Sabha elections and returned to power. Dayan’s secret visit became a
po liti cal football when assembly elections were held that summer. She
sought to discredit the opposition by presenting them as being unsympa-
thetic toward the Palestinians and of trying to bring India closer to Israel.
At the bilateral level, Indira Gandhi strengthened the pro- Arab policy. In
one of her fi rst major foreign- policy moves, in March 1980 she granted
full diplomatic recognition to the Palestine Liberation Or ga ni za tion. The
Palestinian mission in New Delhi was upgraded to an embassy and en-
dowed with full diplomatic immunities and privileges. The Israeli con-
sular mission was still languishing in Bombay. Though staff ed by career
diplomats, New Delhi continued to treat the Israeli mission merely as a
consular offi ce and rejected periodic requests to raise its status to that
of a consul general or to extend its jurisdiction beyond the state of
Maharashtra.
Even this limited Israeli presence was curtailed following a controver-
sial interview by Israeli Consul Yossef Hassin. Speaking to the Bombay-
based weekly Sunday Observer near the end of his tenure, he charged that
Indian politicians “are afraid of the Arabs, they are afraid that Iraq will
cancel their contracts, Saudi Arabia will stop accepting laborers.... India
is always asking for fl oor at the UN and other international forums
to denounce Israel and prove to the Arabs that you are doing more than
Pakistan. That way you think you will impress the Arabs.”^101 He was not
saying anything new. Opposition fi gures had long accused the INC gov-
ernment of reducing India to the “fourteenth Arab state” or chaprasi (a
peon or messenger, depending on the context) of the Arabs. This time,
the criticism came from a foreign consul, and the government was not
prepared to accept such an undiplomatic and intemperate outburst—
especially given that bilateral relations were anything but cordial. To make
matters worse, the interview appeared on June 27, 1982, less than three
weeks after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and mounting international
criticism. The Israeli consul was declared persona non grata and was
asked to leave the country within forty- eight hours. This was the fi rst
time in the history of India that a foreign offi cial was forced to leave the
country for making hostile remarks.^102 There were speculations that it
was only under intense American pressure that New Delhi resisted the
temptation to close the Israeli mission.^103 While Hassin was promoted
within the foreign ministry, Israel had to wait for more than six years to
nominate his successor. In the interim, the consulate in Bombay was
manned by technical personnel.^104
222 the years of hardened hostility, 1964–1984