Prime Minister Nehru told the Indian Parliament this weekend that India has not entered diplomatic relations with Israel partly because Israel’s activities had been “unfortunately aggressive” in the past and because it might be harmful to India’s relations with other countries.
He added that relations between Israel and some west Asian countries were “strained” and any action taken by India in regard to any of these countries might affect another and might be resented by the other countries. He said “one had therefore to see what advantages” there would be in balance and whether a particular action would contribute to the settlement of dispute among those countries.
He said India did not plan to exchange diplomatic representatives with Israel now because such an exchange “in balance” would not be advantageous to the cause “India is pursuing in West Asia.” The Prime Minister’s principal theme was Algeria and he said India would recognize an independent Algeria promptly.
His comments on Israel were in reply to a supplementary question by Hvkamat Praja, a Socialist deputy, who had asked “whether India’s approach” to Israel “was conditioned by Arab susceptibilities. ” He also asked whether it was not a fact “that many European and Asian countries had cordial relations with both the Arab countries and Israel and that, such being the case, what was India’s difficulty” in recognizing Israel?
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
