22 introductionthe cold war, its economic leverage in the region was negligible. The fi rst
oil crisis of 1973 exposed its vulnerability to supply disruptions and price
escalations.
Devoid of other avenues, India under Nehru sought to pursue its in-
terests in the Middle East via the Palestinian issue. The problem of
Palestine was never a bilateral issue for India, either before or after its
in de pen dence. It was always part of a larger policy. During the freedom
struggle, it was an instrument for the Congress Party to lure Indian
Muslims from the Muslim League and its demands for Pakistan. After
1947, the Congress Party’s support for the Arabs of British Mandate Pal-
estine and the absence of diplomatic relations with Israel emerged as
India’s principal foreign- policy instruments in the Middle East. By high-
lighting its historic support for the Palestinians and trumpeting its anti-
Israeli track record, India sought to establish its pro- Arab credentials
and further its interests in the Arab world. In the absence of any mean-
ingful economic leverage, support for Palestinians emerged as India’s
principal po liti cal instrument in promoting its interests in the Middle
East. Devoid of po liti cal or economic leverage commensurate with its
leadership aspirations, India failed to make a distinction between nor-
malization as a bilateral agenda and support for the Arabs’ cause as a
multilateral agenda. The Israel policy was subsumed under support for
the Arabs.
Rao was luckier than Nehru. He was able to reverse the four- decade-
old policy primarily because the Palestinian factor proved to be a po liti-
cal liability following the 1990– 1991 Kuwait crisis. When the Palestin-
ian leader Yasser Arafat identifi ed himself and his people with the Iraqi
aggressor, the Palestinian factor was no longer useful. As prominent
Arab countries in the Persian Gulf turned against the PLO, India could
no longer use its pro- Palestinian credentials to further its interests in
the Middle East. The Palestinian factor had to be decoupled from
India’s bilateral relations with the Middle East. It was the severing of
this link that enabled New Delhi to reverse its traditional policy regard-
ing Israel.
The setback suff ered by the PLO and the subsequent willingness of the
Arab mainstream to endorse a po liti cal settlement with the Jewish state
had an eff ect upon India’s domestic Muslim population. Given that coun-
tries such as Saudi Arabia were prepared to endorse a negotiated settle-
ment with Israel, opposition to India normalizing relations lost steam. Not
everyone was satisfi ed, but opposition to normalization became hollow. In