The Congress on Thursday criticised the speech delivered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Israeli Parliament a day earlier, claiming that it “diminished India’s moral standing”.
In a social media post, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh described the speech as an “unabashed defence” of Modi’s host, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Wednesday, the Indian prime minister told the Israeli Parliament that New Delhi stood with Israel “firmly, with full conviction, in this moment and beyond”. He made the comment while expressing India’s condolences for the deaths of 1,200 persons, mostly Israelis, during the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
“We feel your pain” and “share your grief”, Modi told the Knesset.
On Thursday, Ramesh referred to an article written by Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer and human rights activist, in The Wire on Wednesday.
In his article, Mack said that the Indian prime minister “acted and spoke like the leader of a minor state visiting a global power, desperate to curry favour”. He added that Modi “humiliated” himself and India.
Referring to the article, the Congress MP said that the lawyer had “exposed the sham of the prime minister’s…address to the Knesset yesterday that diminished India’s moral standing”.
He also said that during his speech, Modi had drawn “attention to the fact that India recognised the new state of Israel on the day he was born”.
The Rajya Sabha MP quoted remarks made by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the formation of Israel in a letter to physicist Albert Einstein.
Nehru had written that he had “paid a good deal of attention to this problem of Palestine” and read books and pamphlets on the subject issued on either side.
He had added that “unless men are big enough on either side, which is just and generally agreeable to the parties concerned”, there was no “effective solution for the present”.
The speech on Wednesday by Modi came during the Indian prime minister’s first visit to Israel since Hamas’ October 2023 incursion into southern Israel and the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.
Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on besieged Gaza since October 2023, leaving more than 70,000 persons dead.
In September, a commission of inquiry set up by the United Nations said that Israelcommitted genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry had rejected the report, describing it as “distorted and false”.
Modi told the Israeli Parliament that the Gaza Peace Initiative, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, offers a pathway for regional stability.
He reiterated New Delhi’s “firm support” for the peace plan led by United States President Donald Trump.
The US has invited India, among about 60 countries, to join Trump’s Board of Peace on Gaza. Washington has described the board as a global initiative to resolve conflicts, initially focusing on Gaza.
While New Delhi has not joined the initiative, it attended the inaugural meeting of the board on February 19 as an observer country.
The Board of Peace for Gaza will be part of the second phase of a US-backed ceasefire proposal between Israel and Hamas. A UN Security Council resolution in November authorised the Board of Peace to oversee Gaza at least until the end of 2027.
India’s longstanding position has been to support a two-state solution for establishing a sovereign, viable and independent state of Palestine within recognised and mutually agreed borders, living alongside Israel in peace.
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