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 Minister Narendra Modi declared, “India stands with Israel, firmly, with full conviction, in this moment, and beyond.” On his first visit in 2017, he paid homage at the grave of Theodor Herzl, regarded as the founding father of Zionism. Observers argue this pro-Israel tilt became sharper after the BJP assumed power in 2014. Is this shift primarily party-driven, or an inevitable geopolitical reality shaped by the Indo-Pacific context? Your thoughts?

The public and accelerated embrace of Israel has certainly become far more visible under the BJP and Narendra Modi, but it would be a mistake to explain the shift purely through party ideology. The BJP has undeniably supplied the political confidence, the symbolism, and the willingness to break with older diplomatic inhibitions. Modi’s personal rapport with Netanyahu also matters. However, the deeper driver is geopolitical reality.

India today sees the Middle East not as a distant or secondary arena, but increasingly as an extension of its wider Indo-Pacific and global strategy. The region is critical for India’s energy security, trade routes, diaspora protection, maritime access, and connectivity ambitions. Within that evolving strategic geography, Israel is valuable not only in bilateral terms but as part of a larger architecture connecting South Asia, the Gulf, the Mediterranean, and Europe. This is why frameworks such as IMEC and I2U2 matter so much: they show that India’s relationship with Israel is embedded in a broader geoeconomic and strategic reordering.

There is also a hard security dimension. Israel has become a critical defence and technology partner for India, especially as New Delhi seeks diversification, modernisation, and greater access to high-end systems and dual-use innovation. In addition, both countries share a narrative of being democracies confronting terrorism and hostile regional environments. Modi made this explicit when he drew parallels between the October 7 attacks and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and when he reaffirmed a doctrine of zero tolerance toward terrorism.

At the same time, domestic politics cannot be ignored. The opposition in India, particularly the Congress Party, has criticised this policy for weakening India’s traditional pro-Palestinian position and for damaging its standing in the Global South. So yes, there is a partisan and ideological layer. But the larger truth is that the shift is driven by converging interests and structural changes in the international system. The BJP did not invent the logic of closer India-Israel ties; it normalised it, accelerated it, and made it publicly defensible.

The transformation is not merely a partisan departure. It reflects a deeper recalibration of Indian foreign policy in response to new geopolitical realities. Under Modi, India has effectively removed the historical constraints that once tied Israel policy to the Palestinian issue and has elevated the India-Israel partnership into a strategic relationship with regional and extra-regional significance.

During Modi’s visit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a geopolitical framework he termed the “Hexagon of Alliances.” The concept envisions a bloc of nations united by shared realities, challenges, and goals against radical forces, with India positioned as a core member. As an expert on Indo-Israel relations, how do you interpret this proposal?

I would be careful not to describe this as a formal bloc in the classical alliance sense, because India remains deeply cautious about rigid alliance structures. A more accurate formulation is that India and Israel are participating in a broader pattern of minilateral and networked strategic cooperation among states that share overlapping concerns about security, technology, connectivity, and regional instability.

During the visit, Prime Minister Netanyahu did not formally present a doctrine of a “hexagon” or fixed alliance architecture. What he did emphasise was that cooperation between Israel and India could serve as an “enormous multiplier.” That language is important because it reflects an understanding of the relationship not merely as bilateral, but as part of a wider geopolitical framework in which like-minded states pool strategic advantages. In this sense, India and Israel are helping to build a flexible democratic network that stretches from the Indo-Pacific to the Mediterranean.

This logic becomes clearer when one looks at institutional expressions such as I2U2 and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC. Within these frameworks, Israel is not simply another bilateral partner for India. It functions as a strategic and technological gateway to the Mediterranean and Europe. Conversely, India offers Israel scale, markets, demographic depth, and a strategic connection to the Indo-Pacific. What emerges is not a treaty-based alliance, but a form of minilateralism: smaller, purpose-driven partnerships designed to generate stability, innovation, deterrence, and connectivity in a period when older regional orders are under strain.

So the underlying idea is real, but it should be described analytically as networked strategic convergence rather than as a formal ideological bloc.

The Iranian frigate IRIS Dena docked at Visakhapatnam shortly before being sunk, after joint naval drills with the Indian Navy. The incident signaled the widening scope of U.S.–Israeli operations against Iran, extending beyond West Asia. New Delhi has so far refrained from issuing a formal statement. At the Raisina Dialogue, Iran’s deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh stressed, “We attach great importance to Iran–India relations.” Observers suggest the conflict is testing India’s balance between Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran. How do you assess this position?

India is in a genuinely difficult position, but I would not describe its response as confusion or passivity. I would describe it as calibrated ambiguity. The IRIS Dena had just participated in the MILAN 2026 exercise off Visakhapatnam and was then sunk by a U.S. submarine near Sri Lanka, roughly 19 nautical miles off Galle, which clearly signalled that the U.S.-Iran war had spilt beyond West Asia into the wider Indian Ocean space. At the same time, India has not been entirely silent on the broader crisis: New Delhi has publicly expressed deep concern, urged restraint, and emphasised dialogue and diplomacy, while very carefully avoiding any direct condemnation of Washington or Tel Aviv over the Dena incident itself. That is a classic Indian response when core interests pull in different directions.

In light of the deepening India–Israel partnership, what lessons might Sri Lanka, as an immediate neighbor, draw from this experience? Colombo has historically maintained a cautious distance from Israel under the principles of non-alignment, neutrality, and balance. How do you view the relevance of these traditions in shaping Sri Lanka’s future approach?

In my view, Sri Lanka should undertake a serious reassessment of its national interests and of which partnerships can generate tangible strategic value. The India-Israel case is instructive precisely because it shows that relations with Israel need not remain trapped within older ideological frameworks. Israel has demonstrated its value to India in highly practical terms: defence cooperation, technology, agriculture, water management, innovation, and intelligence. If that partnership has become strategically useful for a major regional power like India, there is every reason for Sri Lanka to consider whether a more open and pragmatic relationship with Israel could also serve its own national interests.

I do not think Sri Lanka today faces a compelling strategic reason to keep Israel at arm’s length. The older language of non-alignment, neutrality, and balance still has symbolic value, but it should not become a constraint that prevents Colombo from pursuing beneficial partnerships. In the current international environment, foreign policy is judged less by ideological consistency and more by a state’s ability to secure economic opportunities, technological access, security cooperation, and diplomatic flexibility. Deepening ties with Israel would not necessarily mean abandoning balance; rather, it could reflect a more mature and interest-based diplomacy.

There is also a wider geopolitical logic here. Since India itself has already normalised and deepened its partnership with Israel, Sri Lanka would not be acting outside the emerging regional pattern. On the contrary, closer engagement with Israel could help Colombo diversify its external relations and potentially strengthen its integration with Western states and broader technology-oriented networks. For a country like Sri Lanka, the question should not be whether older foreign policy traditions are emotionally comforting, but whether they still produce strategic advantage. If they do not, then adaptation is necessary.

This article was published at TCSS

© Eurasia Review