A bilateral investment agreement was signed recently by India and Israel, with Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich even travelling to New Delhi for it.
However, notably, Smotrich is banned from entering the UK for inciting violence in the West Bank. During the signing ceremony, Smotrich emphasised the need for greater collaboration between the two nations in the fields of cybersecurity, defence, innovation, and high-technology sectors.
His Indian counterpart, Nirmala Sitharaman, expressed condolences for a terrorist attack in Israel that had occurred the same day, framing the two nations as united by a shared threat of terrorism.
Israel and India trade deal: rooted in British colonial rule
A new report titled Profit & Genocide, released on Thursday by India’s Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), lays bare the depth of an alliance between the two nations.
This partnership marks a significant shift for India, which was the first non-Arab country to recognise Palestine in 1988. That historic stance was rooted in a shared experience of British colonial rule. India only recognised Israel in 1992.
The authors of the CFA report directly attributed its formation to the impetus provided by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s work, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide. Albanese’s report named corporations like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon for their direct complicity in the ongoing assault on Gaza. Building on this premise, the CFA charts out Indian capital flows that are central to what Albanese terms the “economy of genocide”.
Indian capital in Israel: the ‘economy of genocide’
Defence and technology sectors dominate Indian investments and joint ventures in Israel. The report lists Indian investments and joint ventures in Israel amounting to at least $5.2bn. Adani Group’s joint venture with Elbit Systems produces Hermes 900 drones, the very models used for surveillance and strikes in Gaza.
Adani also holds a majority stake in the strategically vital Haifa Port. Another major player, the public sector entity Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) entered into three major missile system contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries between 2017 and 2018, collectively worth over $3.4bn.
The Reliance conglomerate is also deeply involved, with investments including $25m in the Jerusalem Incubator in 2017 and funding for the tech firm Neolync, alongside an undisclosed joint venture with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.
Silencing criticism
The publication of this report is an act of defiance, coming amidst a well-documented campaign by the Adani Group to suppress critical press through legal threats and the intimidation of Indian journalists.
In the UK too, following Albanese’s report, 23 UK groups called for legal action against companies like BAE Systems, BP, JCB and Barclays for their role in n human rights violations against the Palestinian people.
On the other hand, UK State and Institutions are embedded with Israel. The Canary previously reportedLondon’s Science Museum even hosted a private cocktail event for the Adani Group. This highlights how money made from oppression abroad is still celebrated by powerful UK institutions, turning profit from suffering into something respectable at home.
Israel’s surveillance industry grows
A landmark $2bn deal in 2017 between Indian state with Israel’s NSO Group for the Pegasus spyware demonstrated how such commercial transactions are far from neutral as they have directly enabled political repression within India itself. The book, Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India, showed Indian Prime Minister Modi’s 2017 Israel visit coincided with Pegasus spyware attacks on Indian activists.
Scholars like Achin Vanaik explain this India- Israel partnership is underpinned by a shared political narrative where Israeli technology and methods provide the tools for the “corporatisation process” in India.
Domestically, the main opposition, the Indian National Congress (INC), has offered a feeble challenge, providing the Modi government with little resistance. In fact, it was a Congress government under Indira Gandhi that established India’s external intelligence agency, RAW, in 1968, partly modeled on the CIA, and soon after set-up secret ties with Israel’s Mossad.
Furthermore, Gandhi’s declaration of the Emergency in 1975, a period of democratic subversion, helped create conditions for the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement that now fully embraces Israel.
In contrast, India’s leftist parties, although flailing in the face of right-wing nationalism like their counterparts in the UK, have unequivocally condemned the “ongoing genocidal war” in a joint statement.
The bigger picture: trade and corporate power
This deepening Israel partnership is part of a broader pattern of India’s foreign economic policy, which has recently prioritised rapid free trade agreements (FTAs) with the EU and UK – deals that, like the alignment with Israel, are highly favourable to corporate interests above all else.
UK-based campaign group Global Justice Now is concerned that the UK is pushing India to weaken its patent laws, jeopardising the production of low-cost generic medicines.
India must stand up to this pressure, and also against UK pressure to drop its desired reforms of Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions. Otherwise, there is a real risk of corporations being granted powers to sue both governments in secret tribunals.
This article was originally published in Canary Media Ltd, and you can read here.
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