The Zionist-Hindu Alliance: Its Implications for the Muslim World

From Kargil to Operation Sindoor: The Convergence of Two Nations
The tale of Indo-Israeli relations is one not merely of diplomacy, but of a historical metamorphosis — a voyage from ideological frost to strategic fraternity. Once, India stood staunchly by the Palestinian cause, hoisting the banner of anti-colonial solidarity and Arab nationalism. Today, it finds itself clasping hands with Israel in an alliance so fortified that even the bloodied sands of Gaza echo the ideological consonance between Zionist realpolitik and Hindu nationalist fervour.

Under the stewardship of Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian National Congress, India’s moral compass had been unwavering — firmly aligned with the principles of self-determination and justice for the Palestinians. To Nehru and his ideological cohort, the establishment of Israel, carved out through the dispossession of the native Arab population, bore all the markings of a colonial imposition, a Western construct designed to perpetuate dominance over the Arab heartlands. “If Israel is to be built upon the ruins of Palestine,” Nehru warned, “then it shall stand in defiance of the very tenets of global justice.”

India’s early foreign policy, draped in the idealism of the Non-Aligned Movement, leaned heavily towards the Arab world. In the fateful year of 1947, India voted against the partition of Palestine at the United Nations — a gesture that resonated across the Muslim world. Yet by 1950, under immense diplomatic pressure from Washington and London, India reluctantly extended recognition to the nascent Israeli state. This recognition, however, was laced with deliberate ambivalence; formal diplomatic ties were deferred for over four decades. This cautious stance was shaped not only by India’s geopolitical alignment with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War but also by its dependence on Arab oil and the sensitivities of its own substantial Muslim population.

It was not until 1992, under the Congress government of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, that India inaugurated full diplomatic relations with Israel. The shift marked a decisive turn towards what Rao termed “pragmatism” — a strategic reorientation compelled by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the United States as the undisputed global hegemon. With the Arab-Israeli peace process seemingly on the horizon — epitomised by the Oslo Accords — India seized a diplomatic opening. Embassies were opened in Tel Aviv and New Delhi, and what had been a shadowy, reticent relationship now stepped into the light.

The watershed moment came in 2003, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon embarked on a state visit to India — the first such visit by an Israeli head of government. It was a moment steeped in symbolism, for it occurred under the premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) represented a new ideological trajectory in Indian politics — one more attuned to civilisational nationalism and unapologetic strategic assertiveness.

From that juncture, Indo-Israeli cooperation blossomed across sectors: defence, agriculture, cyber-security, and intelligence sharing. But it was during the Kargil War of 1999 — a brutal and frigid conflict in the peaks of the Himalayas — that Israel’s strategic utility was proven beyond doubt. As Indian forces confronted well-entrenched Pakistani units across treacherous terrain, it was Israel that came forth with real-time intelligence, cutting-edge surveillance drones, and precision-guided munitions. Spike anti-tank missiles and laser-guided bombs were rushed to the front lines, enabling the Indian Air Force to strike with unerring accuracy.

This military assistance was rendered even as Israel itself was embroiled in its own security dilemmas in Lebanon and Palestine — a gesture that cemented mutual trust between the two nations. For the first time, India saw Israel not merely as a distant regional player but as a dependable partner in times of crisis.

The relationship has only deepened since. In the wake of the Pulwama crisis in 2019, Israel once again stood by India, extending material and technical assistance during the subsequent airstrikes against Pakistani territory. The harrowing “Operation Sindoor” marked yet another chapter wherein Israeli-supplied loitering munitions — the Harop suicide drones — were deployed. Though Israel boasted that these UAVs were unmatched in the world, the conflict revealed a sobering reality: Pakistan not only destroyed 79 of these drones but reportedly captured several intact — a blow both to Israeli arms prestige and Indian battlefield confidence.
In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian leader to set foot on Israeli soil — a diplomatic act heavy with symbolism and strategic significance. His Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, hailed the visit as a “historic milestone.” Gone were the days of hesitant overtures and whispered cooperation; in their place stood a robust and unapologetic alliance.
Under Modi, India’s foreign policy has embraced a new grammar — one that favours strategic autonomy, ideological affinity, and an unabashed tilt towards the right. Since 2014, the Indo-Israeli partnership has surged with unprecedented vigour, encompassing domains as varied as water conservation, space research, agriculture, defence, and civil aviation.

This transformation is not merely tactical; it is civilisational. A new alignment has emerged — of narratives, of worldviews, and of perceived historical entitlements. No longer does New Delhi fear the diplomatic fallout of embracing Tel Aviv. The partnership is now public, proud, and profound — a confluence of ancient civilisations, bound not by sentiment but by shared stratagems, mutual suspicion of Islamism, and the pursuit of technological ascendancy.

From Iron Brotherhood to Ideological Embrace: Israel’s Unflinching Alliance with India
In the ever-shifting theatre of geopolitics, where alliances are forged not merely on convenience but on congruence of ideology and strategic design, the Indo-Israeli axis emerges as a luminous exemplar of mutual convergence—unyielding, unreserved, and, above all, unapologetically exclusionary.

Where once the Soviet Union stood as India’s principal strategic benefactor—stoic in posture, albeit restrained by Cold War realism—today Israel has assumed that mantle with a fervour that borders on zealous fraternity. In moments of tension, as witnessed during the Pulwama incident, Israel did not merely extend diplomatic courtesies; it flung open the gates of military intelligence, surveillance technologies, and political endorsement with a haste that bespoke not obligation, but allegiance.

This unwavering support contrasts starkly with Russia’s calibrated neutrality. During critical junctures such as the constitutional revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy, Moscow donned the cloak of silence. Tel Aviv, in contrast, raised the bugle of solidarity, underscoring a relationship whose sinews are taut with shared anxieties and ideological resonance—chief among them, an avowed hostility towards Islamic militancy and pan-Islamic narratives.

The Netanyahu-Modi concord finds its roots not merely in policy, but in proclivity—a psychological kinship between two right-wing governments united by their embrace of religious nationalism. Likud and BJP, though separated by continents, drink from the same wellspring of exclusionary politics. Both preside over multi-religious polities where the Muslim minority often stands at the receiving end of institutionalised othering. In this regard, their alliance is less of a diplomatic arrangement and more a manifesto of mutual metaphysics—an ideological compact cloaked in the language of defence and counterterrorism.

Israel’s defence overtures to India—ranging from Heron drones, Harop loitering munitions, to the famed Spike anti-tank guided missile systems—are not mere commodities exchanged in the market of militarism. They are tokens of ideological communion, weapons that carry with them a message: that the architecture of modern security must be built atop the rubble of post-colonial pluralism.

It is in Kashmir, that land of sublime valleys and unending agony, that these Israeli technologies find their most harrowing theatre. Employed to surveil, suppress, and subdue a freedom struggle borne not of foreign interference but of suffocated aspirations, Israeli aid has become a silent partner in a slow-burning tragedy. Yet despite the crosshairs of foreign weaponry and the iron grip of occupation, the Kashmiri spirit endures—unvanquished, unbroken, unyielding.

Recent developments in Indo-Pak military skirmishes have exposed cracks in the myth of Israeli invincibility. Pakistan, long dismissed in Western corridors as a beleaguered republic, has stunned the world’s defence intelligentsia by successfully intercepting and neutralising Harop drones—systems once lauded as near-impervious. More than a technical feat, this was a symbolic victory: a testament to Pakistan’s growing prowess in electronic and cyber warfare, and a challenge to the inflated boasts of Tel Aviv and Delhi alike.

Despite this, Indo-Israeli defence cooperation remains undeterred. Embarrassment is momentary; the ideology that binds them is enduring. For both New Delhi and Tel Aviv, the war against the Muslim Other is not a seasonal campaign—it is a strategic constant.

While India courts Gulf nations with the charm of economic pragmatism, offering itself as an indispensable market and tech partner, its policies in Kashmir, or its burgeoning intimacy with Israel, draw little more than muted concern from Arab capitals. The Arab League may issue ritualistic statements, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation may thunder in communiqués, but realpolitik has long since displaced the romance of pan-Islamic solidarity. Oil flows, investments swell, and Indian workers continue to man the Gulf’s foundations—while in Kashmir, the lockdowns lengthen, and the wounds deepen.

Thus, the story of Israel and India is not merely a tale of arms and embassies—it is an unfolding parable of how history, memory, and grievance are weaponised, of how strategic empathy for the powerful trumps moral fidelity to the oppressed, and of how a shared disdain for the disempowered can bind two nations in a fellowship that not only spans border but buries conscience.

The Axis of Proximity: India, Israel, and the Strategic Eclipse of Muslim Solidarity
In the shifting sands of global diplomacy, where alliances are as much forged in the crucible of ideology as in the furnace of economic pragmatism, the emergent Indo-Israeli nexus presents a tableau that is as disconcerting as it is revealing. While Arab nations have traditionally afforded Pakistan a certain moral primacy as a fellow Muslim state—particularly viewing the Kashmir issue through the prism of pan-Islamic solidarity—India has quietly but assertively transformed its economic dependencies into corridors of political immunity.

For decades, Pakistan has lent military counsel and personnel to its Arab brethren—be it the strategic tutelage of officers in Saudi Arabia, the security architecture of the Emirates, or the quiet presence in lesser-known garrisons of the Gulf. Yet, India’s voracious appetite for oil has now become the golden bridge through which it walks into the chambers of influence. Massive investments by Gulf nations into Indian infrastructure and technology have rendered their political tongues silent, particularly on issues that cry for conscience—chief among them, Kashmir.

It is now incumbent upon the stewards of Pakistan’s policy apparatus to retire from the repetition of strategic naïveté and, with candour and resolve, architect a commercial policy that may counterbalance India’s economic encroachment in the Muslim world. The stakes are no longer commercial alone—they are civilisational.

The Indo-Israeli partnership has matured into a formidable alliance, marked not solely by military symbiosis but by an ideological synchrony that veers dangerously close to civilisational exclusivism. Their convergence intensifies during episodes of Indo-Pakistani hostility, under the watch of a Hindu nationalist government, and amidst a public discourse increasingly coloured by anti-Muslim sentiment. This relationship is not merely a matter of foreign policy—it is now deeply tethered to the mechanics of domestic politics and populist strategy.

Indeed, their alliance is not the product of ephemeral convenience; it is the fruit of long-sown seeds—cultivated in the shared soil of majoritarianism, security paranoia, and the projection of Islam as a monolithic threat. In both India and Israel, Muslim minorities have often found themselves at the receiving end of state apathy or aggression. The tragedies of Gaza and the tribulations of Kashmir form twin testaments to this systemic injustice. They are not merely geopolitical flashpoints—they are bleeding wounds upon the conscience of the international community.

The purported “Judeo-Hindu alliance,” once dismissed as a figment of extremist imagination, now looms with unsettling clarity. While it is fashionable among liberal circles to relegate this term to the ideological wastelands of conspiracy, the empirical scaffolding upon which it rests has grown too visible to deny. When Hindu recruits are reported to have participated in Israeli operations in Gaza, facilitated allegedly through channels sympathetic to India’s ruling ideology, one must pause and ask: are these anomalies, or are they harbingers of a new, ideologically cemented geopolitical reality?

In both countries, governments led by ideologically rigid parties—Likud and BJP—have advanced policies that many international observers, and indeed a growing section of their own civil societies, categorise as intrinsically hostile to Muslim communities. The notion of national security has, in their rhetoric, become indistinguishable from the need to subdue, marginalise, or even erase Muslim political identity.

What remains then for Pakistan, and indeed for the Muslim world, is not merely a question of reaction, but of renaissance. How shall it respond—not with slogans, but with strategy; not with mere outrage, but with an intellectual, economic, and diplomatic recalibration that reclaims its rightful place on the moral and political map of the world?

The modern statecraft of Muslim nations must transcend emotionalism and adopt a cold, clear-eyed realism—one that recognises that many Arab states now view India not as a threat to Islamic values, but as a vital market, an indispensable partner. The ideals of Islamic brotherhood, once powerful enough to shape oil embargoes and summon summits, now often dissolve into silence before the altar of profit.

The question then is not whether a Judeo-Hindu alliance exists—it most certainly does, by every metric of policy, military engagement, and ideological solidarity. The question is: what shall the rest of the world do in its wake?

For so long as Gaza burns and Kashmir bleeds, these questions shall not—cannot—be buried beneath the diplomatic niceties of summits and sanctions. They demand an answer that is moral, strategic, and unafraid.