New Delhi, Sept 08: Not since the Shah of Iran visited India in 1978 has a visit of a foreign head of government been more controversial than that of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Arik Sharon. The Sangh Parivar welcome is premised on the belief that India has a strategic and ideological identity of interests with Israel — both confront Islamic fundamentalism and Israel offers lessons on how best to deal with Muslims. Like other elements of the Sangh Parivar worldview, this is both simplistic and wrong-headed There are good, pragmatic but unsentimental reasons for welcoming Sharon, but not his ability to bash hapless Palestinians. Israel is a major, though not the only, source of high technology for defence and agriculture. But everything we get is paid for in hard cash. If India needs the products, Israel needs the market since it is cut off from the lucrative Arab and Muslim world and so the Indian connection is more than welcome.



India is a big country and its foreign policy has to be far more nuanced than that of Israel which is peopled largely by persons of one faith. Relations with Israel are important, but those with the Arab world are not to be sneezed at. It is not advisable for the government to ignore the feelings of the Arab world, and that of Indian Muslims, which are overwhelmingly against Israel's Palestine policy. There is nothing anti-national in this. In the 1980s, Indian Tamils expressed their unhappiness over India's Sri Lanka policy and went as far as to undermine the Indian Army's efforts to play peace broker in the island.



In a diverse country, it is not unusual for ethnic and religious groups to push foreign policy in this or that direction. Indian Nepalis are affected by what happens in Nepal, and Indian Buddhists worry about Tibet.

No one complains when Indian Americans loudly hector their Congressmen on India's behalf. There are two important differences in Israel and India's security situation. India has to deal with not just the Kashmiri Muslim rebellion, but the radicalisation of a section of the country's Muslim population, for which the Parivar bears great responsibility. Israel, on the other hand, is dealing with a conquered populace whose right to resist is paramount. The world today has come around to believe that nothing justifies terrorism, but no sensible counter-terrorism strategy can ignore the root causes that compel people to blow themselves up for a particular cause.



The goal is to see whether or not it is possible to address the ones that appear rational, though its not easy to see how something so terrible can have a rationale. Why, for instance, does the LTTE, which has considerable military muscle, needs suicide attackers. Why do Lashkar and Jaish, who have no shortage of military targets, conduct suicide attacks against Indian civilians? But it is not difficult to see that the Palestinian suicide bombs are an act of terrible despair against an all-powerful adversary.