A Greek F-4 Phantom plane prepares to leave Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy, March 19, 2007 (US Air Force/Bethann Caporaletti)

As if to remind the world of the geopolitical implications of a Greek exit from the eurozone, Turkey on Thursday said it had scrambled military jets earlier in the week to intercept an Israeli plane that violated northern Cypriot airspace.

Monday’s reported incursion coincides with mounting tensions on the Mediterranean island over oil and natural gas exploration plans there. Turkey previously condemned the Greek speaking south when it announced plans to drill for natural resources off Cyprus’ coasts but has since endorsed similar plans on the part of the Turkish government in the north which only Turkey recognizes.

Athens naturally supports Greek Cyprus in its energy and political disputes with Turkey and has signed mutual defense guarantees with Israel following the Israeli-Turkish rift.

Relations between Ankara and Jerusalem soured when Israeli commandos raided a Turkish vessel that was bound for Gaza in May 2010 and killed nine Turkish activists on board.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when the Turkish military invaded the island after a short lived Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military junta then in power in Athens.

Turkey still keeps some thirty thousand troops in the north while a buffer zones that separates the two sides is monitored by the United Nations. Greek-Turkish relations have been strained ever since Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. Maritime border disputes between the two nations in the Aegean Sea are unresolved to this very day.

Israel’s support of Greek Cypriot exploration efforts complicates the picture. As analysts from the geostrategic consultancy firm Wikistrat pointed out in February, “While Israel views Cyprus as the best and most direct way to transfer gas to Europe, Turkey will view this as a way to undermine Turkish Cypriot interests.”

If Greece is forced to leave Europe’s single currency union and possibly suffers a bankruptcy, its Cypriot allies would necessarily lean more heavily on their newfound friends in Israel. Moreover, there is a good chance that Russia will step in to take advantage of the situation.

As the Financial Times explains, the damage to Cyprus’ financial system, heavily exposed to Greek debt, would be devastating if the nation left the euro.

Cyprus last year received a cheap €2.5 billion loan from Russia in a gesture that reflected the Kremlin’s interest in protecting wealthy Russian depositors with billions parked in Cypriot banks. It may soon need more aid.

The links between Greece and Russia have historically been strong, writes Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest.

In Ottoman times, Orthodox Russia was the protector of Orthodox Christians in the great Islamic empire and frequently used its diplomatic clout to defend the rights of its coreligionists. Greece looked to Russia as a reliable ally during much of the troubled period after modern Greece gained independence from the Turks.

If Greece feels abandoned by its European partners, it may look to Moscow for shelter again. That would leave Europe without a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey is formally still engaged in European Union membership talks but the prospect of it joining the union any time soon is dim indeed.

Cyprus is in the euro but would likely require financial support if Greece collapsed, raising the question of whether it wants to submit to the very austerity measures that doomed Greece or seek its future elsewhere.

Israel has a clear interest in balancing against what it perceives as Turkish hostility and will be quite willing to strengthen ties with both Cyprus and Greece.

Russia could finally attain what Greek and Turkish NATO membership was supposed to deny it—unfettered access to the eastern Mediterranean Sea for its navy.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, September 11, 2011

Just a week ago, members of the Israeli parliament were debating on whether to disband the legislature in order to usher in early elections in September. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seen today as one of the most popular politicians in the country, was a vocal backer of the idea. Worried that the right wing parties in his coalition were beginning to splinter over the divisive issue of military service for religious students, early elections would likely have reaffirmed Netanyahu’s domestic support and consolidated his power.

But in a last minute change of heart, Netanyahu managed to strike a comprehensive deal to avert early elections entirely.

After painstaking negotiations in the middle of the night, Netanyahu emerged from the room to address the Israeli press with his newfound political ally, former army chief of staff and defense minister Shaul Mofaz—who just weeks ago pledged to use his recent victory in the Kadima party as a counterweight to the prime minister.

Mofaz will be awarded a deputy prime ministerial position in exchange for rolling his party into Netanyahu’s coalition government. The final result: Netanyahu is now leading the widest coalition in Israeli political history, with ninety-four seats in the 120 member Knesset under his leadership.

From afar, it is tempting to simply chalk Netanyahu’s latest political coup as an attempt to grab more support inside Israel’s political system. Indeed, with his coalition now expanded, this was undoubtedly a major variable in his calculations. Netanyahu is a shrewd political operator who has learned from the mistakes he made during his previous tenure as prime minister in the 1990s.

Further from the surface, the Netanyahu-Mofaz agreement could very well be something entirely different—a bid to dilute the power of the religious parties on which Netanyahu depended to maintain power.

For the past three years, the conservative leader has been cast by his enemies in Israel and some in the United States as a significant impediment to a peace deal with the Palestinians. This is not an unreasonable view. It took Netanyahu decades to endorse the conventional two state solution. He refused to stop settlement building in the occupied West Bank—a Palestinian precondition for peace talks. The only time Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met directly was during a brief summit in September 2010, which quickly collapsed over the Israeli prime minister’s refusal to extend a temporary Jewish settlement freeze.

As long as his governing coalition relied on religiously oriented parties, including foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, the ultraorthodox Shas and pro-settler factions of Likud, Netanyahu always had a reason (or excuse) not to offer the Palestinians any concessions. An additional settlement freeze or symbolic speeches supporting eventual Palestinian independence would have rankled Netanyahu’s right wing base, compromising the very structure of his government.

By bringing in centrist lawmakers, the influence of fringe parties will be thinned out, providing Netanyahu the potential breathing space he needs to negotiate with the Palestinians on matters such as settlement construction, security cooperation and further withdrawals of Israeli defense forces from the West Bank.

It remains to be seen whether Netanyahu will indeed exploit his new coalition to make difficult but necessary decisions on the peace process, including the termination of all settlement activity on land that the Palestinians need for a future state of their own. If not, he will have spoiled an opportunity to use his political capital for the benefit of the peace process—one that is slowly but surely on life support as the settler population in the West Bank continues to expand.

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, July 15, 2010 (Essexdiver)

Due to the fall of the Mubarak regime, government authority has collapsed in the Sinai Peninsula, leaving a vacuum that is rapidly being filled by Islamist militant groups. This has created a security risk for Egypt and Israel, as well as for the international community due to the strategic importance of the Suez Canal zone and threatens the durability of Israeli-Egyptian relations.

Last week, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak called on Egypt to take control of the increasing lawlessness in the Sinai as a condition for maintaining the peace treaty with Israel.

Since February 2011 when Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power, border security incidents have increased. These incidents range from crossborder infiltration of militants into Israel, where they launch attacks against Israeli civilians, smuggling and an increase in rocket attacks into southern Israel emanating from the Sinai.

The heightened lawlessness that has occurred along the Egyptian-Israeli border has taken place despite steps taken by the interim Egyptian government to deploy thousands of troops to the Sinai region to curb militant activity.

Analysis

Israel remains caught between a rock and a hard place, balancing the need to defend its citizens in the south, while trying to avoid the collapse of the peace agreement with Egypt.

Despite three decades of relative quiet along the Egypt-Israeli border, an increase in tensions since the fall of the Mubarak Government last year has prompted the Israeli Government to construct a new barrier along the 266 kilometer border, that when finished will cover the area from Gaza to Eilat. In addition to the fence, the Israeli Defense Forces are taking additional steps to monitor the border and bar infiltrators.

Egypt, too, has paid an economic price for the increase in militant activity in the Sinai Peninsula, ranging from fourteen terrorist attacks targeting the natural gas pipeline that supplied both Israel and Jordan as well as a significant loss in tourism in the Red Sea resort area due to the increase in violence. Both are a significant source of income for the country. The tourism industry employs around one in eight Egyptians.

Egyptian security officers who have attempted in the past year to reestablish security in the Sinai have been attacked by the militants, with the result being that areas in the Sinai are now completely out of the government’s control. These changes to the security situation in the peninsula have prompted Israeli officials to suggest that at the moment, “Egypt is more dangerous to Israel than Iran.”

Though for the moment, the militants appear to be focused on maintaining a hold on life in the Sinai area, as time passes there is a risk that these groups may begin to align more closely with the global jihadi movement now led by Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Despite the growing lawlessness in the region, both Egypt and Israel have been treading carefully to avoid escalating tensions further, especially while the political situation in Egypt remains volatile.

Israeli policymakers however are growing frustrated, as the Islamist militants continue to increase their hold over the Sinai. Israel has stated it has no intention of entering Egyptian territory but government officials have acknowledged the need to sit on their hands and wait for a new government to emerge in Cairo to rein in the militant activity in the Sinai.

However, the inability of the interim government to curb the growing militant activity in the Sinai is another indication to Israel that the new Islamist controlled Egyptian government has no intention of maintaining the peace treaty with Israel.

Wikistrat Bottom Lines

Steven Aiello and Martin Skold contributed to this analysis.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a meeting with the chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey, January 20 (D. Myles Cullen)

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could call early elections in September or October. His conservative Likud party is expected to do well. An electoral victory would likely strengthen Netanyahu in his confrontational foreign policy toward Iran.

Netanyahu and his coalition partner Ehud Barak, the defense minister, have drawn criticism from members of the opposition and within their own ranks for their hawkish rhetoric on preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapons capacity at all costs. Netanyahu routinely describes the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran as an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once suggested to drive Israel into the sea.

The latest to join the chorus of critics of an Israeli air strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was former prime minister Ehud Olmert who told CNN in an interview that was broadcast on Monday that military action should be a “last resort” and “supported by the international community,” including the United States.

On Friday, the former head of Israel’s internal security service, Yuval Diskin, professed a lack of faith in the political leadership which he believes “makes decisions based on messianic feelings.” It’s probably not a coincidence that Netanyahu describes the Iranian leadership as a “messianic cult.”

According to Diskin, the prime minister and Barak “are misleading the public on the Iran issue.”

They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won’t have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race.

Diskin’s words echoed those of the former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad, Meir Dagan, who told American television in March than an attack on Iran would have “a devastating impact” on Israel.

The divide over Iran policy isn’t the only thing that is weakening Netanyahu’s multiparty coalition composed of conservatives, Labor and nationalist, right wing parties of which Yisrael Beiteinu, led by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, is the largest. As Walter Russell Mead points out in his blog at The American Interest, there is also tension between the secular Likud and religious fringe parties about “how religion should shape the political agenda.”

Jewish law in all its complexity, many feel, should be the guiding principle in a Jewish state. The resulting issues go from how strictly should state entities observe the sabbath to whether ultra-orthodox students should be able to defer their military service indefinitely.

The draft is a contentious issue. Secular Israelis “want to end or at least sharply curtail the special provisions that allow religious students to postpone or evade military service and are threatening to introduce legislation to that effect,” writes Mead. He concludes that it may be easier for Netanyahu to fight a general election than to resolve this coalition dispute without one.

In his foreign policy, the prime minister would probably be strengthened by an election. He could run as the uncompromising defender of Israel’s security before having to deal with the aftermath of a possible strike on Iran.

If, by contrast, Israel is internationally condemned for unilaterally lashing out against Iran’s nuclear sites and fails to do more than set back the Islamic republic’s uranium enrichment program by a few years—or worse, convince the Iranians that they indeed need a nuclear weapon to defend themselves against Israel—Netanyahu would be hard pressed to secure another mandate.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, 2009 (Reuters/Molly Reilly)

A slow but sure shift can be observed in India’s Iran policy. What is curious about this is that in many ways, India’s Israel policy seems to be the blueprint.

The Indian Government still emphasizes the significance of Iranian oil and gas buys. This position is bolstered by Saudi Arabia’s refusal to boost output last week in anticipation of an expected drop in Iranian exports. Following a beggars can’t be choosers logic, New Delhi has refrained from joining an embargo of Iranian crude despite heavy Western pressure to do so.

Reports have surfaced of sanctions being threatened against India for its obstructionism in this regard. The nature and substance of these sanctions remains unknown. The United States State Department though, in an unusual step, rather than squelching the rumors, added fuel to the flames, stating merely that reports to this effect were “highly speculative.”

There are two implication of such a threat being held over India.

First, that the entire dynamic of Indo-American rapprochement being a Sinocentric one now stand challenged. If India believed that its primary role was to act as a demographic counterweight to China, its gradual loss of economic traction is weakening the bargaining power it had accumulated in the relationship.

Further down the road, such pressure simply confirms the allegation of the Indian left that the United States were always going to be a perfidious ally unworthy of being relied upon. The ruling Congress party will be in no mood to forgive the Americans should such pressure result in more electoral losses as is widely expected.

In the meantime, Narendra Modi, the opposition’s likely prime ministerial candidate, while being shunned by the West, is actively wooed by China.

Given these circumstances, the calculus of balancing against China shifts decisively over the long term to bandwagoning with China should America be perceived as an economic or political liability.

Coming to the two protagonists Israel and Iran—India has for a significant time now depended on the former for traditional security and on the latter for energy security. Yet in its dealings with Israel, India has often been at the forefront of condemning every Israeli action, frequently going over and above Arab expectations.

To be fair, Arab condemnations are far more rhetorical as these countries have been obsessed for some time with the Iranian threat. So assuming a rhetorical position that aligned with Arab states while maintaining a policy more like the Arabs’ Western friends in having strong economic and military ties with Israel makes perfect sense.

With Iran on the other hand, India has frequently ignored those same Arab concerns, supporting Iran both rhetorically and in terms of putting its money where its mouth is.

South Asia in the last few weeks has witnessed the assassination of a Saudi diplomat in Bangladesh that was linked to Iran and the attempted killing an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi. Arrests in the later case are now pointing very clearly to an Iranian hand.

India’s hand are tied to such an extent that the rhetorical support of Iran has become too much of a liability. If anything, this may be just the excuse India was looking for to throw the Iranians overboard—at least rhetorically.

What to expect in the near future?

India will use the attack on the Israeli diplomat to downgrade its ties with Iran—at a visible level and also ramp up its rhetoric.

This will be to muffle the visible impact of its increasing imports of Iranian oil and gas. In many ways, this will be a mirror image of India’s Israel policy—engagement masked (and in many ways aided) by public hostility.

However, should India be arm twisted into giving up its trade with Iran in the medium to long term, a decisive cooling in Indo-American relations is to be expected as everyone in India, right and left, will perceive the alliance as simply not worth the price. Should sanctions on India eventuate (and this possibility cannot be discounted) “cooling” will in all probability turn to frigidity.

There are no easy solutions to this conundrum since at its crux, it concerns two democracies, adopting diametrically opposed policies, driven by natural democratic impulses.

Just as India has overriding domestic political considerations that make the engagement of Iran a sine qua non of Indian foreign policy, there are equally democratic considerations that make the isolation of Iran a nonnegotiable of American policy. Invariably in Greek tragedies and Hollywood blockbusters, such a situation is resolved by a deus ex machina. In reality, such devices seldom exist.

Israeli mobile missile defense, part of the Iron Dome system, responds to an incoming rocket from Gaza, March 12 (xnir)

In some of the most intense crossborder fighting since Israeli troops last entered the Gaza Strip en masse over three years ago, dozens of rockets were lobbed by Palestinian militants into Israel, with the Jewish state carrying out air strikes on suspected terrorist facilities.

Over a span of four days, Israel hit rocket squads and weapon depots in the strip with near pinpoint accuracy. Small bands of militants retaliated with a torrent of rocket fire against communities in the south of Israel.

Remarkably, not a single Israeli civilian was killed even as one hundred and fifty crude missiles were launched from the coastal enclave.

Israel’s newly installed “Iron Dome” defense system intercepted many of the missiles before they hit the ground with a nearly 90 percent success rate. Only a few projectiles hit populated areas. One landed in a schoolyard that wasn’t not occupied at the time.

The fighting once again resembling a game of tit for tat that was only suspended as a result of Egyptian mediation. Although a ceasefire is now in place, the violence could easily resume if a single unauthorized mortar is launched by a small team.

The notable difference between this latest incident and similar rounds of skirmishes that have occurred since Israel undertook a crushing military offensive in Gaza over three years ago is that the former was carried out by minor Palestinian factions, including the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. Hamas, which controls the territory, largely stayed in the background, both to salvage its internal strength and for the practical reason of saving itself from massive Israeli retaliation.

If there was anything that could be gleaned from Israel’s 2008-2009 Caste Lead operation, it was the immutable assertion in the region and the broader international community that Hamas’ military infrastructure was severely degraded in just over a month of conflict.

Hamas seems to have gotten the message, knowing full well that any follow up operation by the Israel Defense Forces would be much longer in duration and stronger in intensity. The organization today is neither capable nor unified enough as a movement to confront Israel in the way it chose to confront it in the past—with persistent mortar fire, regardless of the consequences.

This development tends to be pushed aside whenever another round of violence hits the news but it is important to bring up, if only for the lone reason of demonstrating the group’s changing behavior over the past two to three years.

Yes, Hamas is still a dangerous organization in military terms and Israel still considers it to be one of its most serious security challenges. But in a matter of only a few short years, Hamas has evolved from a purely militant group to a hybrid and somewhat pragmatic organization, touring the region and trying to get on the good side of Arab leaders instead of just resorting to missile attacks.

Hamas’ leaders may technically remain opposed to any formal peace settlement with Israel but they also understand that confronting the Jewish state with force would be a losing proposition for its survival at a moment when they are trying desperately to increase their popular image in the Arab world and peel off Palestinian supporters from the mainstream Fataḥ movement.

Having one foot in politics and another in militancy is not as easy at it sounds, especially when militant activity could potentially weaken Hamas’ political credibility in the minds of world leaders.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden talk with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel as they depart the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 6, 2010

Their personal and professional relationship is defined by pundits in both Israel and the United States as “frosty,” but that could become a whole lot worse on Monday when President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sit down together for a formal meeting at the White House.

The one issue that has put a stain on the relationship the most, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will most likely receive very little attention. Instead, Iran’s nuclear ambitions are at the top of the agenda.

The president and prime minister, as witnessed in their earlier conversations, hardly have a close friendship with one another. The two men’s personalities, at least at the surface, are inherently different.

President Obama plays the part of the rational, bureaucratic and at times robotic statesmen, constantly attuned to which way the wind is blowing in international forums including the European Union and the United Nations.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, seems to care little about what other people think of him and ignores the attitudes of the international community in order to do what he thinks is the right for Israel’s national security. Whether it is his refusal to give up East Jerusalem to the Palestinians or his near obsessive catering to his right wing allies, it at times seems as if Netanyahu likes to think of himself as a modern day David Ben-Gurion—someone who will spare no price to defend the people of Israel, even if those decisions require inflaming other parties.

Ironically, both leaders hold many of the same goals and aspirations. Both wish to see Israel secure. Both are committed to fighting terrorism in all its forms. Both are deeply concerned that Iran may come close to the building of the ultimate deterrent, a nuclear weapon.

Yet the two are far apart as to how to realize those goals, with Netanyahu far more forceful in his threats toward Iran.

In other words, it has often been the means rather than the ends that have divided the Obama and Netanyahu administrations since the two first met in 2009. Those disagreements will again come to the fore on Monday when the question of Iran looms over both of their heads.

Newspaper and magazine articles over the past week have been full of speculation and rumor about what Netanyahu will ask of the president and whether the American will be prepared to accept his proposals.

The Atlantic magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have all run stories about what exactly the Israeli prime minister intends to bring up when the topic of Iran is finally broached. There is a near consensus that Netanyahu will press Obama on his willingness to use military force if Iran continues to conceal its nuclear program from international inspectors. The president understands how destabilizing a nuclear Iran can be but is clearly leery of launching another Middle East conflict to prevent this from happening.

These two positions have long been discussed between American and Israeli policy makers. Whichever view prevails on Monday may just set the course as to whether the Iranians can expect a preemptive military strike or a deepening of the sanctions regime.

Government House in Baku, Azerbaijan at night, 2010 (Eletheria)

Israel’s Aerospace Industries plans to sell $1.6 billion worth of drone aircraft and missile defense systems to Azerbaijan. The deal is almost the size of the Caucasus nation’s entire 2012 defense budget.

Although tension in the region between Azerbaijan and Israel on the one hand and Iran, which Western nations suspect is developing a nuclear weapons capacity, on the other is rising, EurasiaNet‘s Joshua Kucera argues that the weapons sale has more to do with neighboring Armenia which controls the Azerbaijani breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijan and Israel do both regard Iran’s uranium enrichment program warily as well as its attempts at expanding regional influence. Indeed, Azerbaijan was once considered an excellent target for Islamist propaganda. It’s a 90 percent Muslim Shī’ah nation while sixteen million ethnic Azerbaijanis living across the border in Iran. More than half a century of secular Soviet rule has fractured the religious sentiment in the country however so the ayatollahs’ fanaticism never managed to take root there.

Despite the recent tension and historic divide, Kucera believes it’s highly unlikely that Baku would ever instigate a war. “As much as Azerbaijan has been building up its military,” he writes, “it’s nowhere close to being able to deal with the Iranian military and would be essentially helpless in the face of an Iranian retaliation.”

Israel’s role in the deal has probably less to do with geopolitics than may appear to be the case. The Azerbaijanis simply have little choice but to buy from Israel. American and European legal restrictions prohibit it from buying weapons on the scale that it may like to from Western nations while Russian support for Armenia prevents former Soviet Union suppliers including Belarus and Ukraine from arming the Caspian nation. Kucera concludes, “Israel has no such concerns.”

President Demetris Christofias of Cyprus and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel meet in Nicosia, February 16

Israel has found a new regional ally in Cyprus. The basis for this relationship has been purely economic but could possibly grow deeper over time.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Cyprus last week in order to discuss the furthering of relations between the two countries, which were mainly formed after the discovery of multibillion dollar gas finds in sea between Israel and Cyprus. The two countries focused primarily on exploiting hydrocarbon in today’s markets and other economic issues. However, the new contact between the two countries may raise concerns, particularly for Turkey, about their cooperation within the region.

Analysis

Despite warnings from Turkey, Cyprus began exploratory drilling for gas. This will color the Israel-Cyprus partnership, possibly fraying ties between Turkey and Israel further.

The main feature of the Israel-Cyprus relationship is the reaction of Turkey. The new interaction will probably displease Turkey. Relations between the two countries were strained by the 2010 flotilla debacle. Turkey will also dislike the further international involvement with the Cypriots, who are represented internationally by the Greek Cypriots. While Israel views Cyprus as the best and most direct way to transfer gas to Europe, Turkey will view this as a way to undermine Turkish Cypriot interests. However, Cyprus itself would be content with the development as it wishes to be a major player in regional energy.

Turkey is becoming a major player within the region. Its relationship with Israel has been decaying since 2009. Israel’s new economic partnership with Cyprus will not mend this fence. The relationship between Israel and Cyprus is currently only economic and the only signed agreement reached was regarding search and rescue missions. However, the relationship may deepen overtime. If so, the Cypriots should be careful to maintain their relationships with the Arab nations within the region and Israel should be cautious not to burn its bridges with Turkey.

Wikistrat Bottom Lines

Caitlin Barthold and Steven Aiello contributed to this analysis.

The presidential palace in New Delhi, India at night, July 25, 2009 (Roshan Rao)

India’s silence on attacks by Islamic terrorist organizations against Israeli citizens on its soil can bring it no benefits. Far from it, it could actively harm Indian diplomacy.

Monday’s assassination attempt on the wife of an Israeli diplomat not five hundred meters from the prime minister’s house in New Delhi, which injured her and three Indians, prompted muted condemnation from the Indian Government. Evidently, the perpetrators felt completely at home carrying out this operation in a country that at least institutionally appears has no hassles with the butchering of Jewish civilians.

Last year, India’s response was similarly one of deafening silence when the Palestinian ambassador praised the “martyrs” who carried out a terrorist attack in the Israeli city of Eilat, killing six civilians and injuring thirty, as a “quality operation.”

For some strange reason, the mandarins at the Ministry of External Affairs believe that turning a blind eye to such atrocities bolsters India’s West Asia credentials and prevents attacks at home. It is a short sighted form of appeasement that masquerades as diplomacy.

The convenience of gaining a vote bank at home by tacitly accepting the unacceptable has put India in a diplomatic bind from which there is little face to be saved. On one hand both the Americans and Israelis will be demanding explanations from the government as to how this could happen in a high security area and why India did not express indignation when the Palestinian ambassador was encouraging more attacks on Jews?

In the absence of concrete clues, the shadow of suspicion has been cast wide. India now has little option but to investigate the Palestinian mission in light of their ambassador’s past statements. That alone sours the goodwill the Palestinian cause had in New Delhi.

So what now of India’s support to said cause? Should any Palestinian involvement become clear, their expulsion or imprisonment would by India’s own yardstick of silence cost the country its much valued hypothetical Arab “street cred.”

Should it turn out that India’s Iranian “friends” and/or their Hezbollah allies colluded in this event, the matter becomes much worse. New Delhi can complain to the high heavens that Pakistan does not give it the right of hot pursuit into their territory. But there are about 850 Indian troops stationed in Lebanon under United Nations mandate. If India receives credible intelligence of Hezbollah planning an attack, does it send its forces in Lebanon on a seek and destroy mission? If not, all its talk of “hot pursuit” into Pakistan turns out to be just hot air. The country loses what little military credibility it has.

What of India’s hard fought oil and gas concessions from Tehran? After all, it doesn’t want to “subsidize those who engage in terrorism” against it which is the main argument New Delhi raises in objection to the construction of pipelines through Pakistan.

The pressure that European nations and the United States have exerted on India to give up its trade with Iran will not be harder to resist. If indeed Iran is proven to be responsible for this week’s attack and India does not give up its lucrative trade with the Islamic republic, it encourages the Iranians to go ahead with more such attacks on Indian soil.

India has been very keen to avoid any pointed criticism of Iran by the international community at large but will now have no option but to directly point fingers at Tehran or lose both credibility and trust with the West by effectively hushing up the incident.

What India’s diplomats need to realize is that words are cheap and terrorists and regimes who support them are not floppy eared Labrador puppies. A well timed and even handed condemnation of the Palestinian ambassador, possibly his expulsion, and frequent demarches to the Iranian ambassador every time his president engages in antisemitic rhetoric would have been the cheaper options. Today, thanks to its pusillanimity, India will have to pay a very heavy price, diplomatically, politically and in all probability economically.