Withdraw From New Bilateral Investment Treaty With Israel, Rights Groups And Citizens Urge Indian Govt

The letter also demanded that the Indian government suspend the existing labour agreement that facilitates the replacement of Palestinian workers.

In this image released on Sept. 8, 2025, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam, Finance Minister of Israel Bezalel Smotrich and others during the signing ceremony of Bilateral Investment Agreement between India and Israel, in New Delhi. Photo: PIB via PTI

Condemning the recently-inked India-Israel Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and terming it a clear sign of India’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, the occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, nearly 100 rights organisations and individuals have urged the Indian government to withdraw from the treaty and cancel all defence cooperation and arms trade with Israel.

According to India’s Ministry of Finance, the Bilateral Investment Treaty is expected to “boost investments, provide greater certainty and protection for investors, facilitating the growth of trade and mutual investments by ensuring a minimum standard of treatment, and an independent dispute resolution mechanism through arbitration”. It was signed by union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, on September 8.

‘Treaty tantamount to endorsing apartheid, genocide’

However, the treaty is tantamount to endorsing apartheid and supporting Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, said rights groups in a letter to the Indian government on September 13.

The letter, signed by organisations including the All India Youth Federation, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Centre for Financial Accountability, Communist Party of India (ML), activists, research scholars and retired professors, noted that the treaty “promotes and protects private capital flows even as Israel continues its military siege and destruction of Gaza”.

“The treaty deepens economic ties with a regime that has long denied Palestinians the right to self-determination, entrenched occupation, and created a system of racial segregation through displacement and violence,” the letter read.

“Gaza has been reduced to rubble, its people, especially children, driven to hunger and denied medical aid. Meanwhile, occupation and attacks on the West Bank continue unabated.”

India’s ties with Israel, especially in defence cooperation, are “inseparable from Israel’s assault on Palestine” and the United States has sustained Israel’s military dominance through unconditional “political, financial, and military support”, the letter read.

Moreover, India has also intensified its defence trade with Israel in the last two years, becoming its single largest arms buyer while also exporting defence and surveillance technology, the letter read.

“It has pressed ahead with a bilateral labour framework under which Indian workers are sent to Israel to replace Palestinians excluded from the labour market. This policy actively reinforces Israel’s attempt to erase Palestinian labour, a form of economic occupation that enforces apartheid through displacement,” the letter read.

In November 2023, India and Israel signed a Framework Agreement for the temporary employment of Indian workers in the construction and nursing sectors in Israel. As of July this year, 6,774 Indian workers went to Israel for work under this agreement, the union government said in Parliament recently.

‘Withdraw from treaty’

The letter also came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “duplicity” in stances.

“India is deliberately choosing war, occupation, and apartheid over peace, self-determination, and equality. Its duplicity is evident: while Prime Minister Modi proclaims “this is not a time for war” on global platforms, his government supports a regime waging war against an occupied people. While claiming “strategic autonomy,” India continues to collaborate with countries that arm Israel,” the letter read.

Supporting Israel today means supporting apartheid, occupation, racial segregation, and imperial domination, per the letter.

“It means endorsing an international order where the oppressed are subjugated to the interests of private capital and military power.”

This goes against India’s historical legacy and support of Palestine in the 1980s, the letter read. India was among the first to recognise Palestine in 1988, a support that stemmed from India’s own anti-colonial struggle and commitment to justice for all peoples, it added.

The letter therefore demanded that India withdraw from the Bilateral Investment Treaty with Israel and that the government of India cancel all defence cooperation and arms trade with Israel. It also urged the government to suspend the labour agreement that facilitates the replacement of Palestinian workers, as well as end all economic and diplomatic ties with Israel until it complies with international law and ends the occupation of Palestine and Gaza.

It also called on the Indian government to “reaffirm unconditional support for Palestinian self-determination in all bilateral relations and within the United Nations”.

“The resilience of Palestinians in the face of occupation inspires movements everywhere resisting exploitation and domination. Their struggle is not a distant one; it is our struggle too,” the letter said.

This article was originally published in The Wire, and you can read here.