By P.K.Balachandran/Daily News

Colombo, March 3 – Countries in South Asia, barring Nepal, have had severe problems establishing ties with Israel. It wasn’t easy to shed their anti-imperialist and anti-colonial commitments and reconcile to the stubborn reality of Israel – a key player in the Middle East backed by super power United States.

However, even as their anti-colonial and anti-imperialist predilections prevented them from recognising or having diplomatic ties with Israel, which they saw as a creation of Western imperialism, South Asian countries have made use its material and intellectual resources, secretly for the most part.

India

India’s case is unique in as much as, the pendulum has swung from a total rejection of Israel and Zionism from the 1940s to the early 1990s, to openly parading its relations with Israel and celebrating the ideological kinship of Zionism and Hindu nationalism or Hindutva.

Both ideologies share key concepts such as a traditional homeland for the largest religious group (Jews and Hindus), the moral superiority of the dominant religious group, and the notion that non adherents of the dominant religion are aliens to be either subjugated or absorbed. Both Zionism and Hindutva believe in armed might as a condition for survival. 

When Zionism was a political movement for the creation of a homeland in Palestine for the world’s persecuted Jews, the leaders of the Indian freedom movement, chiefly Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, could not accept the Zionist demand because it meant displacement of the Arabs in Palestine. Gandhi and Nehru were not against Jewish settlements in Palestine but were against forcible displacement of the Arabs and that backed by Western colonial powers. Gandhi’s close Jewish friends from his South African days visited India to swing him to the Zionist cause but failed.  

Independent India did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel and banned travel to it. But in the 1990s, when India underwent a political and economic metamorphosis replacing a Statist socialist economy with a liberal one, it also diluted its commitment to fighting  imperialism and its manifestations such as Israel and its treatment of the Arabs. In 1992, India abandoned its anti-American and anti-Israel policy and established diplomatic relations with Israel.

However India did not make the switch over clear cut and explicit because of the huge number of Indians working in the Arab world who were sending dollars back as remittances. 

In the 1980 and 1990s, India became a victim of cross border Islamic terrorism. There were armed skirmishes with China on the border. Its  traditional source of weaponry, Russia, having declined in importance, India looked for US and Israel arms. To stem terrorist infiltration India also needed expertise in intelligence gathering, a field in which Israel excelled.

When the Hindu nationalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got into power with an overwhelming majority in 2014, an ideological alliance came into being between its philosophy of  Hindutva and the philosophy of Zionism. Both saw Islamic radicalism as a threat to the very survival of their countries. This alliance is perhaps the strongest element in the emerging relations between India and Israel.

Thar was expressed indirectly but unquestionably by both India and Israel during visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi  to  Israel on February 25 and 26. Modi declared full and continuous support to Israel’s war against terrorism though he refrained from using the word “Islamic terrorism” keeping in mind India’s close ties with Arab countries that host millions of Indian workers.

Sri Lanka

The pro-West first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, D. S. Senanayake, had no difficulty in casting his lot with Israel. Sri Lanka was the first Asian country to initiate ties with Israel. In the early 1950s it bought arms and even a frigate from Israel. But this was reversed by the leftist Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike. The reversal continued during the Premiership of his widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who was keener to develop relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there arose a Tamil movement for rights and independence which soon metamorphosed into a deadly armed struggle under the leadership of the Tamil Tigers. When the rightist J.R. Jayewardene came to power in the last 1970s, he restored relations with Israel to secure military equipment.

But in the 1980s the tie up became an issue in India-Sri Lanka relations and Sri Lanka’s relations with Israel cooled. However, when the war with the Tamil Tigers intensified, Sri Lanka secured Kfir jet fighters and Dvora gunboats from Israel which helped defeat the rebels in 2009. While Sri Lanka had an embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel was working from its embassy in New Delhi.

The present leftist National People’s Power (NPP) is vociferous in supporting a ceasefire in Gaza and in calling for Palestinian self-determination. But at the same time, it has agreements with Israel to send Sri Lankan workers in specific sectors to secure remittances.

Pakistan

Pakistan is amongst countries that have never, to date, had diplomatic relations with Israel. It is committed to Arab and Islamic solidarity. In the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, Pakistani fighter pilots fought for Jordan and Iraq and during the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war Pakistan sent volunteers to fight with the PLO.

Pakistan has been quite consistent in its support for Palestine and unlike India there is little internal pressure to do otherwise. It has repeatedly declared that only after the emergence of a ’viable’, ’independent’ and ’contiguous’ Palestinian state on pre-1967 borders would it consider having diplomatic relations with Israel. Pakistan cautiously welcomed the Oslo Accords and distanced itself from any endorsement of the Abraham Accords.

However, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-89)  Pakistan was a conduit for US and Israeli arms supplies to the Mujhahidin fighters against the Russians.  Given the close relationship that developed between Pakistan and the US after the  May 2025 air war with India, Islamabad is part of the US-led Board of Peace to settle the Gaza issue with the cooperation of the Arab states and Israel.  

Bangladesh

Bangladesh became independent in 1971 and was promptly recognised by Israel. However, Bangladesh did not reciprocate and opted not to host a Palestinian Embassy in Dhaka. It advocated a “Two-State solution” for the Palestine issue.

Like other Muslim majority countries, Bangladesh does not have direct trade with Israel but has opted to use third countries in Asia, the Middle East,Europe and the US. Bangladesh has a trade surplus with Israel with exports (mainly textiles, footwear and leather goods) in 2023 reaching US$205 million.

According to international relations scholar, Achin Vanaik, there are reasonable grounds for suspicion that Bangladesh has bought surveillance equipment as well as receiving security personnel training by Israeli forces in third countries such as Hungary and Thailand. The Israel policy of the present Bangladesh Nationalist Party government is not known, but it is unlikely to be materially different.  

Nepal

Of all the South Asian states, Nepal has had the friendliest and least troubled relationship with Israel. The 1951 democratic movement  led to the first general elections in 1959. The leader of the Nepali Congress and Prime Minister B.P. Koirala visited Israel. The following year, Nepal granted Israel full diplomatic recognition to Israel. Israel set up its embassy in Kathmandu in 1961 and Nepal reciprocated much later.

Nepal-Israel relations survived Maoist-led governments between 2008 and 2012. However, Nepal dutifully echoes the general call for peace in the Middle East, and for a Two-State Solution with both Israel and Palestine existing side by side and declares its support for all measures promoting peace in the region. But it has eschewed formal diplomatic relations with the PLO. Unlike its South neighbours, Nepal opposed the 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism.

Economic cooperation is limited but regular. Nepal largely exports woollens, tobacco, jute and vegetable products and imports items such as agricultural equipment and electronic machinery. Nepali female caregivers are welcomed in Israel, but most migrant remittances are from Nepalis working in the Arab Middle East. Some military training is provided by Israel and Israeli tourists flock to Nepal.  

Maldives

Being an all-Muslim country, Maldives has no relations with Israel. But it used to allow Israeli tourists till April 2025 when consequent to the Gaza conflict, it banned tourists from Israel.

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