that the country invited was in general agreement with the purposes
of the Conference. They had also bear in mind the principle that the
form of government and the way of life of any one country should in
no way be subject to interference by any other. Any view expressed at
the [forthcoming Bandung] Conference by one or more participating
country would not be binding on or be regarded as accepted by any
other, unless the latter so desired.In short, recognition or nonrecognition of one country by the other was
irrelevant. The primary purpose was to promote a meaningful dialogue
among member states of Asia and Africa.
Despite such an accommodative position regarding the participants, the
Bogor meeting decided to exclude Israel from the Bandung Conference.
As the operative part stated “with minor variations and modifi cation of this
basic principle,” it decided to invite twenty- four in de pen dent states of Asia
and Africa. As many as eight Arab countries were invited, and the commu-
niqué extended its support for the people of Tunisia and Morocco in their
struggle for “national in de pen dence and their legitimate right to self-
determination.”^54 But Israel was excluded from Bandung,^55 and out of the
twenty- nine participants, as many as twelve were Muslim-majority states.^56
During the Bogor deliberations, Nehru concurred with his Burmese
counterpart that “Israel ought to be invited, but pointed out that if she
were present the Arab states would stay away, which would mean that al-
most the whole of West Asia would be absent. The conference would
therefore be so unbalanced that India would have to reconsider whether
her own attendance would be worth while.”^57 According to G. H. Jansen,
while Ceylon wanted to take up the issue with Arab states, “Indonesia
said this was pointless since their view was known and the Arab League
had recently issued a warning on this very point.” In the end, Burma,
which at one time had threatened to boycott the conference over Israel’s
exclusion, fell into line with the emerging consensus.^58 The fi rst Afro-
Asian meeting aimed at promoting dialogue among the newly in de pen-
dent states would begin without Israel.
There were two primary reasons for Israel’s exclusion: the Arab deter-
mination to block Israel and Pakistan’s attempt to outmaneuver India.
New Delhi yielded to both pressures. By early 1950, the Arab League re-
solved that the Arab states would refrain from hosting any international
conference in which Israel could participate.^59 In May 1951, it went a step
192 nehru and the era of deterioration, 1947–1964