‘India-Israeli ties are existential’

Israel’s ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz destroys the notion of envoys being dour men with a serious visage. Ushpiz smiles a lot. One reason could be that India-Israeli ties are on the upswing. In an exclusive interview to RN Bhaskar and Amberish K Diwanji, Ushpiz, who spent many years as advisor to governments before becoming an envoy, dwelt on questions on terrorism, Iran and the ties that bind the two countries. Excerpts:

Q: Over the past five decades, Israel and India ties have been strongest in areas related to defence and diamonds. But during the past ten years, more relationships have blossomed. Would you care to comment on this?
A: First, let me state that we look at relationships both as holistic and existential. For us both aspects are very important when it comes to relationships. It is an existential issue for both countries, affecting the lives of around 1.21 billion people.

Over the past decade, we have seen relationships between both India and Israel growing in areas concerning trade, culture, tourism, energy, water, person to person and University education. Thus the forest is much bigger than we think.

However, if we look at the last decade, the fastest growth has been in agriculture, trade and R&D [research and development].

Q: How much is Israel helping India in its fight against terrorism?
A:Unfortunately, because of Israel’s history, we were forced early to accumulate knowledge on tackling security and terrorism concerns. What I would like to stress is that we are both close friends. When you feel close to someone – whether a nation or a state or individuals – you care about his well-being. India is close to our hearts.

But given the sensitive nature of the subject, this is one question that I would not like to discuss in the public domain (smiles).

Q: Can you at least tell us how much it matters to Indo-Israeli ties?
A: It would be a strategic mistake to isolate one area and turn it into the star of the relationship. We have a broad and growing ties with India across sectors, with a wide range of cooperation in range of activities. Our ties are solid bilateral relations and existential in nature for both of us. We will do whatever we can to share our (common) concerns.

Q: What about trade and investments?
A: You can see a lot of that in agriculture. The Israeli company Netafim is quite active in India, and so is an agriculture company in Israel which the Jain group [of Jalgaon] has invested in. The one of your banks [the State Bank, of India] has a branch in Israel. You have an Israeli company involved in designing and building the Nargol port in Gujarat in association with another Indian company. The Dan group of hotels is investing in a hotel in Bangalore. And you have Sun Pharmaceuticals of India making yet another acquisition in Israel after the Taro acquisition. In the next 5-10 years, more investments will get done.

Q: Yet, given that India remains ever so dependent on imported petroleum, does that set a limit to how much Indo-Israeli ties can grow?
A: I can say with the highest confidence from what I have seen is that India’s foreign policy decision making pragmatic, and based on desire to best serve the nation. No country will ever allow another country the power to exercise a veto on its relationship with a third country. That may have mattered 20 years ago; now it does not matter. Granted natural resource is important in building ties, but I believe even more important are ties of human resources, whether to the brain or to the heart.

Thus Israel offers innovation to India, and we also have shared values (that bind us together); our interaction is even and our blood flows in the same direction.

Q: Does the US have an impact on Indo-Israeli ties, as some people believe?
A: India and Israel’s ties are based on bilateral needs, and it is a stable relationship. It does not depend on any third country. I don’t deny that Israel has a very deep relationship with the US, a relationship that is intertwined in the most genetic way possible. And we view the growth of Indo-US ties as a positive development and the cooperation of any country to help Indo-Israeli ties is welcome.

But our ties are independent of others. The links between Jerusalem and Delhi or Mumbai and Tel Aviv is about us.

Q: How do you look at tourism? We believe it has been growing quite significantly between the two countries.
A: Governments create platforms for interaction, so that people can deal and tackle obstacles. But the government also needs to create rooms in which people can interact. That is where tourism becomes important.

India currently brings the largest number of tourists to Israel from Asia. The number crossed 43,000 last year. But, considering India’s size and also what Israel has to offer, we would like to see this number grow to 4 million in the next few years. To make this happen, we need more airlines flying between these two countries.

Our minister of tourism visited India in August last year – the first ever visit by our country’s tourism minister. And to make this area grow we ned to educate the tour operators about what Israel can offer. We need to get them to package an Israel programme with other country trips like those to Turkey or Jordan.

We believe we will have an FTA [Free Trade Agreement] by the end of this year aand will be having our fourth round of negotiations in a couple of weeks.

Q: How do you view the recent developments in West Asia?
A: I believe this is part of a long-term change that the region is undergoing and dust will settle only after a decade. Its significance goes beyond Israel and the region. The changes taking place are very important to Israel. We live in a tough neighbourhood.

The interview was conducted a few days before the Delhi car blast