vijay wrote:

It is so easy and opportunistic to walk on tracks laid by earlier leaders. When will new tracks get laid?

India attempting to strengthen ties with Israel is definitely a brand new track! Never walked on by others before!

Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:

vijay wrote:

It is so easy and opportunistic to walk on tracks laid by earlier leaders. When will new tracks get laid?

India attempting to strengthen ties with Israel is definitely a brand new track! Never walked on by others before!

Absolutely Kalyani , a very bold and well thought out initiative but detractors will always find loopholes ..

Both of you are wrong. Because the foundation for relationship with Israel was laid by Nehru in late 1950s. In 1965 India purchased defence items from them when the so called friends ditched us. Indira Gandhi reciprocated later on when Israel wanted spares during conflict and were being denied. When Congress was ruling Gujarat in 1980s  I myself had participated in a project of agriculture with Israel with Gujarat government. Yes Modi is the first PM to visit Israel. But not the first to start the relationship. That is why I said he is very good at walking on laid down paths and find trumpeteers!

While one cannot deny that there were attempts made to develop trade relationships with Israel, diplomatic relationships revived only in 1992 under P V Narasimha Rao , whose name unfortunately Congress bakhtas will never take , such is their adulation towards the Family.. I am quoting from the article for which I have given the link below..

During the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, Indo-Israeli diplomatic contacts remained minimal while ties between India and the Arab world flourished. But things began to change in the early 1990s. The insurgency in Kashmir fuelled by Pakistan meant that some of the countries in the Islamic world began to sharply criticise New Delhi. It was then that public opinion began to grow in favour of stronger ties with Israel. At about the same time, from 1989-91, the right-wing BJP — that now rules India and which was until then a small player on the national political scene — began to make huge electoral gains and also argued vocally for strong ties with the Jewish state. In that milieu, it was the Congress government at the Centre led by P.V. Narasimha Rao that took the gigantic foreign policy leap of establishing full-fledged diplomatic ties with Israel on January 29, 1992.

http://www.asianage.com/india/all-india/020317/a-bond-thats-getting-closer-25-years-of-india-israel-ties.html

Modi deserves credit for catching the bull by the horns. The Congress government to appease the Muslims shunned Israel and it required a man of Modi's caliber to break the impasse. Israel is a natural ally of India and the honor given by it to Modi is simply great.

vijay wrote:

Both of you are wrong. Because the foundation for relationship with Israel was laid by Nehru in late 1950s. In 1965 India purchased defence items from them when the so called friends ditched us. Indira Gandhi reciprocated later on when Israel wanted spares during conflict and were being denied. When Congress was ruling Gujarat in 1980s  I myself had participated in a project of agriculture with Israel with Gujarat government. Yes Modi is the first PM to visit Israel. But not the first to start the relationship. That is why I said he is very good at walking on laid down paths and find trumpeteers!

That may be so but it does not prove that India actively tried to maintain friendship with Israel or recognise it internationally and we know why it was. Nehru, whatever may be his merits, has always tried to keep peace and appeasement with Islamic countries and did everything he could to keep them happy ! And it was this fear of offending them, he did not recognise or strengthen ties with Israel. Modi is the first one to take a step towards it and not any one from the Nehru Gandhi dynasty! So no one can say that he is walking on a laid down path, Nehru would have hidden behind screens before being seen walking any where with Israelis!

If this step had been taken earlier , probably a lot more could have been achieved in solving Kashmir problem. No doubt Modi has taken a very bold step but we have to wait and see how far we can succeed in utilising the opportunity it opens out to us.

Though India had been receiving arms, mortars and UAVs from Israel since Kargil, the visit of PM Modi has definitely given a boost to the ties between the two nations.

Only time will tell if he is able to maintain a balanced relation with Arabs and Israel.

Our problem is we lack political will to exert ourselves beyond our borders politically and miitarily and feel very secure aligning to those who do it.  How is it going to help us unless we take steps ourselves. We wait for issues to resolve itself and are all the time reactive rather than active. We enjoy blaming others for our inability to act anf absolve ourselves. Israel or no Israel we have to learn to take pro active actions and stop blaming past and plan for our future.

In fact unless we learn to help ourselves and stand firm about resolving our internal issues , others too would not take us seriously. However, since there are other issues entangled with it like terrorism which has become a global issue, any help or even moral support given by other nations can help us .