What India's covid-19 vaccine donation to Palestine tells us about Indian foreign policy
On vaccines, India's votes at the UN Human Rights Council & conducting surgeries in Mumbai from Tel Aviv.
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the fourth edition of Tracking the India-Israel alliance newsletter.
This week, 25,000 coronavirus vaccines arrived in the occupied Palestinian territories courtesy of the Indian government.
They vaccines come as hospitals in the occupied territories are crippling under a resurgence of covid-19 and as Israel refuses to make vaccines available for Palestinians despite having more than enough.
Just two percent of all Palestinians have been vaccinated so far and UN describes the cases as exploding.
India’s external Affairs Minister S Jaishankar announced the drop off on social media and made sure to note that the gesture was part of its “vaccine Maitri” or humanitarian drive, known in less polite circles as ‘vaccine diplomacy’ where countries seek to gain favor through the donation of medical supplies.
India is not alone; this week, China dropped off an undisclosed sum of vaccines in Palestine, too.
India’s paltry vaccine donation to Palestine perfectly encapsulates its modern day concern and relationship with the Palestinians: fickle and a farce.
Take a look at how it voted at last week’s 46th session of the Human Rights Council on matters related to Palestine.
As reported by Devirupa Mitra for The Wire:
“India abstained on one resolution on the human rights situation in Palestine but voted in favour of three other resolutions condemning Israel on the Golan Heights, its expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and in support of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
The votes suggest that India has stuck to its usual policy positions on Palestine in keeping with the larger international consensus, mostly organized around the Oslo accords. However, the votes are actually meant to create the impression that it cares about Palestinians even as it materially and philosophically moves closer to Israel.
India is the largest purchaser of Israeli arms after all.
And despite the suggestions that India still cares deeply about the Palestinians, it has become increasingly selective when it comes to issues concerning Israel (or other close allies) at the UN.
As previously mentioned, India abstained from voting on a resolution titled: “Human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the obligation to ensure accountability and justice”.
It also chose to steer clear from another Resolution titled: “Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka” that both critiqued Sri Lanka and recommended a move to collect and preserve evidence of war crimes in the country, committed by the armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
In other words, where there is the suggestion of holding an ally like Israel (or Sri Lanka) to account, India is not likely to get involved. If there is any attempt to involve the International Criminal Court (ICC), in a matter involving an ally, it will excuse itself.
It is also not the first time India has protected Israel at the UN.
In 2015, India abstained from a Palestine-sponsored resolution the called for a probe by the ICC to look into Israeli crimes during its invasion of Gaza in 2014. All it reportedly took was a phone call from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to prompt PM Modi to forget about the 1400 Palestinian lives that were lost during the Israeli bombardment.
It happened again in 2019 when India voted in support of Israel at the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to deny observer status to ‘Shahed’, a Palestinian human rights organisation.
The Print newspaper, the consistently malignant Islamophobic rag run by Shekhar Gupta, explains why he was so enamored by the move to sideline the Palestinians group here:
On the topic of India and its dwindling support for Palestine, the the Muslim Students Organisation (MSO) held an event ahead of 30 March, also known as Land Day, which commemorates the events of 30 March 1976 when Palestinians took to the streets to protest Israel’s expropriation and occupation of Palestinian land. Six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces that day.
The event titled: “What Role Can India Play As A Friend of Palestine?” featured MJ Akbar, a former Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs and K.C. Tyagi, a former MP.
“The 20th century was a century of war. After 1910, every year saw a war in some place or the other. And many conflicts, including Palestinian one, took birth in this period. However, This century also taught the world an important lesson that war is not the solution to any problem,”Akbar said.
“This is very close to the kernel of Indian philosophy that peace will come through only peace. War will beget conflicts. That India has never invaded any country and nor it supports invasion of any country,” he added.
The Muslim Students Organisation describes itself as an organisation committed to “promoting sufism as a core ideology of Islam and countering the extremism and radicalism”, which would explain why it would platform Akbar, a statist and nativist politician who helped Modi ascend to power and who has faced around 20 accusations of sexual harassment and abuse from women in India.
Here is some coverage of the event here.
Finally- here is an interesting bite for the road:
“Imagine an Israeli surgeon based in Tel Aviv operating on a patient in Mumbai remotely.”
“India and Israel can, together, leverage their strengths to collaborate in areas such application development, building networks of trust, and future research and development and unleash the possibilities of 5G for their citizens.”
This is the lede in a recent op-ed in the Hindustan Times that looks at the ways in which India and Israel can coordinate and lead the way to a promising 5G future.
Never mind that Israel stands on top of Palestinians and denies them healthcare (& covid-19 vaccines!) and India is the world’s leader in internet shutdowns (read this important article about how India is shutting down social media accounts in Kashmir and in the diaspora), but here, some evidently want to talk about remote surgeries over 5G when ordinary people still don’t even have toilets.
Anyway, and until next time,
Azad