How are current relations between India and Israel? Are there strong political ties? Any thoughts?

Question

I am interested in exploring the thoughts of people from both India and Israel to find out how the countries citizens and governments feel about each other. Seems like there could be a strong alliance built between the two powers. Any thought?
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Answer 1

India and Israel have got very good relationship. They share common problem of terrorism which makes them natural allies. Apart from this, both countries also share intelligence inputs. There has been deal in defence sectors like BARAK missiles. Somedays ago, Israeli scientists were in India to give some technical knowhow on anti-missile system.
This is only one aspect of story. The other part is that India doesn't show much warmth in relations with Israel in public because it may offend Indian muslims which are staunch enemy of Israel. Other point is of govermnment in India. The current UPA government becomes very much cautious when it comes the name of Israel. The reason is that they have large muslim vote bank. The relations flourished more in tenure of NDA government in India because they have got no muslim vote bank and they thrive on anti muslim feelings. The example of good relationship is BARAK missile deal which was signed under NDA government.
Israel is also the role model for indian hindu religious extremist group RSS. They cite Israel as an example whenever they comment on increasing muslim atrocities. They feel that India should also fight with terrorism like Israel.

Answer 2

There are some underlying features between the two countries and one can learn a lot from the other. Some unifying threads run along both India and Israel.There is a lot of latent goodwill between the two. It needs to be harnessed though.
What some Indian parties are afraid of is that they don't want to offend Muslim communities, as Israel is at loggerheads with the Arab world and India wants to maintain good relations with Arabs.
I don't quite see how you can be partisan and maintain a standoffish relationship with Israel simply because some people cannot see eyeball to eye ball with Israel.
India should display forthrightness and not stoop to expediency in forging strong ties with Israel, maintaining good relations with others as well. It however needs some guts and spirit which most Indian politicians lack.

Answer 3

apart from both being democracies and India buying lots of arsenal from Israel, there's not much between em