opposition parties such as Jan Sangh and the Praja Socialist Party, who
were supportive of Israel and were critical of the policies of the INC gov-
ernments. Atal Behari Vajpayee, a Jan Sangh leader and vocal supporter
of Israel, became foreign minister. Naturally, there were hopes that India
would reverse the past INC policy on Israel. However, po liti cal parties
and individuals tend to behave diff erently once they assume positions of
responsibility, and the Janata Party was no exception. Vajpayee was quick
to allay fears over impending normalization of relations with Israel. In
his fi rst public statement, he declared that while recognizing Israel’s
right to exist, India could not support the forcible occupation of the Arab
lands. The formation of a separate Palestinian state, he felt, was an essen-
tial precondition for peace in the Middle East.^72 At the same time, a cou-
ple of developments during Desai’s tenure revealed that the new govern-
ment was not averse to pursuing a diff erent course on Israel. One was the
Camp David accords signed between Israel and Egypt in September 1978;
the other was the incognito visit of Moshe Dayan, Israel’s foreign minis-
ter, to India.
Broadly speaking, the government of Morarji Desai was favorably dis-
posed toward the fi rst peace agreement between Israel and an Arab coun-
try. Welcoming direct talks between the warring nations, India hoped that
a peaceful resolution would result in the Israeli withdrawal from the occu-
pied territories. Adopting a more liberal interpretation of UN Security
Council Resolution 242, it hoped that “boundaries between states should
be settled through negotiations and not by force and all states in the region,
including Israel, should have the right to exist in peace within secure
boundaries.”^73 This formulation refl ected the true spirit and substance of
the UN resolution, namely, “within secured and recognized boundaries.”
In the past, India had harped on the Israeli occupation and demanded un-
conditional withdrawal as a precondition for peace. Furthermore, at that
time Israeli peace proposals included phrases such as “negotiated settle-
ment” and “secured borders.” That New Delhi was now using similar ter-
minology underscored a signifi cant concession to Israel.
The Camp David accords were not pop u lar in the Middle East. A num-
ber of players, including Iraq, Syria, and the Palestinians were vehe-
mently opposed to President Anwar Sadat abandoning Arab rejectionism
enshrined in the Khartoum Declaration of September 1967.^74 For them,
Sadat, who advocated a negotiated po liti cal settlement with the Jewish
state, was abandoning larger Arab interests in favor of narrow Egyptian
218 the years of hardened hostility, 1964–1984