Former Israeli ambassador to India Daniel Carmon suggested in remarks on Saturday that India “might now be returning the favor” to Israel for its support against Pakistan in the 1999 Kargil War,” potentially in the form of sending weapons.
India, traditionally a power that has expressed support for the movement to establish a Palestinian state, has notably condemned the Sunni terrorist organization Hamas in the aftermath of its October 7 invasion and siege of Israel and remained silent in the face of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation to eliminate Hamas in its stronghold of Gaza. India has been a notable outlier at international platforms such as BRICS, an anti-American bloc featuring prominent pro-Hamas states, such as Iran, Russia, and China, in refusing to condemn the self-defense operations. New Delhi has established itself in the Red Sea, as well, protecting its shipping industry from attacks by the Hamas-allied Houthi terrorists of Yemen.
Multiple reports have also indicated that India may be shipping weapons to Israel to be used in the anti-Hamas war, though Indian authorities have not confirmed them.
“The Indians always remind us that Israel was there for them during the Kargil War,” Carmon, who served as Israeli ambassador to India from 2014 to 2018, told YNet in a report published Saturday. “Israel was one of the few countries that stood by them and provided them with weapons. The Indians don’t forget this and might now be returning the favor.”
India and Pakistan fought the Kargil War in 1999 in what is now the mountainous Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir.
“Israel provided India with crucial military supplies, including precision-guided munitions and surveillance drones,” India’s Economic Times recalled. “This support was vital for India during its high-altitude conflict with Pakistan.”
The Indian government has not publicly confirmed if it is sending weapons to Israel to be used against Hamas, but multiple incidents in the past year suggest that the government of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi has indeed supported the anti-jihadist effort. YNet noted one particular incident in which the government of Spain blocked an Israeli-bound ship from docking there in May.
“The ship, originating from the city of Madras in India, was carrying 27 tons of munitions destined for the IDF, against the backdrop of the war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah on the Lebanon border,” it noted.
YNet reported that India has offered “significant military assistance to Israel” after October 7.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported in June that India also sent Israel drones manufactured in a jointly owned factory in Hyderabad, originally constructed to provide drones to the Indian armed forces. Indian media reports had suggested the Hyderabad drones were being sent to Israel as early as February.
The reports are consistent with Modi’s concrete statements of support for the Israeli nation in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, which killed an estimated 1,200 people and resulted in the abduction of 250 others, of which an estimated 115 remain missing.
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Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News“We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour,” Modi said in a statement immediately after the attacks. “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families.”
Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) separately condemned Hamas, calling the group “worse than ISIS,” and insisted that the conflict is not “a war between two countries” but a military operation by one country to destroy a savage terrorist entity.
“It is not about supporting Israel or Palestine but condemning the act of terror. It is not a war between two countries,” BJP spokesman RP Singh asserted. “Hamas has hijacked the Gaza strip and is worse than ISIS. They started it so we can’t say people from both sides have been killed.”
Modi’s support for Israel has garnered him the ire of some neighboring Muslim countries, most prominently the Maldives, where local politicians decried Modi as a “puppet of Israel” in response to a seemingly innocuous local tourism campaign in January. The Maldives later moved to ban individuals with Israeli passports from entering the country, prompting the Israeli embassy in India to promote Indian beaches as a welcoming alternative, thus amplifying the tourism campaign that began the dispute initially.
India and Israel have, for years, enjoyed growing trade ties and cooperation on defense. As a report noted in the Asian affairs journal the Diplomat, “almost half — 42.1 percent — of Israel’s arms exports went to India since 2014.” The outlet noted that Modi’s policies on Israel also do not appear to be a deviation from public sentiment in India about Israel, as polling suggests that support for Israel in India is higher than in America, conventionally considered Israel’s closest ally.
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