1 Introduction
When it comes to the Jews, Israel, and the wider Middle East,
even Mahatma Gandhi is not infallible. At one level, he appeared to have
repudiated any Jewish claims to Palestine. This was evidenced by a widely
quoted statement he made in 1939: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the
same sense that En gland belongs to the En glish and France to the French.”^1
For many Indians and non- Indians alike, this signaled his unequivocal
rejection of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Careful examination
of his other statements, including a confi dential note he wrote to his old
Jewish friend Hermann Kallenbach in July 1937, presents a much com-
plex picture. Moreover, on the eve of the World War II, the Mahatma
strongly advocated Jewish nonviolence against Adolf Hitler. This, he hoped,
would melt the Fuehrer’s heart and force him to abandon his destructive
path. At the same time, the Indian leader chose to “understand” the Pal-
estinian Arabs’ use of violent tactics against the British authorities. In
a similar vein, a de cade earlier the Mahatma did not demand that the
Indian Muslims practice nonviolence as a precondition for his support
for the Khilafat struggle.^2 A very selective use of morality, personifi ed
by Mahatma Gandhi himself, has been the most dominant feature of
India’s Israel policy. Until full relations were established in January 1992,
India was cool, unfriendly, and even hostile to the Jewish state. This was
The good things in life are like the birth of a child. Ninety percent waiting.
—James Michener