{"id":133063,"date":"2026-05-27T10:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/133063\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:49:11","slug":"civilizational-partners-delegation-says-india-israel-ties-to-get-stronger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/133063\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Civilizational partners:\u2019 Delegation says India-Israel ties to get stronger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The partnership between India and Israel<\/a> is fortified by shared problems, mentalities, and opportunities, and the friendship between the two nations is only set to grow in the future, a group of Indian political figures, entrepreneurs, activists, influencers, journalists, and commentators told The Jerusalem Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking during a visit to Israel earlier this month, the group, an Indian delegation hosted by the Israel-India Friendship Club (IIFC), said they were proud of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s February visit to Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrime Minister Modi and\u00a0Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu<\/a>, what they cemented during this visit was that we are civilizational partners,\u201d said Vijeth Umbalagodu Thirthamallesh, an international collaborations strategist for an Indian Member of Parliament.\u00a0\u201cI really love that the prime minister [Modi] very categorically and clearly mentioned here that India stands with Israel today, tomorrow, and for a long time to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Modi\u2019s visit, he and Netanyahu oversaw the signing of 16 economic, security, and diplomatic agreements<\/a> between the two countries. Among the agreements signed was one allowing 50,000 Indian workers to come to Israel over the next five years. Modi also became the first-ever recipient of the Knesset Medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat [the visit] showed to the world was that we find each other as natural partners for humanity, natural partners in technology, wherein we are very open as a brother nation,\u201d Thirthamallesh added.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Israel-India Friendship Club with Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli. May, 2026. (credit: Israel-India Friendship Club)<\/p>\n

One of the common topics that came up among the delegates was India\u2019s security concerns, particularly in relation to Pakistan, which they compared to Israel\u2019s fight against regional terror groups.<\/p>\n

Many also expressed empathy with the victims of Palestinian terrorism in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen October 7 happened<\/a>, I was hurt, I was deeply shattered,\u201d Nikhil Chandwani told the Post.<\/p>\n

Chandwani has around two million followers on Instagram and is the founder of Sindhi Hindu, an organization that says it has successfully evacuated and rehabilitated over 9,000 persecuted Hindu and Sikh minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

He went on to lament what he described as a \u201cmuted response\u201d to the Hamas-led massacres from the international media, saying it quickly engaged in \u201cwhat-aboutism\u201d directed at Israel.<\/p>\n

India, Israel both ‘understand terrorism,’ Indian delegation member says<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia understands terrorism. Israel understands terrorism,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is perhaps why Modi and Netanyahu came together and signed a lot of pacts. We now have joint defense pacts. Going forward, I feel this will only increase, only rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to agreements related to the defense sector, delegates also pointed to agriculture as a key area of cooperation between Israel and India.<\/p>\n

Arushi Sana, a renewable energy entrepreneur who represented India at COP28<\/a>, remarked that despite being in the Middle East and having large desert areas, Israeli technological innovations had \u201cdone wonders\u201d for its agricultural industry.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Israel-India Friendship Club delegation. May 2026. (credit: Israel-India Friendship Club)<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia is home to the world\u2019s largest population, so for us, food security is everything,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to be able to feed all of our people. Our farming techniques are already very good, but I think they can also be a little more climate smart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sana, the co-founder of Santerra Industries, a company that manufactures bio-pellets from agricultural waste as a renewable alternative to coal, pointed to agricultural innovation as an area where India could learn from Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a huge desert area there in the western part of our country, in Rajasthan, so it would be nice to start being able to use that land for agriculture,\u201d she remarked.<\/p>\n

Kavya Kriti, an Indian geopolitical analyst, social media influencer, and journalist, highlighted the commonalities between India and Israel, saying the two countries are \u201cnatural allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia and Israel, culturally we are two very ancient civilizations,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re facing a similar enemy, and this is why we always see that India is always clear and very vocal in its support for what Israel is going through and what the Jewish people are going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, though, that she felt there should be more cultural exchange between the two nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see a lot of Israelis in India, but I don\u2019t nearly see enough people like me coming over and experiencing Israel,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, if we could just facilitate that, that would really help with combating the narratives that are said about Israel in the mainstream [discourse] right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolstering the India-Israel ‘people-to-people connections’<\/p>\n

Paushali Lass, an Indian-German geopolitical consultant and fellow of the IIFC, said she was dedicated to building these \u201cpeople-to-people connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lass noted that she had traveled to Israel nine times since the October 7 massacre and that combating misinformation about the Jewish state was a priority in her work. Part of her strategy, she said, is mobilizing the masses in India.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can do deals on a governmental level, but unless you bring the people together, there\u2019s no way for barriers to fall,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have the world\u2019s biggest democracy, the world\u2019s biggest population [in India]. Israel needs to get more and more people to connect with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strengthening connections and alliances, not just between India and Israel but also between the broader Jewish and Indian diasporas around the world, is one of the missions of the IIFC, the organization\u2019s co-founder, Dan, told the Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mission behind this is basically that we feel like we don\u2019t have a lot of friends. In Western Europe, that increasingly feels true,\u201d he said. \u201cBut actually, we have what I call a \u2018sleeping giant friend\u2019 in India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan asked not to be identified by his last name out of concern for reprisal and doxxing outside Israel.<\/p>\n

He went on to say that India was unique in that, in addition to having a massive population, it has a history without antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Dan added that India did not have any \u201cblood libel baggage\u201d and, being majority Hindu, the people there lacked a theological basis for pre-developed prejudices against Jews.<\/p>\n

He added that the commonalities between Israel and India, as well as the lack of historical hatred for Jews in the South Asian country, presented an opportunity for mutual benefit, cooperation, and an ability to relate to each other\u2019s struggles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much that we have in common in terms of our history,\u201d he said, adding that India could be part of the answer in turning the public relations tide. \u201cIf there\u2019s a billion people who potentially love us, if we convert even a small amount of that, that\u2019s a game changer for Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the IIFC delegation’s visit to Israel, participants were taken around the country, including to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and areas near the Gaza border.<\/p>\n

They also met with Israeli leaders, such as Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, and visited prominent sites, including Jerusalem’s Old City, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, and the site of the October 7, 2023, Nova music festival massacre.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the IIFC’s work, visit its website here: https:\/\/www.iifc.io\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The partnership between India and Israel is fortified by shared problems, mentalities, and opportunities, and the friendship between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[41,44402,989,44401,2254,1411,138,18592,9131,29995,37,502,49,44400,650,1413],"class_list":["post-133063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-cop28","tag-diplomacy","tag-entrepreneur","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas","tag-india","tag-india-israel-relations","tag-indian","tag-influencer","tag-israel","tag-jews","tag-middle-east","tag-narenda-modi","tag-pakistan","tag-the-october-7-massacre"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116646154259790857","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}