AhlulBayt News Agency: Israel and India's decision to finalise an investment protection deal is aimed at reinforcing both countries' fascist policies and providing impunity for each other, experts have said.
Earlier this week, the Israeli government said it was finalising an Investment Protection Agreement (IPA) with India that aims to offset the perceived risk of investing in each other's countries in light of rising insecurity.
Several experts and human rights activists told Middle East Eye that the agreement was an attempt to assuage low investor confidence and also provide material cover for Israel's war on Gaza.
"Under the cover of an investment relationship - one which will surely bear lethal consequences for the marginalised in both places - India and Israel will grant impunity to each other for their illegal and discriminatory activities," an Indian-American organiser based in Boston, told MEE.
"This move ensures that both countries will immensely profit off of the growth of their own fascist ideologies. This is terrifying," the activist, who asked to remain anonymous over fear of reprisals, said.
Speaking at the announcement of the potential IPA deal on Tuesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the deepening economic ties as one of the "goals" he had set out to achieve as minister, a move observers note has been met with committed reciprocity from Delhi.
"Deepening economic ties with India is one of the goals I have set," Smotrich said, before describing India as a "true friend of Israel".
Abdulla Moaswes, a Palestinian writer and academic based in the UK, told MEE that the Indian government deliberately used burgeoning economic ties with Israel to project "diplomatic victories to its voter base, amongst whom support for Israel is a popular sentiment".
Moaswes said the support for Israel was driven by the Indian ruling party, the BJP's, fascination with Zionism, adding that New Delhi had correctly presumed that continued support for Israel would serve it far more with its constituency than condemning the ongoing war in Gaza, which scholars and international rights bodies have labelled a genocide.
Under Narendra Modi, India has been inching ever closer to a Hindu Rashtra, or a Hindu State, in which Hindus enjoy supremacy over other groups.
Muslims and Christians are the focus of attacks and are made to feel as if they are second-class citizens. Meanwhile, large portions of civil society have been dismantled, with dissenting voices in the media repeatedly targeted.
Meera Sanghamitra, a national convenor for the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), told MEE that India's deepening relationship with Israel was especially "shameful" given Delhi's decision to abstain from a United Nations-backed resolution last month that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
"Beyond the shameful vote abstention at the UNGA [in June 2025], the current regime's moves to deepen diplomatic and business ties with a genocidal nation is morally reprehensible," Sanghamitra said.
"We demand the Indian government not to clinch the investment protection agreement with Israel and instead join the international community to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for all its war crimes," she added.
Israel's economy reels
The timing of the IPA announcement comes as Israel's economy continues to reel following its government's decision to launch multiple wars across the Middle East.
Earlier this year, Israel's government decided to increase military spending by 21 percent from the previous year, despite the economy growing by just 0.9 percent in 2024.
Investors appear to have been spooked by the exorbitant government spending, and the temporary suspension of shipping behemoth Maersk's operations at Haifa Port also hasn't helped.
The halting of operations struck at the heart of Israel's logistics and supply chain sector.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, for instance, controls the majority stake at Haifa Port, and is part of the larger India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, which remains of strategic importance to both countries.
Whilst India has projected itself as pro-Palestine for several decades, Delhi has long had secret military relations with Israel, importing weapons into India since the early 1960s.
India officially normalised ties with Israel in 1992, with military relations soon emerging as the bedrock of the relationship.
Outside the diamond trade, economic relations between the two countries are estimated at around $4.7bn annually, with India now projected as Israel’s sixth-largest trading partner. About one-third of the trade between the two countries is said to be in business services.
Crucially, India is also the largest importer of Israeli weapons and therefore an important sustainer of Israel's military-industrial complex. Over the past seven years, Delhi has also looked to co-produce Israeli weapons in India itself.
Moaswes said that India's continued support for Israel should be read as an effort to further entrench its own policies in Indian-controlled Kashmir, as well as over Indian Muslims.
"To this end, India's courting of more Israeli investment by signing an investment protection agreement on top of the policies of the BJP's flagship 'Make in India' campaign should be understood as a continuation of the process of building mutual reliance between the two states," Moaswes said.
For nearly two years, activists in India have been calling on India to alter its relationship with Israel, after it was discovered that Delhi had sent combat drones as well as an AI weapons system in aid of the war effort.
Union leaders also urged the Indian government to drop a plan to send thousands of Indian workers to replace Palestinians in Israel's construction industry.
But Delhi has shown no indication of bending to demands, describing arms contracts with Israel to be in "the national interest".
Meanwhile, economic ties between the two countries have continued to rise. In February, Israel's economy minister, Nir Barkat, visited India with a high-level Israeli business delegation, including Israeli enterprises and representatives from the technology, manufacturing, healthcare, agri-tech, food processing, defence, homeland security, water management, logistics, and retail sectors.
In a statement issued before the meeting, the Indian government said both countries held a "shared commitment to technological advancement, innovation, and entrepreneurship makes them natural economic allies".
Over the past few months, several Israeli think tanks have been browbeating what they call Israel's move to the east, as fractures with western publics continue to broaden.
With university students in western capitals calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions, Israeli universities have leaned into new partnerships with Indian universities in an effort to diversify partnerships and Indian expertise in information technology and engineering.
Concomitant to its financial deals, the Indian government has also looked to crush rising dissent over its pro-Israeli policies.
In June, demonstrators in Delhi were beaten by Indian police as they looked to protest against Israel's attack on the Freedom Flotilla, featuring several prominent activists, including Greta Thunberg.
"It has violently suppressed pro-Palestine protest and speech and has continued to espouse a discourse suggesting that India, the US, and Israel are fighting three fronts of the same war against a global or transnational Muslim enemy," Moaswes said.
India's burgeoning ties with Israel were brought into the spotlight during Delhi's war with Pakistan in May, with India turning to Israeli combat drones during the conflict.
"For those of us who care about this, we must treat the India-Israel alliance as the natural next step in the consolidation of ethno-nationalist military states worldwide, and commit to taking our struggle beyond borders," the Indian-American activist said.
"As an enormous weapons trade partner of Israel, India has made it clear that any foreign policy coming out of Delhi reflects a vested interest in the global military-industrial complex," the activist added.
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