Benjamin Netanyahu, the first Israeli prime minister to visit India in 15 years, accompanied by his wife Sara on a six-day visit to India, were given a warm welcome by Prime Minister Modi. Driving the growing ties is both leaders’ shared worldview for national-security and free-markets. Both see Israel’s technology-oriented economy as a natural fit for India’s, which needs innovation to improve everything from farming to healthcare.
Netanyahu hailed a “new era” in ties with India as he signed a series of deals on cybersecurity, energy, biotechnology, agriculture, and defense during his first visit. Israel has given initial approval for Indian energy companies to explore oil and gas in the eastern Mediterranean. Bilateral trade has jumped from $200 million in 1992, when the two countries opened diplomatic relations, to $5 billion in 2017.
Sara and Netanyahu visited Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, where Netanyahu tried his hand at a spinning wheel, a pastime Gandhi made popular while he was jailed during British colonial rule. They also visited the Taj Mahal in Agra, and attended a ceremony to name a square in New Delhi ‘Teen Murti’ in honor of the Indian soldiers who died in the fight to liberate Haifa from the Turks in 1918.
Netanyahu addressed the India-Israel Business Summit organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi. On his last night in Mumbai, Prime Minister Netanyahu partied with Bollywood bigwigs such as actor Amitabh Bachchan and director Abhishek Kapoor, and pitched Israel as a film destination: Not just because you can see the snow, the beach, the desert, the salty sea and a sweet-water lake within an hour’s drive, he said, but also because Israel has “great technology for businesses and big ideas.”
