120 recognition without relations
Finally, the growing po liti cal contacts between Pakistan and leading
Arab countries contributed to India recognizing Israel.^75 The erstwhile
INC support for Arabs or Palestinians did not pay immediate po liti cal
dividends. According to Gopal: “the vote cast by Farouk’s Egypt against
India on the Hyderabad issue in the United Nations disposed him [Nehru]
towards accepting the fact of Israel and recognizing her.”^76 Even while op-
posing Israel’s admission to the United Nations, in May 1949, more than
a year before recognition, Nehru remarked: “It is about time that we made
some of these Arab countries feel that we are not going to follow them in
everything in spite of what they do.”^77 However, as we will see, even for
Nehru this was easier said than done.
If India accorded a belated recognition to Israel, it was even more cau-
tious toward the Gaza- based APG. On September 22, 1948, a few months
after the formation of Israel, the Arab Higher Committee met in the
Gaza and proclaimed an “All- Palestine Government” under the leader-
ship of Ahmad Hilmi Pasha. On the same day, a twelve- member cabinet
was formed with Pasha as prime minister and assumed control of “all
Palestine, within the frontiers such as were established at the moment
when the British Mandate ended.”^78 At a Congress of Arabs held on Octo-
ber 1, Hajj Amin al- Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was unanimously
elected “President.”^79 A day earlier, “Prime Minister” Ahmed Hilmi in-
formed India of the formation of an “in de pen dent” Palestinian state and
conveyed an “earnest desire of the All- Palestine Government to establish
relations of cordiality and cooperation with your country.”^80 New Delhi
viewed both his request and his claims with skepticism and decided “not
to take any action on the tele gram, and the said tele gram [was not to be]
acknowledged in view of possible po liti cal implications.”^81
Because New Delhi did not recognize the Gaza entity, it is suffi cient to
look at some of the possible explanations. Even though it opposed the
partition plan, India did not support the Arab proposal for a unitary Pal-
estine. The APG in Gaza reiterated the unitary proposal and sought to
annul the state of Israel. Thus the APG ran counter to the UN position
vis-à- vis Palestine. Its recognition by India might have been construed as
going against the prevailing international consensus. Other than a hand-
ful of Arab states, no major power inside or outside the Middle East had
recognized the APG. Great Britain is an exception, and it tacitly recog-
nized the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank.^82 Second, though
backed by Egypt and other members of the Arab League, the APG did not
exercise control over vast areas of Mandate Palestine. The Gaza Strip was
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