzhak Ben-Israel), the head of the department for security
exports, 'Sibat' (Major General Yossi Ben-Hanan), and the
deputy director of foreign affairs (Brigadier General
Yekutiel Mor).
When India's Home Minister L. K. Advani made his high-level
visit to Israel he took with him the home secretary (Kamal
Pandey), the director of the Central Bureau of
Investigations (S. K. Raghavan) and the director of the
Investigation Bureau (Shyamal Dutta). Israel is eager to
sell arms to India, while India is eager to learn
anti-terrorism measures from the Israeli Shin Bet. These are
the practical components of the Indo-Israeli alliance of our
period.
Military Development The Hindu Right is not the only one in
India to have ties with the Israeli government. The Indian
armed forces and intelligence agencies have a long
association with their counterparts in Israel. During the
Indo-China War of 1962 and the two conflicts with Pakistan
in 1965 and 1971, Israel provided small arms and ammunition
for Indian troops (a provision not well-known at the time).
In January 1963, a few months after India's border war with
China, the Indian government reached out to the Israeli
military establishment and opened a dialogue.
Two years later, Israeli cabinet minister Yigal Alon visited
India. But the deals in the years before 1992 took place
very secretly, harbored for the most part behind the doors
of the intelligence wings of both countries. India's
Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel's Mossad began
relations in the late 1960s and it was this association that
enabled Moshe Dayan to visit India in the 1970s. The Israeli
army and intelligence is well known for its secrecy and RAW
followed in those well-trod footprints: information about
Israeli-Indian contacts is not easy to find, but for the
occasional statement by politicians or bureaucrats.
Since 1992, the relationship remained clandestine, with both
sides wary of any open acknowledgement of the military ties.
In March 1992, when Deputy Director General of the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs came to New Delhi to open the
embassy, he told the press that 'nobody told us of Indian
needs in the areas of defense.' Not two months later Israeli
defense industrialists came on an official visit to India to
discuss arms purchases, but neither government went public
to acknowledge the tour.
Israel's charge d'affaires Giora Becher noted that 'it was
not the right time' to talk about the arms trade, and when
challenged in Parliament, the Congress Party leader and
Prime Minister noted that 'we obviously know less than some
of the members [of the opposition].'
Emboldened by the rise of the Hindu Right in India and the
Zionist Right in Israel, the militaries and arms
manufacturers in both countries became more open about their
relationship. The Confederation of Indian Industry, the
Israeli Manufacturers Association, the Israeli Aircraft
Industries exchanged delegations, and at the December 1993
Indian air show at Bangalore, the Sibat (the Foreign Defense
Assistance and Defense Export Organization of the Israeli
army) held the largest demonstration after the Russia.With
the Russians unable to retrofit the old Soviet armaments,
the Indians turned to Israeli expertise in this area.
India's first shopping list was loaded with aircraft
demands, mainly to replace the ailing MIG-21 and MIG-29
fleet. But by the time the Hindu Right took power in 1998,
the list grew much longer and far more complex. It also
reveals the sub-imperial ambitions of the Hindu Right over
southern Asia. In May 1998, a few days after the nuclear
tests, a delegation from Israeli Aircraft Industries toured
India to sell their pilotless aircraft anti-ship missiles.
Components of a missile defense shield, then, have been in
the works for India for at least three years.
A set of deals have been signed between the arms merchants
in India and Israel to buy goods for the airforce (MIGs,
Light Combat Aircraft, AWACs), navy (aircraft carrier,
maritime radar, attack craft), army (Main Battle Tank,
Advanced Light Helicopters), and for the missile branch of
the military (the Indian defense contractors want to buy
Israeli guidance and launch systems for the Prithvi surface
to surface missile, and for the sea to surface Sagarika
system, but there is also evidence that India wants Israeli
help with the Akash, a missile system akin to the M-11).
These weapons would put India into contention as the main
power not only in South Asia, but perhaps, as the second
front against the Chinese (a move that enabled the US to
revise its military doctrine to fight only one full-scale
war; its proxy powers would take care of the other one, in
the new scenario).
Furthermore, the missile defense parts of the deals would
enable India to fantastically suggest that Pakistan's
nuclear option had been neutralized, and that the parity of
1998 had been negated. India's eagerness for the missile
defense, then, is part of the desire of the Hindu Right to
will away the 1998 Pakistani tests on the Chagai range.
If Israel's defense industry sold India only a few million
dollars worth of armaments in 1992, by the end of 2001, the
amount increased to an astronomical $800 million per year,
with contracts for several billion dollars worth of goods.
As India and Pakistan sat down for talks in Agra (India) in
mid-July 2001, the Indian and Israeli defense chiefs met in
Lod (Israel) to conclude a $2 billion deal that will upgrade
Indian fighter jets, provide India with Barak-type surface
to surface missiles, and with parts of a missile defense
package (unmanned aerial vehicles and radar systems).
The radar system, known as Green Pine, is part of the Arrow
anti-ballistic missile system deployed in Israel and it
alone comes at a cost of $250 million. The unmanned aerial
devices cost $300 million and some of them from an earlier
purchase have already been deployed by the Indian military
(they saw action during the Kargil conflict in 1999) The IAI
indicated last year that a further $2 billion in arms sales
would follow the July 2001 contract; in the aftermath of the
11 September 2001 attacks, the US virtually ended the
sanctions regime on India and thereby has increased the
chances of a further arms build-up in India due to the IAI's
supply channels. Only the US buys more arms from Israel than
India at this time. Israel is now India's second largest
arms supplier after Russia, but it is poised to overtake the
yesterday's arms giant.
Conventional weapons are not the only interest. Twice
before the 1998 nuclear tests by India in Pokhran, India's
leading nuclear scientist Dr. Abdul Kalam visited Israel.
After his June 1996 visit, the two countries began to
cooperate earnestly on sales of missile technology to India.
When Israeli defense personnel and defense industrialists
visit India, it is well known that they make a stop to see
Dr. Abdul Kalam whose title is Scientific Advisor to the
Ministry of Defense, but who is known for his crucial role
in nuclear weapons development. Both governments deny any
cooperation on the nuclear front, however the materials
available seem to suggest that some element of discussion
and assistance might have been involved.
The Question of Terror: Future US-India-Israel Axis Just a
few days after India announced the establishment of
diplomatic ties with Israel [in 1992], Ya'acov Lapidot, the
Director General of the Israeli Police Ministry told the
press after a visit to India that Israel was ready to give
India help in the field of law and order, notably in the
suppression of terrorism. Benjamin Netanyahu, then a junior
minister in the government, told the Indian press that
Israel 'had developed expertise in dealing with terrorism at
the field level and also internationally at the political
and legal level, and would be happy to share it with India.'
In late February of 1992, India's Defense Minister Sharad
Pawar said that the new relations allowed India to draw
'Israel's successful experience to curb terrorism.'
When the Hindu Right government came to power in 1998, the
issue of terrorism took on a new urgency, since this
government was prone to depict any act of violence by a
Muslim as terrorism, and consequently any act of violence by
a Hindu as either self-defense or the resentment of years of
tyranny. In 1994, L. K. Advani, then leader of the
opposition in India and a major force in the Hindu Right,
visited Israel and has since developed warm ties with the
Zionist elements in the Israeli establishment.
When Advani returned in 1995 he met Netanyahu, who presented
him with a book on terrorism. Since then Advani has made it
a practice to quote from that book when he speaks about
terrorism, particularly the following: 'when war gives
terrorism, free society must know what they are fighting.
And they must reject absolutely the notion that "one man's
terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."' In other
words, even as this is a rather opaque quote, the PLO (for
Israel) and the various Kashmiri militant groups (for India)
are terrorists regardless of any political claims they may
have.
During his visit in 2000, Advani, now as Home Minister,
said that he wanted to learn how Israel has dealt with
Islamic fundamentalism. 'Israel's Mossad has proved itself
to be an expert in this field,' he said and he hoped that
the Indian agencies would learn 'some of the finer aspects
of intelligence gathering from the Israelis,' notably from
the Mossad and Shin Bet. 'Israel and India have both
grappled with [terrorism] during the last two decades,' he
noted.
'Terrorist organizations are now known to establish and have
international linkages. This makes it necessary for the
countries which are victims of such terrorism to learn from
the experience of each other.' Rumors of Israeli agents
alongside Indian troops in Kashmir frequently make their way
among the press corps in New Delhi and in Tel Aviv, but
there is nothing substantive to make a story. But it is
certainly the case that Israel offered support during the
Kargil campaign in 1999, it has advised India on techniques
to close the Line of Control (similar to Israel's attempts
to close the border with the PA), and in early January 2002,
Israel Defense Minister Shimon Peres told the Mumbai (India)
press that Israel is ready to help India deal with Pakistan
after the 13 December 2001 attack on parliament, but 'it
depends on India, what it wants and we are available.'
India and Israel could not be major players in the US-UK's
Fifth Afghan War, because, as the Pakistanis made clear, the
coalition must have an Islamic face. Nevertheless, the
aftermath of 9/11 and of the war reveals certain trends
toward the creation of a Tel Aviv-New Delhi-Washington axis
that will have an important role in the southern and western
parts of Asia. In January 2002, the US cleared the sale of
the Israeli Phalcon early warning radar systems to India (a
deal worth $1 billion); the US had earlier stopped the deal
with the argument that it might escalate tensions in the
subcontinent. Now with tensions at war point, the US allows
the sale. Meanwhile, the Chinese sold two squadrons (46) of
F-7 MG fighter jets to Pakistan, a sale that enables the
Pakistani Air Force to reach aerial parity with India. India
wants to emulate the Israeli path to being a regional power
with international prestige, at whatever the social or human
cost. Israel sees India as a vast market for its arms, and
as an ally against what it calls the Islamic world. The US,
under the right, is eager to see a new configuration that
includes India and Israel to encircle both Islam and
Communism, to dispatch the new bogeymen of the 21st Century.
These are dark times.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vijay Prashad is Associate Professor and Director of
International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT. USA.
He is the author of three previous books, Everybody Was Kung
Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural
Purity (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001); Karma of Brown Folk
(University of Minnesota Press, 2000); Untouchable Freedom:
A Social History of a Dalit Community (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1999).
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