Ironies of History: Love-hate triangle among Israel, Iran and India

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

It is the story of love-hate triangle among three countries whose name starts with ‘I’––India, Iran and Israel. They represent three different phenomena which start with three continuous letters––H, I and J. While India is a secular state it has a rich ‘Hindu’ tradition; Iran is an ‘Islamic’ Republic and not a Shia state as many in the West try to make out and Israel is a ‘Jewish’ theocratic country.

Today India is caught in a crossfire between Iran and Israel. Culturally and historically it is strongly tied to Iran and has very little to do with Israel. The founding fathers of India openly sided with the Arab cause at the time of creation of the Zionist state. Today it sounds somewhat bizarre nevertheless true: the greatest champion of Israel in India, the Sangh Parivar, was no doubt the greatest friend of Hitler, who massacred six million Jews. But that is the way the politics goes.

In this unipolar world Israel has come to acquire strategic importance for India. The Narasimha Rao government took a significant step in establishing ties with Israel while the Vajpayee regime buttressed it further. And the external affairs minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, S M Krishna, was recently in Tel Aviv. At the same time, notwithstanding Feb 13 Israeli embassy car blast in New Delhi, a trade delegation is scheduled to visit Iran later this month. The fact remains that one can deny history but not geography. Iran is in the vicinity and its importance cannot be ruled out.

Tehran has its own ups and downs with its relationship with Tel Aviv. Till the February 11, 1979 Islamic Revolution Iran was the best friend of Israel in the Muslim world. Even the then secular Turkey had some historic reservations with the Zionist movement, which incidentally started and grew strong when that region was under the control of the then Ottoman Empire.

The Jewish state had not occupied a single inch of land of Iran nor had it fired a single shot towards the latter. Yet just after the Revolution the new regime in Tehran snapped its ties with both the United States and Israel. There is another irony. Shia-dominated Iran chose to broke its relationship with Israel on the plea that it had occupied the third holiest shrine of Islam, Bait-ul-Muqaddas, in Jerusalem and had made lakhs of essentially Sunni Palestinians homeless. It did this at the time when Sunni-dominated Egypt, under the leadership of Anwar Sadat, was brokering a deal with the hardliner Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, at Camp David. In return of peace Egypt got back Sinai. But Sadat lost his life in the process.

That was the high time of Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) in which Israel had been supporting right-wing Christian to eliminate the Palestinians living there. The Sabra and Shatila massacre of about 3,000 Palestinian and Lebanese refugees––men, women and children––between Sep 16 and 18. 1982 by the right-wing Christian Phalangist militia is a known fact. The incident took place when that part of Lebanon was under the control of Israeli Defence Forces. The Kahan Commission had in 1983 indicted the then defence minister of the country, Ariel Sharon.

Iran secretly made its inroads into the region. It started helping Palestinians as well as the Shias, who form a substantial population in Lebanon. The only other front-running state hostile to Israel is Syria, which Iran befriended. Jordan, like Egypt, was no more interested in having any tussle with Israel though the latter captured a large part of its land in Six Day War between June 5 and 10, 1967.

Iran’s friendship with Syria continues till now though the Bashar-al-Assad regime is facing revolt from within. Iran suspects the hands of Israel in fomenting trouble there as any crisis in Syria would weaken Hamas and Hezbollah.

Today the non-state actors like Shia Hezbollah and Sunni Hamas––it now has a state––are the greatest friends of Iran and bitterest enemies of Israel. The West talks of the Shia-Sunni rift, which Saudi ruling class too try to propagate for their own survival but the truth is that on the occasion of 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on February 11, 2012 it was Sunni Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, who was the chief guest in Tehran. It is also true that he had in the recent past visited several Arab and Gulf countries.

In such a situation how should India fit in? Is the Delhi blast a handiwork of Iran or Israel or Iranians who are working against their own regime in Tehran? After all those opposed to the Revolution wanted to defame the present regime and for that they can go to any extent. Mossad has used magnet bombs to get rid of Iranian scientists and most probably the Iranian rebels are involved in their killings. So the involvement of Iranians in Delhi, Bangkok or Tbilisi blasts may not necessarily mean the involvement of the current Iranian regime.

Any conflict between Iran and Israel is bound to have its ramifications in the entire region as a huge chunk of global oil passes through Gulf of Hormuz. If the war really erupts an overwhelming number of global Muslims may sympathize with Iran, notwithstanding the West and Saudi propaganda about Shia-Sunni rift. Barring a few expats living in Gulf and negligible number of Muslims a huge proportion of Sunnis would side with Iran because of their historical antipathy for Israel. Any attempt to overlook the overblown Shia-Sunni rift would be hazardous for the West itself. In that case the present Saudi regime may become isolated.

What is more complex is that though pre-Revolution Iran under Reza Shah was close to Israel it always supported Pakistan, be it during the 1965 or 1971 war. But that has less to do with one Muslim country supporting the other but more to do with one western ally backing the other. Both Pakistan and Iran then were in the American bloc while India was tilted towards the then Soviet Union.

Today Iran may have some reservations with India over Kashmir and other issues yet it has firmed its ties with the latter. It knows the strategic importance of India in the region. So in spite of repeated anti-Khomeini and anti-Mullah rhetoric in the Indian media––even during the recent Salman Rushdie episode––Iran never did anything to jeopardise its ties with India. During eight-year long Iran-Iraq War India remained neutral but there was no denying the fact that many in Indian establishment were inclined towards secular Saddam Hussein though he was an aggressor. Iran overlooked this development too.

There are policy-makers in New Delhi, who tend to look towards Islamic Republic with suspicion. They argue that any tilt towards Tehran may have a negative impact on the country’s ties with Gulf nations, where about six million Indians work. What they tend to overlook is that the choice is between Iran and Israel. If the war really breaks out between the two the Gulf rulers would become vulnerable once they––even secretly––side with Israel. An average Sunni––not some hardliners and televangelists among them––may have some reservations with Shia or vice versa. But the post-Revolution Iran has made its place somewhere in the heart of pre-dominantly Sunni Muslim world by openly denouncing Israel. Yet there are some Sunnis, as well as Shias too, who disagree with the Iranian overkill on the issue of Israel.

(Soroor Ahmed is the author of the book, The Jewish Obsession).