CiF contributor characterizes Israel’s relationship with India as an alliance based on Islamophobia

I think the definition of an anti-Zionist ideologue is someone who can spin almost any Israeli act or government policy as evidence of the state’s villainy.

Deborah Orr displayed such moral jujitsu by framing the release of over a thousand Palestinian terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit as an example of Israeli racism.

Today, CiF’s Kapil Komireddi exercised similarly adept ideological and rhetorical contortions in an essay titled, “India and Israel: a friendship deepened by prejudice, oddly placed in the CiF Belief section, which characterizes India’s alliance with Israel as evidence of the two nations’ shared Islamophobia.  

After noting that India and Israel’s bilateral relations were barely existent during the cold war, Komireddi’s writes:

“Today, India is Israel’s closest eastern ally and its largest arms market. Annual non-military bilateral trade alone exceeds $4.5bn.”

Why the change? Komireddi explains:

“[Israel is viewed by India as] a nation to be revered for its ability to defeat, and survive among, hostile Muslims. As the liberal Israelinewspaper Haaretz put it, “Relations between Israel and India tend to grow stronger when … India experiences a rightward shift in anti-Muslim public opinion or in leadership”.

Like so many other CiF contributors, Komireddi truly seems at a lost to understand that what Israel opposes is not “Muslims” but, rather, Islamism, a radical, violent, antisemitic brand of Islam manifested by state and non-state actors who openly seek their destruction, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran.

Both India and Israel indeed share a bond as democracies who are one the front line in the battle against Islamist terror.  

India, for instance, faces constant threats from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed (both operating out of Pakistan), the “deadliest” terrorist organizations operating in the region.

Both Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are on the United States’ foreign terrorist organizations list, and are also designated as terrorist groups by the United Kingdom, India, Australia and even Pakistan.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was created in 1994, has carried out a series of brutal terrorist attacks all over Indiaand is the group implicated in the kidnapping and beheading of Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has similarly attacked civilian and military targets throughout India, and was the group responsible for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks

Interestingly, The Lashkar leadership describes Indian and Israeli regimes as the main enemies of Islam

That democratic India and democratic Israel have formed a strong military, diplomatic, and economic relationship should come as no surprise to anyone who takes the threats posed by militant Islam seriously – which, almost by definition, excludes writers licensed by the Guardian to provide commentary about the Jewish state. 

 

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