PM Modi’s Israel Visit: From Historical Memory to an Emerging India–Israel Strategic Convergence Axis

 “As the global order tilts toward multipolarity, quiet but consequential partnerships are reshaping West Asia’s strategic map.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s engagement with Israel signals more than diplomacy—it reflects the emergence of a deeper India–Israel strategic convergence.”

Introduction: Why Israel’s Historical Trajectory Matters Today

 

Israel, located in West Asia at the crossroads of the Middle East, occupies a uniquely sensitive position shaped in part by the region’s historical and religious landscape. Judaism, Christianity and Islam—often collectively described as the Abrahamic traditions—share deep historical and theological linkages, yet their overlapping sacred geographies have also contributed to enduring political and identity tensions. 

While contemporary geopolitics cannot be reduced to religious factors alone, this layered civilizational backdrop remains an important contextual lens for understanding the persistence and intensity of conflicts surrounding Israel.

From Israel’s strategic perspective, regional hostility has long been interpreted through the prism of "existential security"—rooted in the belief that the loss of sovereign control over its territory could prove irreversible. By contrast, in segments of Arab political and public discourse, the Israel question has often been viewed through the lenses of- 

• regional power balance, 
• historical grievance and 
• political legitimacy. 

This asymmetry of threat perception has been one of the defining features of Middle Eastern geopolitics, shaped by geography as well as deeply embedded historical narratives.

It is within this complex strategic environment that this blog examines Israel’s evolution and its growing relevance for India’s engagement with the wider Middle East.

 

Civilizational Roots and Jewish Historical Memory

Israel’s contemporary strategic mindset is inseparable from a long historical memory shaped by -

• displacement, 
• persecution and 
• repeated struggles for political survival. 

From the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the subsequent Jewish dispersions to the upheavals of medieval and modern Europe, Jewish communities experienced recurring cycles of vulnerability that profoundly influenced the security doctrine of the modern Israeli state. 

These experiences unfolded within a region where the three Abrahamic traditions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—developed overlapping historical and sacred geographies, often generating enduring political and identity frictions. Less frequently highlighted, however, is the parallel story of relative sanctuary. 

Unlike much of West Asia and Europe, where Jewish history was often marked by -

• expulsions, 
• legal discrimination and 
• episodic violence, 
• the Indian subcontinent developed a markedly different pattern of interaction with Jewish settlers. 

Over time, enduring Jewish communities—notably the "Bene Israel" and the "Cochin Jews"—took root in India, with their own traditions recalling early arrivals following ancient dispersions from the Levant. 

While precise migration timelines remain debated among historians, the Indian experience stands out in Jewish historical memory for the relative absence of state-sponsored persecution and the continuity of stable communal life across centuries.

Understanding this dual historical experience—

1. existential insecurity in West Asia and Europe, alongside 
2. episodes of refuge and continuity in places such as India is essential to interpreting Israel’s modern strategic psychology. 

It also provides an important backdrop to the contemporary deepening of India–Israel relations and the evolving triangular dynamics across the wider Middle East.

So, “Israel’s contemporary behaviour is best understood through this fusion of historical insecurity and strategic adaptation—an outlook increasingly relevant to India’s West Asia calculus.”

 

European Antisemitism and the Road to the Holocaust

In political sociology, René Girard’s mimetic theory is sometimes used to explain how societies under stress may channel collective frustration toward identifiable minority groups through a process of scapegoating. 

The theory suggests that political actors can mobilise mass sentiment by framing a vulnerable community as the primary source of broader social and economic grievances. While this framework is only one interpretive lens among many, it offers useful insight into how exclusionary political narratives can gain traction during periods of instability.

The trajectory from the First World War to the Second World War was marked in part by Germany’s political humiliation and economic distress following the "Treaty of Versailles (1919)", which imposed severe territorial losses, military restrictions and heavy reparations on Germany. 

The resulting interwar climate of social anxiety and economic strain created fertile ground for extremist mobilisation. Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, antisemitism—already present in segments of European society—was systematically radicalised and institutionalised as state ideology.

Some scholars interpret aspects of this process through the lens of Girard’s mimetic framework. While the causes of Nazi antisemitism were complex and multi-layered, the regime deliberately portrayed Jewish communities as responsible for Germany’s political and economic grievances, thereby elevating them into a central scapegoat within Nazi propaganda.

This state-sponsored persecution culminated in the Holocaust (1941–1945), during which approximately six million Jews were murdered across Nazi-occupied Europe. The scale and industrial nature of the genocide profoundly reshaped global attitudes toward Jewish statehood and became a decisive catalyst for the international momentum behind the Zionist project. 

In this context, modern political Zionism—already active since the late nineteenth century—gained unprecedented urgency and legitimacy, reinforcing its long-standing objective of establishing a sovereign Jewish homeland.

 

The Zionist Movement and the Political Project of Statehood

 

Driven, in part, by a deepening geopolitical identity crisis among European Jewish communities, modern political Zionism emerged in the late nineteenth century as a structured nationalist response to persistent insecurity and marginalisation. 

While Jewish religious attachment to the historic land of Israel had existed for centuries, the transformation of this sentiment into an organised political project is most closely associated with "Theodor Herzl". 

Writing in the context of rising European antisemitism—and amid broader patterns of minority scapegoating that some scholars analyse through René Girard’s mimetic framework—Herzl argued that the “Jewish Question” could not be sustainably resolved through assimilation alone, but required the establishment of a sovereign Jewish homeland.

The Zionist movement subsequently evolved from an intellectual and diplomatic initiative into a coordinated international effort aimed at securing political recognition and territorial viability. 

Jewish immigration to Ottoman and later British-mandated Palestine—known as "Aliyah"—proceeded in successive waves, accompanied by -

• the creation of proto-state institutions, 
• agricultural settlements and financial networks designed to lay the structural foundations of future statehood. 

Over time, the movement demonstrated a sophisticated dual strategy: -

1. building demographic and institutional presence on the ground, while 
2. simultaneously pursuing diplomatic legitimacy in the international arena.

A significant geopolitical opening emerged during the First World War, where, with the start of the First World War, in a sharp diplomatic move Jewish community supported Britain as a result to that in 1917, the British government issued the "Balfour Declaration", expressing support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, while also noting the rights of existing non-Jewish communities. 

Although -

• the declaration fell short of guaranteeing statehood, 
• it decisively internationalised the Zionist project, 
• germination of discontentment in Palestine surrounding the Arab population, and 
• embedded it within the emerging post-war geopolitical order.

By the interwar period, Zionism had thus evolved from a dispersed nationalist aspiration into a structured political movement with institutional depth, growing international visibility and an increasingly clear territorial focus. However, a smell was looming in Europe’s political environment, which was not a pleasant one, but resurfaced in the catastrophe of the Holocaust, which acted as a catalyst and soon accelerated the” this trajectory of transforming the demand for Jewish statehood “geopolitical identity in the form of home land”  from a contested political proposal into an urgent matter of international diplomacy which paved the way for today’s “ Israel”.

 

 

From World War II to the Birth of Israel (1948)

The geopolitical foundations of the modern Israel question were laid in the aftermath of the First World War, as, with the culmination of first world war, 

1. the Ottoman Empire was defeated in 1918 by the British, and 
2. England took over the control of Palestine. 
3. Adding to it in 1922, the League of Nations authorised England to support a declaration to administer Palestine and 
4. make the best effort for the arrangement for Yehudi’s also in that area. 

The Mandate incorporated the language of the "1917-Balfour Declaration", asking Britain to 

1. facilitate the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” while 
2. also safeguarding the rights of existing non-Jewish communities. 

Note- This dual commitment later became a source of deep and persistent tension.

Jewish immigration expanded, Arab opposition intensified, and Britain found itself caught between competing national movements. The post-war strategic environment gradually shifted in ways that strengthened international support for Jewish statehood—particularly in the wake of the Holocaust and the broader reordering of global politics.

By the mid-1940s, -

1. Britain, facing mounting violence in Palestine and severe post-war fatigue, concluded that the Mandate had become untenable. 
2. In 1947, London referred the Palestine question to the United Nations. 
3. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, recommending the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. 
4. The plan passed with 33 votes in favour, 13 against and 10 abstentions.
5. Acting on this momentum, Jewish leadership proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948. 
6. The United States and several other countries extended rapid recognition. 

It was something which un acceptable to Arab world, and within hours, neighbouring Arab states launched military intervention, marking the beginning of the first Arab–Israeli war. By the time armistice agreements were concluded in 1949, Israel had not only secured its survival but had also expanded its territorial control beyond the original UN partition lines—an outcome that would shape the region’s strategic fault lines for decades to come.

Note- 

In Yahdi's dictionary, “word for expressing apology for inaction” does not survive. Since its emergence on the geopolitical map, Israel continuously increased its state territorial area, that shall be continued in the future, and the result will reflect in the form of Greater Israel.

Israel’s Strategic Evolution: From Existential Survival to State Consolidation (1948–2026)

 

In geopolitical analysis, evolution refers to a stage-wise process of adaptation in which a state both responds to its surrounding security environment and gradually develops the capacity to shape that environment in its favour.

A useful analogy can be drawn from settlement patterns: rural clusters typically grow organically in response to local conditions, whereas urban clusters evolve through deliberate planning that reshapes the surrounding landscape to support long-term objectives.

In this frame, Israel’s strategic evolution since 1948 more closely resembles the latter pattern. As discussed earlier, some interpretations argue that, inspired in part by civilizational and religious memory, Israeli geopolitical behaviour reflects a long-term effort to secure and consolidate territory associated in historical discourse with the idea of a “Greater Israel” — a concept sometimes linked in popular narratives to the biblical Promised Land. These interpretations, however, remain contested. 

Yet, when one examines the historical trajectory of Israel’s territorial consolidation, some analysts argue that the pattern is difficult to entirely separate from Israel’s formally articulated security posture.

At the same time, what is analytically clearer is that Israel has operated within a persistently hostile regional environment. In response, the Israeli state has systematically built military, technological and diplomatic capabilities designed to minimise vulnerability and enhance strategic depth. This process reflects adaptive statecraft under sustained security pressure rather than a mechanically linear pursuit of any single theological objective.

More broadly, Israel’s defence doctrine since 1948 has consistently prioritised -

• strategic depth, 
• rapid military response and 
• deterrence dominance. 

Whether through military preparedness, technological superiority or calibrated diplomatic engagement, Israeli statecraft has sought to minimise existential risk in a volatile neighbourhood. It is this security-driven logic that most consistently explains Israel’s territorial, military and diplomatic behaviour in the contemporary Middle East.

 

Israel’s Contemporary Geopolitical Position in West Asia

Israel’s geopolitical behaviour in West Asia is deeply conditioned by geography, scale and structural security pressures. 

1. Geographically, the country sits along the Dead Sea Transform fault system—the boundary zone between the African and Arabian tectonic plates—placing it at a physical and strategic junction between the Mediterranean basin and the wider West Asian landmass. 
2. This junctional geography and historically reinforced Israel’s role as a bridge space between Europe and the Middle East.
3. In territorial terms, with its width at certain points under 20 kilometres, Israel remains a relatively small state, covering roughly 21,500 square kilometres—comparable to India’s state of Manipur.
4. In respect of population, with a population slightly above 10 million, broadly similar to Uttarakhand. 

Yet this small, densely populated country operates in a persistently hostile regional environment with limited strategic depth and only a narrow Mediterranean coastline as its major maritime outlet. These geographic constraints have profoundly shaped its defence doctrine since 1948.

Climatically, Israel lies near 31° North latitude within the subtropical high-pressure belt, where natural precipitation ranges from low to semi-arid and desert conditions. Despite these ecological constraints, Israel has emerged as a global benchmark in water management and semi-arid agriculture, most notably through the development and export of drip irrigation technology. 

This agricultural transformation has been closely studied by India, including during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat and his subsequent engagement with Israeli agricultural innovation.

From a defence-industrial perspective, Israel punches significantly above its economic weight. Although its nominal GDP typically ranks in the mid-20s globally, the country maintains a disproportionately strong military profile. According to the "Global Firepower Index (2025)", Israel ranks among the world’s top-tier military powers. India’s defence relationship reflects this capability: roughly 13% of India’s defence imports in recent years have originated from Israel, accounting for a substantial share of Israel’s overall defence exports.

Strategically, Israel’s security establishment continues to view Iran as its principal long-term challenge, particularly in light of -

• Tehran’s missile development, 
• nuclear ambitions, and 
• forward regional posture through actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas. 

These dynamics have locked Israel into a permanent high-readiness security environment. A secondary layer of strategic caution exists regarding Turkey, whose increasingly independent regional posture and defence activism are closely monitored in Israeli strategic circles, although the competitive dynamic is more indirect and fluid than the Iran–Israel confrontation.

These structural pressures help explain why Israel’s present geopolitical posture is driven less by discretionary expansion and more by persistent security compulsion. 

Since its establishment, Israel has systematically built military, technological and intelligence capabilities designed to offset geographic vulnerability. Its layered missile-defence architecture—Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow—along with advanced cyber and intelligence capacities, reflects a doctrine centred on deterrence dominance and rapid response.

In the Indian epic "Ramayana", a well-known strategic insight is attributed to the dialogue between Ravana and Lakshmana: -

1. The careful identification of one’s adversary can be more consequential than the comfortable identification of one’s friends. 
2. The underlying lesson is that clarity about threats enables a state to concentrate resources, align capabilities and pursue coherent long-term development.

Viewed through this lens, Israel’s trajectory since 1948 reflects a high degree of threat prioritisation. From its early years, Israeli strategic planning has been shaped by the deliberate identification of principal security challenges and the systematic allocation of national effort toward addressing them. 

This "intellectual discipline"—combined with sustained investment in military readiness, technology and intelligence—has played a significant role in the emergence of Israel as a highly capable security state.

In essence, Israel’s standing in West Asia reflects a structural paradox: a geographically constrained state that has achieved outsized military and technological weight, yet continues to operate under a persistent perception of vulnerability. Its geopolitical conduct is therefore best understood as the product of enduring structural pressures rather than unconstrained strategic choice.

 👉MiddleEast 

GeoPoliNomic

 

The Significance of PM Modi’s Visit

The world’s geopolitics is steadily moving toward multipolarity, in which five major nations in terms of military presence are emerging: 

1. The United States, 
2. Russia, 
3. China, 
4. India and 
5. Israel. 

India is primarily focused on the Indian subcontinent with an expanding outreach toward West Asia, whereas Israel seeks to maintain a secure and influential presence within the Middle East. In this context, strategic location, military capability and mutual complementarity are naturally bringing Israel closer to India.

Despite these structural drivers, an important historical layer also exists. During various phases of Jewish dispersal, India provided a relatively safe and stable civilizational space for Jewish communities. This legacy continues to generate quiet goodwill in the bilateral relationship.

1. Following the creation of Israel in 1948, India formally recognised the state in 1950. 
2. However, it took another four decades before full-fledged diplomatic relations were established in 1992 under the "prime ministership of P. V. Narasimha Rao". 
3. Until then, India’s West Asia policy framework remained more inclined toward the Palestinian position within its broader two-state support approach.
4. The visible warming of relations began during the tenure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 
5. This reached a historic milestone when Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel in 2017. That visit marked the transition of the relationship into an openly acknowledged strategic partnership. Modi’s continued high-level engagement reflects the steady institutionalisation of bilateral ties.

The key question, however, is why this deepening is happening now and why it took so long. The decision of any state to expand diplomatic relations is, primarily, along with other factors, conditioned by -

• domestic political dynamics, 
• constitutional values and 
• evolving foreign policy priorities. 

Until 1992, India’s domestic orientation and its energy and diaspora stakes in the Arab world encouraged a cautious approach toward Israel. Yet, despite this earlier distance, Israel consistently remained open to deeper engagement with India—indicating a strong underlying strategic logic.

• India’s position as the world’s largest democracy provides it with significant international legitimacy and long-term partnership value. 
• Equally important is India’s geographic centrality in the Indian Ocean and its oversight of major sea lines of communication through which a large share of global trade flows.

In the present phase, a core area of cooperation is emerging around strategic connectivity. The proposed "India–Middle East–Europe Corridor (IMEC)", which is expected to link India from Mumbai through the UAE and Israel to Europe, represents a potentially transformative geo-economic project. 

If implemented effectively, -

• IMEC could create an alternative connectivity architecture that partially bypasses traditional chokepoints such as -

1. the Gulf of Aden and 
2. the Red Sea–Suez Canal route. 
3. In this framework, 

• The role of the UAE also becomes critically important as a key transit partner for India.
• Security considerations further reinforce convergence. The Gulf of Aden and Red Sea regions have witnessed repeated attacks on commercial shipping by the Houthis, including threats affecting Indian maritime interests. 
• Both India and Israel, therefore, share an interest in ensuring the stability and security of these vital sea lanes. 

• Recent geopolitical developments in the Horn of Africa indicate a growing strategic churn involving multiple external actors.  Israel’s reported outreach toward "Somaliland"—where India and the UAE are also increasingly active—reflects the rising importance of the western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden corridor in contemporary GeoPoliNomic calculations.

  
  
  

  Djibouti, meanwhile, hosts China’s first and so far only overseas military support base, established in 2017 under the broader strategic umbrella of the "Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)". This development has significantly elevated Djibouti’s role as a critical maritime chokepoint actor, particularly given its proximity to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

  The United Arab Emirates has also expanded its footprint across the Horn, including deep commercial and port investments in Somaliland (notably Berbera). Abu Dhabi’s assertiveness has occasionally generated friction within the Gulf ecosystem, particularly with Saudi Arabia, which has maintained a more cautious diplomatic posture toward Somaliland’s status.

  Part of this competitive activism is linked to the post-oil economic transition underway across the Gulf. Since roughly the post-2030 period—when global energy markets began showing structural shifts—regional powers such as Saudi Arabia have accelerated diversification efforts to avoid overdependence on hydrocarbon revenues. In this evolving landscape, the UAE’s early-mover advantage in logistics, ports and maritime connectivity has positioned it strongly; however, Riyadh’s own economic transformation ambitions introduce an undercurrent of intra-Gulf competition over future trade flows and investment corridors.

  In GeoPoliNomic terms, what appears as fragmented regional activity is in fact the early shaping of a "new western Indian Ocean strategic theatre"—where maritime access, logistics infrastructure and political recognition dynamics around Somaliland are becoming increasingly consequential.

   

• It is being interpreted in strategic circles through the lens of wider maritime competition, including concerns related to China’s expanding “String of Pearls” footprint. While these dynamics remain fluid, they highlight the growing intersection between Middle Eastern and Indian Ocean security theatres.

For Israel’s long-term economic and security calculations, maintaining strong relations with a major Indian Ocean power such as India carries clear advantages. At the same time, evolving global energy dynamics—particularly the gradual diversification of crude oil dependence—have given India greater diplomatic flexibility in West Asia. 

This changing equation has opened additional space for India to expand defence and technology cooperation with Israel, creating opportunities both for economic gains and for strengthening India’s military modernisation.

From Israel’s perspective, India’s political weight, technology demand and market scale also serve as important strategic reassurance amid persistent regional challenges from Iran-aligned actors such as Hezbollah and the Houthis. 

India represents one of the few large, stable and fast-growing markets for advanced defence and dual-use technologies, helping Israel diversify beyond its traditional Western anchor.

In essence, the significance of Modi’s Israel visit lies in the quiet but steady elevation of the relationship from functional cooperation to structured strategic convergence. It underscores a broader GeoPoliNomic reality: in an increasingly fluid West Asian order, India and Israel are expanding cooperation not through formal alliance structures but through pragmatic, capability-driven partnership building.

So, when Geopolitics operates in an era defined less by formal alliances and more by strategic convergence, then the India–Israel axis is emerging as a calibrated partnership shaped by necessity, capability, and shared geopolitical logic.

 

Challenges to the Relationship

In the Indian context, the relationship has traditionally been conditioned by two key considerations. 

• First was India’s dependence on the Middle East for crude oil accessibility, and second was India’s adherence to the two-state policy framework under its foreign policy toward Israel and Palestine.

As India has diversified its energy accessibility options—with a major portion now coming from Russia—and as the global energy mix evolves toward 2030, the once indispensable dependence on Middle Eastern crude is gradually diminishing. Consequently, the first constraint is no longer as binding a challenge as it once was.

• Second, India has executed its two-state doctrine regarding Israel and Palestine with considerable strategic acumen. Over time, this calibrated approach has matured to a point where both Israel and Palestine are broadly comfortable with India’s position and do not perceive India’s engagement with the other side as a threat to their survival or core interests.

Therefore, in the present context and looking ahead, India and Israel appear to be entering a phase of stronger structural momentum to further develop and prosper their bilateral relationship.

Note- 

Now, the third Challenge is actually the present issue of Iran and this I have discussed in my one of the blogs the link is available over here. Thanks.

 

Way Forward 

In the above context, where the relationship is partly rooted in civilizational familiarity and increasingly fuelled by evolving geopolitical realities and techno-military necessities, India and Israel are emerging as natural partners seeking greater participation in the contemporary geopolitical landscape.

Their convergence is not accidental. It reflects a growing recognition that both countries—while individually established powers in their respective regions—can amplify their strategic weight through a supplementary and role-based partnership that leverages each other’s available strengths and resources.

In this framework, the objective is not to construct a hierarchical or predatory relationship, but to nurture a symbiotic and mutually reinforcing partnership. 

Both sides understand that, despite their current capabilities, significant strategic ground remains to be covered in an increasingly competitive multipolar order.

Accordingly, the India–Israel relationship is best viewed as a pragmatic alignment between two security-conscious, technology-driven states that see value in deepening cooperation while preserving their respective strategic autonomies.

“India and Israel are not allies by accident, but natural partners shaped by converging strategic compulsions in a multipolar world.”