As Israel marks its 78th Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut), this occasion transcends celebration. It is an invitation to reflect on one of the most remarkable national journeys in modern history: how a small state, born into scarcity and surrounded by adversity, transformed itself within decades into a global leader in technology, agricultural innovation, cybersecurity, and high-performance defense capability. The principle that has driven this transformation-innovation out of necessity-is not merely an Israeli story. For developing nations like Nepal, it is a blueprint.

A Friendship Rooted in History

The Nepal-Israel relationship is among the oldest and most consistent bilateral partnerships in South Asia. On June 1, 1960, Nepal formally established full diplomatic ties with Israel-making it the first South Asian nation to do so, and a pioneer among developing nations at a time when much of the world had not yet extended recognition to the Jewish state.

This historic decision was the product of two courageous leaders: David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, and B.P. Koirala, Nepal’s first democratically elected Prime Minister. Prime Minister Koirala’s official visit to Israel in 1960-undertaken at a moment when many governments had not only withheld recognition but actively opposed Israel’s existence-laid the moral and diplomatic foundation of a friendship that has endured across generations.

The relationship survived and deepened even through Nepal’s political transitions. King Mahendra, who came to power after overthrowing Koirala’s democratic government, paid a state visit to Israel in September 1963, meeting Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and maintaining his predecessor’s commitment to the partnership. Crown Prince Birendra undertook a two-week study visit to Israel in 1968. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan visited Nepal in April 1979. Following the restoration of democracy in 1990, senior Nepali officials continued the tradition of high-level engagement: Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala paid an official visit in June 1993, and Foreign Minister Sahana Pradhan met with Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni, President Shimon Peres, and other senior officials in July 2007-the first-ever visit by a Nepali Foreign Minister to Israel.

Israel responded to Nepal’s early confidence by opening its embassy in Kathmandu in March 1961. Nepal institutionalized its own commitment by establishing its embassy in Tel Aviv on August 13, 2007.

This is not a friendship of convenience. It is a partnership built on historical boldness, shared humanitarian values, and more than six decades of tangible collaboration.

A New Political Moment in Nepal

Nepal finds itself at a consequential political juncture. The formation of a new government-with a near-supermajority and a notably strong representation of younger leadership-has created an opportunity to redefine the country’s foreign policy priorities. Prime Minister Balen Shah’s early diplomatic engagements, including a collective meeting with ambassadors from across the world, sent a clear and purposeful message: “Help us build Nepal.“

This is a decisive shift. Nepal’s diplomatic posture is evolving from passive multilateralism toward active, results-oriented engagement. Ambassadors expressed genuine enthusiasm for deepening ties. In this environment, Israel-a nation whose entire national trajectory has been defined by converting constraint into competitive advantage-stands as one of Nepal’s most strategically valuable partners.

The Israeli Model: Lessons for a Landlocked Nation

Israel’s development story offers a compelling framework precisely because its starting conditions were, in many ways, far more challenging than Nepal’s. Geographically small, resource-scarce, and in a perpetual security environment, Israel chose to invest in knowledge, research, and human capital rather than lament its limitations. The result: a nation that today leads the world in per-capita startup density, agricultural innovation, water technology, and cybersecurity-and exports its expertise globally.

There is also a geographic poetry to this friendship that should not be lost. Nepal is home to Mount Everest-at more than 8,000 meters, the highest point on Earth. Israel contains the Dead Sea-the lowest point on Earth, nearly 430 meters below sea level. From the highest peak to the lowest basin, two small nations at the geographic extremes of our world have found in each other something rare: genuine mutual respect and shared purpose.

For Nepal-a landlocked country with complex terrain, rich but underutilized natural resources, and a large young population-the Israeli experience offers not abstract inspiration but concrete, transferable lessons.

Agriculture: The Most Urgent Frontier

Of all the areas where Israel-Nepal cooperation could yield transformational results, agriculture is perhaps the most pressing.

Nepal is a country where more than 60 percent of the population remains engaged in farming, yet the nation continues to depend on food imports for basic commodities. Agriculture is subsistence, not industry-labor-intensive but low-yield, rainfall-dependent and therefore vulnerable, and increasingly unattractive to a younger generation migrating abroad in record numbers.

Israel, by contrast, has built a global agricultural powerhouse with just 3 percent of its workforce farming largely desert terrain. Israeli agricultural science-drip irrigation (pioneered in the 1960s), precision farming, greenhouse technology, advanced seed genetics, and AI-assisted crop management-has enabled Israeli producers to export produce to European markets worth billions of dollars annually.

The contrast is stark and instructive. Nepal farms with 60 percent of its people and still cannot feed itself. Israel farms with 3 percent and exports to the world. This gap is not a matter of land quality or rainfall. It is a matter of technology, policy, and institutional will.

Thousands of young Nepalis have traveled to Israel through the “Learn and Earn” program, a joint initiative between Israel’s Embassy and Previously with Sana Kisan Bikas Bank Ltd., which slected participants from among the 1 Million member families of Small Farmers Agricultural Cooperative Ltd. across 68 districts. Since 2013, hundreds of students annually received hands-on training in Israeli agricultural fields. Many have returned as role models in their communities, demonstrating what modern farming can look like.

Yet the tragedy is that this knowledge largely remains individual and informal. There is no national policy framework to scale Israeli agricultural methods across Nepal’s farming sector. No systematic government program to adapt drip irrigation to Nepal’s geography. No institutional initiative to bring greenhouse cultivation to Nepal’s fertile hills at the scale the opportunity demands.

Israel’s experience has proven definitively: agricultural success is not a function of the number of farmers, but of the quality of technology deployed. It is time Nepal internalized that lesson at the national policy level

A Broader Partnership: Training, Technology, and People

The depth of Israel’s investment in Nepal extends well beyond agriculture. Through MASHAV-Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation-more than 3,500 Nepali professionals have been trained in various fields in Israel to date. On average, 35 officials from government and non-governmental backgrounds travel to Israel annually for specialized training, while Israeli experts conduct parallel programs inside Nepal.

Thousands of Nepali women serve as caregivers in Israel, where they are widely recognized for their dedication and professional care. Around 10,000 Israeli travelers visit Nepal each year, drawn by its mountains, its culture, and a deep affection that has made Nepal something of a rite of passage for young Israelis. These people-to-people connections form the living tissue of the bilateral relationship-less visible than diplomatic communiqués, but far more durable.

When Nepal was struck by the devastating earthquake of 2015, Israel’s response was swift and substantial. Approximately 200 Israeli doctors and a full medical team arrived within 36 to 48 hours. Israeli search-and-rescue teams were deployed to assist in the immediate aftermath. This was not the response of a distant diplomatic partner-it was the response of a friend.

Technology, Startups, and Human Capital

Israel’s second great lesson for Nepal is the power of systematically investing in human capital and building ecosystems for entrepreneurship. Israel did not discover oil. It cultivated minds.

Nepal has a young and increasingly educated population, a growing IT sector, and a diaspora with global exposure and skills. What it lacks is the institutional scaffolding-incubators, risk capital, regulatory support for early-stage companies-that Israel built deliberately over decades. A national startup ecosystem inspired by Israeli principles, adapted to Nepal’s context, could stem the brain drain, create domestic employment, and position Nepal as a regional digital services hub.

Water Management: Rethinking an Abundant Resource

Nepal’s relationship with water is paradoxical. The country is among the world’s richest in freshwater resources, yet urban areas face severe shortages and rural agriculture remains hostage to seasonal monsoons. The problem is not scarcity-it is mismanagement.

Israel solved the opposite problem: it made water go further than anyone thought possible. Its technologies for wastewater treatment, smart distribution networks, and water recycling have applications far beyond arid environments. For Nepal, particularly in the Kathmandu Valley where groundwater depletion accelerates year by year, adopting Israeli water management frameworks could offer durable, long-term solutions.

Cybersecurity and Digital Governance

As Nepal accelerates its digital transition-banking, public services, and government records increasingly moving online-the risks of that transition are growing in parallel. Nepal’s cyber infrastructure remains underprepared for the threats it faces.

Israel is among the world’s foremost cybersecurity nations. A structured cooperation agreement in this domain would serve two purposes: securing Nepal’s digital public infrastructure, and creating a new generation of Nepali cybersecurity professionals capable of competing in global labor markets and generating foreign exchange earnings.

The Kibbutz Model and Nepal’s Cooperative Tradition

Nepal has a long and culturally embedded tradition of cooperative organization. However, Nepal’s cooperative sector suffers from weak governance, limited transparency, and inadequate adoption of technology. Israel’s Kibbutz and Moshav models-which have achieved remarkable economic efficiency through collective resource management, modern agricultural practices, and community-based enterprise-offer a compelling template for revitalizing this sector. Applied thoughtfully, this model could strengthen rural economies and connect small farmers and entrepreneurs to international markets.

Solidarity in Crisis: October 7 and Its Aftermath

The depth of Nepal-Israel relations was tested-and affirmed-in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Among the victims were Nepali agricultural students working on Israeli farms; ten young Nepalis lost their lives. The Israeli government’s swift, compassionate, and coordinated response in assisting Nepali nationals-their evacuation, safety, and the repatriation of the fallen-demonstrated that this bilateral relationship is not merely transactional. It is human.

Nepal’s government condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with Israel. That reciprocity of empathy, in a moment of profound grief, reflects the genuine character of the bond between the two peoples.

A Personal Commitment to This Partnership

I have invested considerable personal effort in advancing Nepal-Israel relations. In 2017, I had the rare privilege of a brief encounter with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-a moment that deepened my conviction about what this partnership could mean for Nepal’s future. In October 2022, serving as a member of the executive committee and coordinator of the Social Development Committee of Dakshinkali Municipality, I held a formal meeting with Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, then Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem-an engagement aimed at exploring concrete avenues for local government level cooperation.

Since 2017, I have engaged in multiple political and diplomatic discussions, seeking to bring Israeli technologies and development models to Nepal in tangible ways. While institutional barriers and political circumstances have thus far prevented these efforts from bearing full fruit, I remain committed-and optimistic-that this groundwork will yield results in the near future.

A Relationship That Stands on Two Legs

Nepal-Israel relationship that stands on two legs:The first is the bilateral leg-strong, warm, and productive, encompassing agriculture, health, education, technology, disaster response, and people-to-people ties. The second is the multilateral leg-Nepal’s positions in the United Nations and other international forums-which has remained deeply inconsistent with the spirit of the bilateral friendship.

There has been no change in Nepal’s policy of voting against Israel. Nepal’s declared principles of non-alignment, sovereignty, and peaceful coexistence are admirable-but they demand consistent application. A foreign policy that invokes non-alignment to vote against Israel while taking sides in other comparable disputes is not non-alignment. It is selective alignment dressed in neutral language.

The path forward is neither blind support nor reflexive opposition. It is consistency. If Nepal cannot vote with Israel on a given issue in UN, it can at least abstain-as the principles of non-alignment would logically suggest. Standing on two legs requires balance. For too long, Nepal has stood on one.

Conclusion: Turning Constraint into Capability

Israel’s extraordinary journey from a struggling new state to a global innovation leader was not the product of luck or geography. It was the product of a clear national philosophy: limitations are not obstacles-they are raw material from which solutions are built. Investment in education, commitment to research, trust in human capital, and results-oriented governance made the difference.

There is a deeper resonance to this friendship worth reflecting on. Both Nepal and Israel are small nations surrounded by large neighbors, with identities they have fought hard to preserve and cultures they are fiercely proud of. As one Israeli diplomat observed, when Nepalis and Israelis look at each other, they see something of themselves-small peoples, proud and resilient, determined to carve a meaningful place in the world on their own terms.

Nepal stands at a crossroads. It has a new government with a mandate for change, a 78-year friendship with one of the world’s most innovative nations, and a generation of young people ready to build something new. Now, The question is whether political leadership will rise to match that potential with policy, investment, and strategic clarity-and whether Nepal’s foreign policy will finally reflect the same warmth in Geneva and New York that it demonstrates in Kathmandu.

The time for treating the Nepal-Israel relationship as a diplomatic formality has passed. This partnership-rooted in history, deepened by human solidarity, and rich with practical possibility-deserves to be elevated into a genuine engine of Nepal’s development. “Innovation out of necessity” built modern Israel. With the right choices, it can help build modern Nepal too.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)