India\'s Israel Policy - P. R. Kumaraswamy

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  1. Quoted in Brecher, Israel, the Korean War, and China: Images, Decisions, and
    Consequences, 39.

  2. Brecher, “Israel and China,” 219.

  3. For a detailed discussion on the Latin American role, see Glick, Latin Amer-
    ica and the Palestine Problem.

  4. At that time, Sharett was out of offi ce and was traveling to the continent in
    his personal capacity. For a recent discussion on the India leg of the tour
    and his meeting with Prime Minister Nehru, see Caplan, “The 1956 Sinai
    Campaign Viewed from Asia.”

  5. For a most authoritative discussion on the British promise, see Stein, The
    Balfour Declaration.

  6. During World War II, a large number of Jewish refugees fl ed to India. Dur-
    ing the postwar period, there refugees entered from Iraq and Af ghan i stan.
    Nevertheless, the number of Jews in India did not exceed sixty thousand.

  7. The only exception being the anti- Jewish violence in Goa along the western
    coast during the sixteenth century. This happened when Goa was under
    Portuguese occupation and was a fallout of the Spanish Inquisition.

  8. Phrase used in Mudiam, India and the Middle East, 143.

  9. Among others, see Gordon, “Indian Nationalist Ideas About Palestine and
    Israel,” 221– 222.

  10. Brecher, “Israel and China,” 222. According to Philip Holden, “the British
    did not ban Nehru’s autobiography in India, but they did proscribe the He-
    brew translation in Palestine, fearful of the model it might provide for a very
    diff erent nationalism.” Holden, “Other Modernities: National Autobiography
    and Globalization,” 90. See also Nehru to Indira Gandhi (August 12, 1944),
    in Nehru, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Series I, 13:459– 461.

  11. Stein, The Balfour Declaration, 496– 497.

  12. Such trends continue still today. Many Muslim leaders see Israel as a threat
    not just to the Palestinians in the occupied territories but to the wider Is-
    lamic world. A dated but accurate picture of this conspiracy- centric attitude
    toward Israel can be found in Hamid, The Unholy Alliance.

  13. The delegation consisted of Jamal al- Husseini (secretary of the Arab Execu-
    tive headed by the grand mufti himself ), Muhammad Murad (the mufti of
    Haifa), and Ibrahim al- Ansari (one of the sheikhs of al- Aqsa).

  14. Porath, “Al- Hajj Amin al- Husayni, Mufti of Jerusalem,” 154.

  15. Nearly seventy years later, India’s defense minister Pranab Mukherjee re-
    called the mufti connection: “Commitment to the Palestinian cause has
    been a bedrock of our foreign policy even before we gained in de pen dence.
    In a cable sent to Mufti of Jerusalem on 4th Sept 1937, Pandit Jawaharlal
    Nehru, who became our fi rst Prime Minister after in de pen dence, had af-
    fi rmed, ‘The Indian National Congress sends you greetings and assurance
    of full solidarity in the struggle for Palestine In de pen dence.’ ” Mukherjee’s
    inaugural speech (January 30, 2006), at the Eighth Asian Security Confer-
    ence or ga nized by IDSA. Available online at http:// www .idsa .in/ speeches _
    at _idsa/ 8ASCInaugural .htm.
    3. the congress party and the yishuv 283

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