During October, External Affairs Minister took major and important visits to various countries, including the visit to Israel. He took a five-day visit to Israel to hold talks as a part of the high-level meetings to further prepare a roadmap to enrich the strategic ties and explore new areas for collaboration between the two countries. This was the first visit by Dr S. Jaishankar as the External Affair Ministers and the third visit to Israel in the last four years. He was received at the airport by Israel’s Ambassador to India Naor Gilon, Chief of Protocol at Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Gil Haskal and India’s Ambassador to Israel Sanjeev Singla.
During the meeting, he stated that “Our two countries share values of democracy and pluralism. We also share some of our guiding civilizational philosophies: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in India, or the world is one family, and Tikun Olam in Israel, or heal the world. We also share similar challenges to our society from radicalism and terrorism, apart from many other emerging developments on the geopolitical landscape.”
He held talks with leading academics from all over Israel, business community leaders and interacting with the Indian Jewish community. He also visited places of historical significance to India, demonstrating its long-term presence in the region and constructive role played in shaping the history of the region.
The relationship between the two countries grew when diplomatic relations were established back in 1992. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a visit to Israel in July 2017, making him the first Indian Prime Minister to visit a Jewish country. According to the data by the Indian Foreign Ministry, bilateral trade has gone up to $5 billion in 2020-2021. India-Israel cooperation has further flourished into other sectors as well including defence, IT, telecom. Major exports from India to Israel include precious stones and metals, chemical products and textiles and textile articles, the Indian foreign ministry note said whereas major imports by India from Israel include precious stones and metals, chemicals and mineral products, base metals and machinery and transport equipment. India is the largest buyer of Israel’s military hardware, and the latter has been supplying various weapon systems, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles over the last few years. Given the high coordination between the two countries, high visits such as the above will further lead to better strategizing between the two countries.
