Israel and India have been closely cooperating for several years in military defense, particularly in technological areas associated with conventional weapons and unmanned air vehicles.
India is now exploiting some of the defense technology and know-how acquired through this relationship in its deepening conflict with Pakistan. Sources reveal that India also intends to use its access to images from sophisticated Israeli spy satellites to ensure it will prevail in any hostilities with its regional rival.
The thriving Indo-Israeli defense-research relationship has become particularly sensitive in light of the emergence of India and Pakistan as unstable nuclear powers. Five years ago, when Pakistan prepared to its initial nuclear test, Islamabad feared that its test site would come under aerial attack by Indian and Israeli aircraft flying out of Indian airfields.
The US Department of State eventually confirmed that the two countries were indeed preparing a preemptive strike against the Pakistanis.
Soon after, Egyptian and Pakistani newspapers cited Arab intelligence sources who said that while India conducted five atomic tests in May, 1998, “one or more” of the detonated weapons was Israeli. The sources explained, “New Delhi tested the nuclear bombs as a favor to its Israeli partners.”
At India’s insistence, little has been publicized about the military alliance between these two most technologically advanced countries in the vast region stretching from the Mediterranean to the Straits of Malacca. New Delhi believes the secrecy is necessary because — with the world’s second-largest Muslim population and with more than 1 million expatriate workers in the Arab world — word of the relationship could create political instability both internally and externally. With Iran and the Gulf as its main suppliers of oil, India also does not want to risk alienating its primary sources of energy.
The political leadership of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata (Indian People’s) Party, or BJP, is largely responsible for strengthening Indo-Israeli ties. The pro-Hindu BJP and its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, never hid their pro-Israel bias and anti-Arab prejudice.
India shares many strategic interests with Israel. An increasing number of influential Indians are arguing that their country’s foreign policy should be guided by national interest, not by sentiment or sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Israel and India have set up joint projects in several defense-research areas, including guidance technology, special materials and electronic warfare.
India Today, an English-language daily published in Bombay, reports that cooperation in recent years has been particularly strong in intelligence technology, with Israeli signals-gathering equipment being fitted onto Indian Boeing 707 aircraft. The newspaper says there has also been covert Indo-Israeli cooperation in nuclear and missile technology for at least two decades.
India’s leading defense scientist, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim who has become a national hero after the recent series of nuclear tests, visited Israel in 1996 and 1997. Similarly, several key Israeli scientists have been to India.
While India has a more advanced space and missile program than Israel, the latter is far ahead of India in conventional armaments and unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).
The two countries are discussing co-production of Israel’s Heron UAVs and SuperDvora MkII attack boats.
With India and Pakistan on the verge of a war — and, possibly, a nuclear exchange — Israeli is gearing up its military support to India: Last Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told his cabinet that the new Ofeq-5 spy satellite has transmitted its first images of the Middle East with a resolution of less than a meter. According to Middle East Newsline, Israeli officials say their government may share this new satellite capability with India.
The new Ofeq-5 surveillance satellite is one of the most advanced in the world. It completes an orbit of the earth every 90 minutes at an angle of inclination 143 degrees. The satellite weighs about 300 kilograms, is about 2.3 meters high and has a 1.2-meter diameter. The Ofeq-5’s telescopic camera system acquires images underneath and lateral to the satellite and in swaths ahead of its trajectory. Its images have a resolution of less than 0.8 meters.
Send questions and comments to: [email protected].
