“That India’s representative in Geneva abstained on Friday is a significant shift testament to the strong ties that have developed between Israel and India over the last 20 years, and which are taking off now under Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, a columnist wrote.
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The multilateral forum called on both sides to resume dialogue “leading to a two-state solution with a contiguous and viable Palestinian State existing side by side in peace with Israel within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders based on 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital”. The two leaders share a good rapport and had met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly previous year.
Officials here said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reached out to his Indian counterpart and urged him to abstain during the UNHRC voting.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is also the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, told IANS: “My understanding of the MEA position is that it is our normal practice to abstain when a resolution invokes the worldwide Criminal Court (ICC), and that in this case too, that was done”. Majdi said that the Indian diplomat also clearly conveyed to the Palestinian officials that “there is no change in India’s traditional and longstanding support for the Palestinian cause”. “It will go a long way in strengthening our ties”, he said.
Their bonding was reflected in a recent announcement that Modi would be visiting Israel later this year, becoming the first Indian Prime Minister to do so since the two countries established full-fledged diplomatic ties in 1992.
“We also explored various ways through which Israel could support our key ongoing projects like “Make in India”, “Digital India” and “Ganga Action Plan” where we do see a constructive engagement for technological advancement made here”, Wadhwa stressed. India abstained in the company of Kenya, Ethiopia, Paraguay and Macedonia. The vote pertained to a United Nations inquiry report on the assault on Gaza by Israel in 2014 in which almost 1,500 Palestinian civilians were killed.
Forty-one of the 47 UNHRC council members voted in favour of the resolution, including the eight sitting European Union members: France, Germany, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia and Estonia.
The UNHRC adopted a resolution condemning Israel for its use of “huge firepower” against Gazans during its offensive previous year.
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Abbas is said to have also expressed his “deep appreciation” for all the help India has extended to the Palestinian people. It ignores completely Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of rockets at Israeli cities, as well as alleged war crimes by Palestinian groups in Gaza, though several were indicated by the report.
