JERUSALEM: Despite posturing of strong ties with the Arab world, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not hesitate to reach out to Israel when the situation demanded.
According to documents in the Israeli archives in Jerusalem accessed by The Hindu newspaper recently, at the peak of the 1962 India-China war, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wrote to Nehru expressing Israel’s “fullest sympathy and understanding”, and provided weapons to the Indian forces.
The Nehru-Ben Gurion exchanges indicate that India and Israel, maintained contacts at the highest possible level much before formal ties were established in January 1992.
A note from the same collection from 1968 reveals that India had sourced Israeli weapons during the war with China. To hide the arms supply from its Arab friends, India had requested Israel to deliver the weapons in ships that did not fly the Israeli flags.
However, Ben Gurion had put his foot down saying, “No flag. No weapons.” The weapons were eventually supplied in Israeli ships flying the Jewish state’s flag.
The archives reveal that Israel remained in close touch with not just Nehru but also other members of the Nehruvian regime, including India’s then ambassador to the United States B.K. Nehru, who courted the Jewish lobby in Washington to facilitate essential discussion between two sides.
B.K. Nehru wrote to Congressman Emanuel Celler on September 3, 1963 conveying that India was in favour of people-to-people contacts between the two sides.
He assured that New Delhi had not prevented its citizens from travelling to Israel and is open to Israeli travellers.
“We have long recognised Israel as an independent, sovereign state and our relation with that country have always been harmonious and friendly,” said the envoy who had a Jewish connect through his wife Fori
General Zia-ul-Haq also had dealings with Israel for supplying weapons to Pakistan for the Afghan mujahideens during the Soviet-Afghan War.
With the help of Pakistan, Israeli intelligence agency Mossad channelled Soviet reversed engineered weapons to Afghanistan.
Charlie Wilson the US senator who was directly involved with General Zia to facilitate the Afghan mujahideen, in his own word claimed that Zia himself told the Israeli intelligence service: “Just don’t put any stars of David on the boxes”
What is the logic of this article? Does it conveys that India has not asked for weapon from Israel when it was attackwed by pork lover Chinese because India wants was close to Arab nations. In diplomacy, you have to keep your interest first that is exactly America does and you pakistanies also. You rubbed shoulders with American for money and now a days you are with Chinese noodles for money. You are also not different from others. But the basic difference is that you porkies give no place to your national pride while dealing in diplomacy. In other words, you can do anything for money, whereas, no country would ever agree to compromise with their national interest and pride while dealing with other countries in the world. Same on you pakistanies, you deserve much shame than what you are getting now in whole world.
It no secret to be broken or is it? For Pakistan maybe, because Arabs have been pouring double digit billions which would attribute cpec a lollipop
Arabs do keep their religion, ethics and business totally insulated from each other
And its pertinent to note that they are the true Muslims if there are any, rest are all cheap converts reigned by equally corrupted self proclaimed prophets
i believe Pakistan should have good relations with israel.
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