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Despite the defence links, India's N-tests anger Israel

Israel is furious.

Not with Pakistan's exhibition of nuclear capability, which it had known about all along. Not even with Pakistan's allegations that Israeli fighter-bombers had flown in to India prepared to strike at Pak nuclear installations -- which charge Israel dismisses as a figment of overheated Pakistani imagination.

Israel's anger, rather, is against India, for discarding its own nuclear ambiguity.

Officially, Israel has not reacted to the recent nuclear tests, either of Indian or Pakistani origin. Its ambassador in New Delhi Dr Yehoyada Haim would not go beyond the official line, encapsulated in a vague call on all countries to sign the CTBT -- Israel, for the record, is already a signatory.

Unofficially, however, its officials term India's move to go in for nuclear tests as plain stupid. Most Israeli newspapers in fact carried editorials condemning India for abandoning its ambiguous posture on the nuclear issue.

Stupid, that is, from an Israeli point of view. To put its viewpoint in context, it must be remembered that prior to May 11, India, Pakistan and Israel were clubbed together as 'nuclear threshold nations'. Now that two of those countries have come out in the open, Israel believes that international attention will be doubly focussed on its own nuclear programme.

Reliable estimates indicate that Israel, while not officially a nuclear weapons state, has a stockpile of around 200 warheads. By signing the CTBT, it managed to keep its own nuclear status ambiguous. India's recent tests, and subsequent sabre-rattling, has thrown the spotlight squarely on the threshold nations, and that explains the Israeli anger.

Pakistan's allegations that Israel has extended covert aid to India's nuclear programme is based on the visit to Israel, last year, of the Indian government's scientific advisor A P J Abdul Kalam. Kalam, at the time, was accompanied by Defence Research and Development Organisation project director K Santhanam.

India and Israel, as even defence and external affairs officials in New Delhi admit, have had strategic and tactical ties with each other for a while now. However, officials of both nations aver that this relationship does not extend to the field of nuclear technology.

"Even before Israel opened its embassy here in 1992, both countries had excellent relations, though it was all covert," argues Shebonti Ray Dadwal, research officer in the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis and a specialist on Israeli affairs. "The recent nuclear tests are not going to affect those relations, but Israel from here on is going to be understandably cautious."

Pakistan's allegation that Israel was on the verge of targetting Kahuta and other nuclear installations is grounded in the events of June 7, 1981. On that day, using the then ongoing Iran-Iraq war as cover, Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear facilities in Osirak. The strike, code-named Operation Babylon, was perceived at the time as a warning to any Islamic country intent on developing the bomb.

India's defence establishment, however, vehemently opposes any attempt to relate the Indian nuclear programme with Israel's own strategic compulsions.

Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, convener of the task force appointed to constitute the National Security Council, dismisses the Israeli air strike theory as absurd, pointing out that Israel is more concerned about the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear technology being transferred to Iran.

"But they are not so stupid as to make a hue and cry about it," he argues. "There was no air strike planned, and even if an Israeli aircraft flies over India, does it imply that there is nuclear co-operation between the two countries?"

"These rumours go back to the early 1980s," Professor Kanti Bajpayee, of the Jawaharlal Nehru University school of international relations, told Rediff On The NeT. "But do you think that Pakistan's five or six nuclear installations would have all the warheads and delivery systems stored in the immediate vicinity, waiting to be bombed by an enemy? Typically, they are kept in silos, dispersed around the country, and if all of them are not destroyed in the first strike, the possibility of a nuclear war escalates. No Indian or Israeli leader is stupid enough to take that risk." No Indian or Israeli leader is too stupid to do any such thing."

According to Professor Bajpayee, Pakistan has all but won a propaganda war against India over the recent tests. By drawing Israel into the controversy, it hopes to have all Islamic nations on its side. Israel, for its part, is apprehensive of an Islamic bomb -- but for that very reason, it will be doubly careful to avoid any move that could end up making an Islamic bomb out of what, for now, is Pakistan's anti-India nuke.

Israel has of late been reaching out to its Islamic neighbours, particularly Turkey and Egypt, and this is yet another reason why it cannot make Pakistan conducting its nuclear tests a pan-Islamic issue.

Further, Israel has excellent ties with China, and would not want to rub it the wrong way by acknowledging India's stance that China is its biggest security threat. Earlier, China had in fact made a big issue out of Israel's military aid to Taiwan. Israel got out of that one after considerable diplomatic efforts, and would not now desire to waste all that hard-won ground.

Being one of the closest allies of the United States, Israel has been long aware of China's role in sponsoring Pakistan's nuclear programme. In that context, Israel's own gameplan has been not to aid India or plan direct action against Pakistan, but to force the US to monitor Pakistani nuclear proliferation.

While denying nuclear co-operation, defence ministry officials here conceded that there has been military co-operation, and intelligence sharing, between the two countries for some time now. Israel has even trained commandos deployed in anti-terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir, they say.

"We have got technological assistance and expertise from Israel on electronic warfare," says a defence ministry official. "Israel has the most advanced hi-tech electronic gadgetry in the world and, in modern warfare, electronic gadgetry plays a lead role. It is imperative to jam, degrade or destroy the enemy's electronic systems and this is where electronic warfare comes into play. Israel is easily the best source of equipment for such warfare," he elaborates.

Such assistance is covert, however. Officially, India has bought the Israeli Super Dvora MK II speed boats for its Coast Guard. And plans for the joint production of unmanned arial vehicles -- code-named the Heron -- are still pending. Further, the Indian Air Force had sought Israeli co-operation to get its MiG series aircraft upgraded.

But what stands between India and enhanced military co-operation with Israel is the privy purse -- Israeli equipment is as expensive as it gets, and India cannot expect to get it on credit.

With $ 650 million in bilateral trade and a balance of trade in its favour, Israel has a long-term strategy for India which this country reciprocates. And there never has been any doubt that Israel's mindset is to regard India as a strong tactical ally -- at least potentially -- in South Asia.

It is with this context in mind that Abdul Kalam's visit to Israel should be viewed. Defence circles indicate that Kalam's trip to Israel was part of Indo-Israeli co-operation in the field of missile technology. With its marked advantage in hi-tech weaponry, Israel is in a position to offer tips to the personnel helming India's own indigenous missile programme.

After the recent spate of nuclear tests, however, this co-operation is liable to go on the back-burner, with Israel preferring to keep a low nuclear profile.

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