Dr. Lauren Dagan Amos is a researcher specializing in India’s foreign and security policy, with a regional focus on the Indo-Pacific. She is a fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Dagan Amos is a member of the Deborah Forum, which promotes women in Israel’s foreign and defense policy community.

As a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, New Delhi historically maintained a pro-Palestine stance and avoided rigid alignment with Israel. Since 2014, however, under the BJP-led government, India’s foreign policy has shifted dramatically, increasingly delinking ‘Israel’ from ‘Palestine.’ What is your assessment of this transformation?

India’s shift from a strongly guarded model of strategic autonomy to an open and deep strategic partnership with Israel marks one of the most significant transformations in its foreign policy over the past decade. Historically, India tried to balance its engagement with Israel and its longstanding support for the Palestinian cause. This was reflected in its early recognition of the State of Palestine in 1988 and in the broader logic that India’s Israel policy could not be separated from the Palestinian question. That older approach was rooted in anti-colonial solidarity, domestic political sensitivities, and India’s wider relations with the Arab world. As my doctoral research on India’s policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shows, this linkage shaped Indian policy for decades.

Under Narendra Modi, however, India has moved decisively toward what many scholars describe as de-hyphenation: the treatment of Israel and Palestine as two separate policy tracks rather than as a single diplomatic equation. In practical terms, this means that India no longer allows the Palestinian issue to function as a veto on the expansion of ties with Israel. This change is fundamentally pragmatic. It reflects converging geopolitical, technological, and security interests. Israel has become highly valuable to India in defence procurement, intelligence, agriculture, water management, innovation, and advanced technology. At the same time, both governments increasingly frame themselves as democracies confronting persistent terrorism, regional instability, and what they perceive as insufficient international understanding of their security dilemmas.

That said, India has not completely abandoned its traditional language. It still reiterates support for a two-state solution, continues to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and remains attentive to the diplomatic costs of appearing to fully abandon the Palestinian cause, particularly in relation to the Global South and domestic opposition criticism. But the hierarchy of priorities has clearly changed. The central point is that Palestine is no longer the organizing principle of India’s Israel policy. The relationship with Israel has acquired autonomous strategic value.

In his recent address at the Knesset, Prime........

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