Holy Land Studies 12.

1 (2013): 9–24
DOI: 10.3366/hls.2013.0057
1
© Edinburgh University Press
www.euppublishing.com/hls

RUSSIA, CHINA AND INDIA AND THE

ISRAEL–PALESTINE CONFLICT

Professor Yakov M. Rabkin1

Professor of History
Department of History
University of Montreal
POB 6128, Centre-ville station,
Montréal, QC, Canada H3C 3J7
yakov.rabkin@umontreal.ca

ABSTRACT
Outside the Middle East, the future of Israel/Palestine is most often
discussed in terms of US foreign policy, where the issue has also acquired
religious overtones. This article examines the policies of three nuclear
powers – Russia, China and India – on this issue. The analysis takes into
account these countries’ policies with respect to the entire region, including
Iran, in which Russia and the two Asian giants have significant interests.
While the three nuclear powers have close contacts with Israel and its
military, they opposed Israel’s position at the historic UN vote held on 29
November 2012.

Outside the Middle East, the Israel/Palestine conflict is largely viewed

in connection with the United States, where it has been an important
electoral issue with strong religious overtones, particularly among
Christians (Rabkin 2012). While the United States appears to be the
most intimately involved in shaping the situation in Israel/Palestine, its
influence in the region appears to be in decline in the wake of the Arab
Spring. Washington’s inconsistency has antagonised its friends and enemies
alike, and some would argue that ‘the Middle East is proving to be a

1 The author wishes to express his gratitude to Miriam and Hinda Rabkin as well as
to Dyala Hamza for their useful comments on an earlier draft.
10 Holy Land Studies

graveyard for American pre-eminence’.2 This is why the policies of three

major economic and nuclear powers – China, India and Russia – ought to
be taken into account. They also deserve attention because the situation
in that small territory of Western Asia known as Israel and Palestine
influences the entire region, including Iran, in which the three Asian
giants have significant interests. The position of Japan may be of less
consequence not only because it has thus far abstained from developing
its own nuclear arsenal but also because the foreign policy of that island
nation is closely aligned with that of the United States, which has used
Japan as a strategic location for military bases crucial in the conduct of
wars not only in Korea and Vietnam but also in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The conflict in Palestine has attracted world attention for over a
century. Following the gradual growth of tensions during the British
mandate, a further attempt to settle the conflict by outside forces was
made at the United Nations. On 29 November 1947 the UN General
Assembly voted to partition Palestine against the view of the majority
of the population of Palestine and of all the surrounding nations. This
resolution only exacerbated the tensions between Zionist settlers and the
local population and engendered incessant violence. While, in the words
of the then President Truman, ‘subjected to a constant barrage’ from the
Zionists (quoted in Lenczowski 1990: 28), the United States pressured
several governments to vote for the partition. This pressure succeeded in
the case of most Latin American governments. Only Cuba voted against
while Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Argentina and Chile
abstained. The Philippines, Haitian and Liberian governments were also
whipped into line, but the pressure turned out to be counterproductive
in the case of India. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru later spoke
with anger at and contempt for the way the UN vote had been lined up.
He said the Zionists had tried to bribe India with millions and at the same
time his sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who later became the first woman
to preside over the UN General Assembly, had received daily warnings that
her life was in danger unless ‘she voted right’ (Heptulla 1991: 158). The
Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies supported the resolution,
and Czechoslovakia later supplied critically important weapons to the
young Zionist state. Taiwan abstained. The People’s Republic of China
was established only two years later, and Israel was one of the first countries
to recognise it. However, Israel’s dependence on the United States would
prevent it from establishing relations with Beijing as long as Washington
was opposed to such a rapprochement.

2 P. R. Kumaraswamy, ‘Israel-China Arms Trade: Unfreezing Times’, Middle

East Institute, 16 July 2012, at: http://www.mei.edu/content/israel-china-arms-trade-
unfreezing-times.
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 11

Russia
Russia maintains a special relationship with Israel. The Russia–Israel
connection is old and multifaceted, including inter-state diplomatic and
military relations, business and technology links, tourism, as well as an
intensive interface in cultural and media matters.
Israel’s links with Russia pre-date the establishment of the state; they
extend from the origins of the Zionist settlement at the turn of the 20th
century to the current role played by Russian-speakers in Israel’s politics,
arts, technology and sciences. Not only did most pioneer settlers originate
from within the confines of the Russian Empire, the ethnic roots of all of
Israel’s prime ministers, including the current one, Benjamin Netanyahu,
can be found in that country. At the time of writing, four ministers,
including the foreign minister and the tourism minister, are Soviet-born
Russian-speakers. This reflects the fact that these ‘new Israelis’ account for
nearly one quarter of Israel’s non-Arab population. They are also reported
to be more unabashedly nationalist than native Israelis.
Israel is believed to be the more interested in cooperation with Russia,
namely in access to Russia’s market and to its fossil fuels as well as in using
Russia’s political influence to moderate the growing anti-Israel public
opinion in the region. Russia is mainly interested in harnessing Israeli
technologies for industrial modernisation. In the twenty years since the
establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, each has
been attentive to the other’s concerns, even though they have sometimes
opposed each other in international organisations. Thus Russia cancelled
the sale of S-300 missiles to Iran, making that country more vulnerable
to a possible attack. Israeli officials in Russia portray their country as
a bulwark of European civilisation in the Middle East, thus capitalising
on the growing anti-Islamic sentiment among ethnic Russians. While
Israel abstains from criticising Russia’s armed forces’ conduct in the
Caucasus, Russian officials express tepid concern about Israel’s treatment
of the Palestinians, appearing less concerned than many Western European
countries. Russia’s leaders, known for their pragmatism, rarely go beyond
paying lip service to spreading democracy and upholding human rights.
Military and strategic cooperation continues to increase, both in terms
of the joint production of weaponry and regular official consultations
on security issues. Active cooperation has developed in several high-tech
areas, including work on dual-use technologies. Israel and Russia also
collaborate in supplying security materiel to third countries, such as India,
which partly compensates the self-restraint of the Russian arms industry in
sales to the Middle East exercised to accommodate Israeli and American
concerns. Bilateral links have developed in nanotechnology and energy
storage/transmission. Business cooperation may also include gas supplies
12 Holy Land Studies

on the part of Russia’s Gazprom, which would compensate for the fragility
of the Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel. There exists a joint business council
serving as an umbrella for a matrix of interlinks between Russian and
Israeli technology producers. While most Western nations avoid holding
official ceremonies on the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, it is in
the town of Ariel in the West Bank that the launch of the Israel-Skolkovo
bilateral innovation fund took place in 2012.
Israel has the largest Russian-speaking diaspora outside of the former
USSR, Russian tourists constitute the second largest segment of visitors
to Israel, and Russian citizens consider Israel the second most attractive
tourist destination. There is no visa required for travel between the two
countries, which has led nearly half a million Russian tourists a year to
visit Israel. Russia takes second place after the United States in terms of
the number of visitors to Israel, but it would be the first if one included
tourists from other parts of the former Soviet Union. Over 60 daily flights
link several Russian cities with Israel.
The coverage of Israel in Russian media is mostly done by former
Soviet citizens settled in Israel, many belonging to the right of Israel’s
political spectrum. This is having a long-term effect on Russian public
opinion. Over two-thirds of Russians view Israel favourably, a higher
percentage than in most European countries, and this appears to be a
steady trend as 90% of the respondents in a recent survey claim to have
improved their opinion of Israel. Vladimir Putin expressed the sentiment
of many of his compatriots when he said: ‘There is a little piece of Russia
in Israel’ ( ).
At the same time, Russia maintains well-established contacts in Iran
and Syria, both countries being in the crosshairs of American policies in
recent years. Russia insists on treating Iran with respect and consideration,
and continues countering Israeli and American efforts to marginalise that
country. Russia has also supported Palestine’s campaign for recognition
on the part of the international community, and has hosted delegations
from both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. While officials of Russia’s
Foreign Ministry reiterate their commitment to the two-state solution,
Russian academic experts remain sceptical with respect to peace prospects
in the country.3
Russia and Israel continue to increase strategic, economic and cultural
cooperation as well as a reciprocal flow of tourists. Political differences
with respect to Syria, Iran and the fate of the Palestinians do not pose a
threat to this trend, which relies on an extensive network of connections
ranging from the rank and file to the upper echelons of politics and
3 http://www.perspektivy.info/rus/desk/palestino-izrailskij_konflikt_cennostnoje_
izmerenije_2010-06-30.htm; http://www.perspektivy.info/rus/desk/rol_rossii_v_
uregulirovanii_palestino-izrailskogo_konflikta_2011-09-02.htm.
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 13

business. This sets Russia apart from China and India whose links with
Israel lack such a broad people-to-people basis.

China
For China, Israel’s prime attraction is as a source of cutting-edge high
technology; for Israel, China is the world’s largest market. China and
Israel established diplomatic relations in 1992, somewhat later than the
resumption of diplomatic ties between Israel and the USSR under
Gorbachev. However, important economic, military and technological
ties had developed well before 1992. Since the 1980s, the Chinese army
had Israeli companies, benefitting from the knowledge of immigrant
Soviet engineers, upgrade China’s Soviet-manufactured materiel. At the
same time, scientific contacts were actively pursued (Burns 1985). By the
mid-1980s, Israel had effectively become Beijing’s main supplier of high
technology. The image of Israel among the Chinese elites is influenced
by the frequent conflation of Israel and the Jews, whom many Chinese
respect as an ancient people for their alleged tenacity and business acumen.
Moreover, it is not only Alan Greenspan and George Soros that command
admiration in China, but ‘Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud
are iconic figures in the country, and in the 1950s the Chinese communist
government issued a postage stamp bearing the visage of the Yiddish
writer Sholem Aleichem’ (Kessler 2012).
Cooperation between China and Israel developed in the fields of
agriculture, solar energy, information and communications, as well as
construction. This pattern is not unique: American companies had
sold several strategically important turnkey industrial plants and sent
thousands of engineers and technicians to the Soviet Union well
before Washington and Moscow established diplomatic relations in 1933.
However, diplomatic relations do matter: since 1992 the trade volume
between Israel and China increased more than one hundred-fold to reach
nearly $10 billion.4
Israel has become the second largest arms supplier to China after Russia
(Ramachandran 2004). Israel’s eagerness to sell its military expertise and
equipment to China occasionally provokes disapproval in Washington,
and Israel has backed off several times from its previous commitments
to sell sophisticated materiel to the Chinese military.5 More generally,
Israel has to clear with the United States most of its initiatives with
respect to China, which Washington views as a potential threat to its
4 http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-puder/the-growing-chinese-israeli-
relationship/
5 http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2004/12/29/Israels-
China-US-weapons-dilemma/UPI-26081104355028/.
14 Holy Land Studies

world hegemony. In spite of these limitations, Israel has established a solid

reputation as a source of know-how, and recognition of the importance
of Israel in China’s modernisation drive has become public since 2011.
The appointment of a retired deputy chief of staff and minister for home
defence as Israel’s ambassador to Beijing emphasised the importance of
China as a major market for Israel’s weaponry.6 This suggests that one can
expect Israel to assume a more defiant position with respect to the United
States in selling arms to China, just as it has long defied it in continuing
settlement activities in the occupied territories. The Israel lobby in the
United States encourages such defiance, and makes its opinion known in
Chinese media.7
The first ever China–Israel Strategy and Security Symposium was held
in 2011 at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, an important right-
wing think-tank on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. The symposium was
co-hosted by the Centre for Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) and the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT).
This showed China’s interest in using Israeli knowledge and experience
in countering unrest among its Muslim minorities. Soon after Israel’s
Minister of Defence visited China in 2011, the Chief of Staff of China’s
People’s Liberation Army included Israel in his tour of Russia and Ukraine
(Katz 2011). A few months later, China’s warships docked in Haifa for an
official visit. Military and strategic cooperation between China and Israel
have thus become public since the secret visit of Israel’s defence minister
to China in 1991.
SIGNAL (Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership)
established five Israel studies programmes in Chinese universities in
2011.8 This was an impressive case of the long-standing mobilisation of
Israeli academics for the pursuit of Israel’s strategic objectives. Academic
links between the two countries became overtly political when the
Soviet-born right-wing parliamentarian Yuli Edelstein took part in joint
consultations conducted between Likud and the Chinese Communist
Party. A 30-person delegation of business leaders and scholars expressly
promoting Chinese investment, visited Israel and the territories under
nominal control of the Palestinian Authority in February 2012. Strategic
cooperation includes plans for building a high-speed rail link between Eilat
and the Mediterranean bypassing the Suez Canal in order to accelerate
Chinese exports to Europe.9
In celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sino-Israeli diplomatic relations
on 24 January 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks
6 http://www.mei.edu/content/israel-china-arms-trade-unfreezing-times.
7 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/740429.shtml.
8 http://jcpa.org/article/a-quiet-transformation-in-chinas-approach-to-israel/.
9 http://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/09/20/195s659185.htm.
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 15

included the following: ‘The rise of modern China is one of the most
important events of our time, as is the rise of modern Israel. Millennia-
old societies provide a strong basis for future cooperation in many fields.’
In his speech he conflated the relatively short history of Israel with the
millennia-old Jewish history and even thanked China for offering asylum
to Jews fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe in Shanghai, even though it was
Japanese, rather than Chinese authorities who governed the city at the
time. This liberal attitude to history has long been part of the dominant
political discourse in Israel.
China used to compete with the Soviet Union for a place of honour
in supporting the Palestinians’ struggle. This was a matter of principle and
ideology as China positioned itself on the side of ‘liberation struggles’ all
over the world. However, the growing ties with Israel dampened China’s
support for the Palestinians. Rather, it became ‘a useful public diplomacy
tool’ in moderating criticism China often faces in Muslim countries for
its treatment of its own Muslim population. To the extent that it can be
useful, China occasionally uses its support for the Palestinians as a means
of competing with American and other Western countries in gaining a
foothold in resource-rich Arab and Muslim countries. At the same time,
China is unlikely to take any independent initiative in trying to resolve
the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Similarly to Russia, China seems willing
to treat the territories Israel conquered in 1967 as a part of Israel and to
engage in development projects there. Thus a Chinese bank is reported
to be considering financing a major wind energy project in the Golan
Heights.10
Israel’s leaders have come to realise that China’s actions in the region
speak more strongly than American and European words. Israel reportedly
convinced China to support UN sanctions against Iran by threatening to
attack Iran’s nuclear installations and thus to engulf the region in a major
conflict, which, in turn, would disrupt China’s large-scale oil purchases
from that country (Jacobs 2010). But mobilising China’s support involved
a series of compromises that have both weakened the sanctions and delayed
their implementation. At the same time, Iran remains a much more
important trade partner for China than Israel, which accounts for barely
a fifth of China’s commercial volume with Iran. China has significantly
expanded not only its purchases of Iranian oil in defiance of Western-
inspired sanctions but also its investment in the energy and other sectors.11
The coverage of the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2012 in the Chinese media
was overtly critical of Israel’s actions. Even though there exists media
debate on the more immediate issues related to Taiwan, Japan and the
10 http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Israel-and-China-a-Marriage-
Made-in-Heaven-Except-for-Energy-Issues.html.
11 Ibid.
16 Holy Land Studies

United States (Shirk 2007), the Chinese media are less diverse in matters
of opinion on China’s policies in the Middle East since they are more
closely aligned with government positions than the media in Russia and
India.

India
India, after initially objecting to the partition of Palestine, recognised
Israel in 1950. However, for several decades, relations between them was
limited and tepid as India remained a pillar of the non-aligned movement,
which strongly supported the Palestinian struggle. The resumption of
diplomatic relations between Moscow and Tel Aviv in November 1991
encouraged India’s opening to Israel. Full diplomatic relations between
the two countries were established only in 1992, after the dissolution of
the USSR resulted in a unipolar world under the uncontested hegemony
of the United States. Like quite a few other countries at the time,
‘New Delhi believed that upgrading its relations with Israel would have
a positive effect on the United States’ (Inbar 2004). Close cooperation
was developed between major Jewish organisations in the United States
and the Indian lobby in Washington on a variety of issues, including
exchange of expertise in public relations and in providing support for
specific political candidates. This shift was not uniformly praised and was
deemed as a betrayal of the ‘vaunted moral foundation of India’s foreign
policy’ and a betrayal of the Palestinians (Dasgupta 1992).
According to an official accompanying India’s foreign minister on
a visit to Israel in January 2012, ‘for years, India has conducted its
relations with Israel almost covertly, as if trying to hide from the Arab
world, where its traditional friends lay’.12 Indeed, covert cooperation
between the intelligence agencies of the two countries was established
in the 1960s. With the pro-Western turn of India towards the neo-liberal
economic model and its opening up to capitalist globalisation in the early
1990s, cooperation with Israel has steadily increased. As both countries
dismantled remnants of socialist economic structures, they strengthened
trade links in several areas. The dismemberment of the Soviet Union
and the subsequent pro-American orientation of Yeltsin’s Russia not only
prompted India to open up to Israel but also to follow Russia’s example in
operating a major privatisation of state assets. Relations with Israel must be
seen as part of India’s comprehensive turn to the right in the last decade of
the 20th century. In 2012 Israel issued a commemorative stamp to celebrate
the 20th anniversary of its diplomatic relations with India (Joint 2012).

12 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-13/india/30623345_1_ceo-
yitzhak-india-and-israel-israel-aerospace-industries.
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 17

Another important factor encouraging India to warm up to Israel

was the military cooperation Israel had established with China, India’s
rival, and the concern that Israeli military wares sold to China would
reach Pakistan, India’s adversary since the partition of India in 1947.
The establishment of China’s diplomatic relations with Israel in January
1991 was another piece in the jigsaw puzzle that Indian decision-makers
were then putting together. Israel’s relations with China remain under
close scrutiny in India, and some of the most perceptive analyses of
the China–Israel connection (including those quoted in this article) are
produced in India. ‘At first haltingly, then more wholeheartedly, New
Delhi during the 1990s abandoned the philosophical premises that had
guided Indian diplomacy for forty years and transformed the country’s
approach to global affairs’ (Gerberg 2010: 29). The transformation was
based on a myriad of calculations, including the ‘feeling that despite its
unqualified commitments to Palestinian aspirations and support of Arab
causes there was no Arab reciprocity on Kashmir and Pakistan’ (Indian
Express, 11 December 1997, quoted in: Gerberg 2010: 34).
India had also conducted high-level consultations with the PLO
Chairman Yasser Arafat before deciding on upgrading its official relations
with Israel. Arafat reportedly believed that India having full-fledged
relations with Israel would allow India, a trusted friend of the Palestinians,
to assume the role of facilitator between the PLO and Israel (Dixit
1996). Indeed, according to India’s foreign minister the ‘relationship
with Israel . . . will not and should not affect our relations with
Palestine’ (Times of India, 12 July 2004, quoted in Gerberg 2010: 52).
Internal factors, namely the decline of even-handed secularism in Indian
politics and the subsequent decline of the elites’ concern about Muslim
opinion, facilitated the shift towards Israel. However, the 150-million
strong Muslim community remains mostly pro-Palestinian and views with
suspicion the expansion of India’s relations with Israel. The coverage of
Israel in India’s media has been of concern to the Israeli government and
to the Israel lobby in the United States. One of its institutions, the Israel
Project, that in the past had sent professional anti-Iran press kits to as
many as 13,000 journalists, has now begun a new India Media Program.
It started its activities by organising a meeting of the Israeli ambassador to
India with representatives of India’s press corps in the United States.
In 1997 Ezer Weizman was the first Israeli president to visit India. In
2003 Ariel Sharon was the first Israeli prime minister to visit India, and his
visit provoked an outcry of protest in the country, largely because of his
long-established bellicose reputation and his then recent role in igniting
the second intifada. A terrorist attack on a number of targets in Mumbai in
2008, including a drop-in Jewish community centre frequented by Israelis,
particularly army veterans, reinforced cooperation between Indian and
18 Holy Land Studies

Israeli security services and further opened up India’s market for anti-
terrorist materiel and know-how. A Joint Working Counter-Terrorism
Group was established as Israel came to benefit from the new demand
generated by the attack on US targets on 11 September 2001. According
to a former Israeli diplomat in India: ‘. . . the war on terror that followed
appeared to create a better climate for Israeli–Indian cooperation in this
domain particularly’ (Gerber 2010: 57).
Nowadays, India is the largest customer of Israeli military equipment,
accounting for over one half of Israel’s weapons exports. Israel is India’s
second-largest military partner after the Russian Federation, and has once
even surpassed Russia as the largest exporter of arms to India (Ullekh
2012). The three countries are involved in several joint development
and production programmes in the military sector, including, just like
in China, the upgrade of Soviet-manufactured weaponry. Trade between
India and Israel has reached $14 billion, with the military component
accounting for about two thirds of the total (TNN 2010). Israel, reputed to
be a nuclear power with nearly 300 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, did not
condemn India’s nuclear tests in 1998. In 1999, during a conflict between
India and Pakistan, Israel sold laser-guided missiles to India, making it
possible for the Indian air force to destroy Pakistani bunkers in the Kargil
mountains (Gerber 2010: 65).
This development facilitated trade in military equipment, and opened
the way to cooperation between the two navies. In 2000, Israeli
submarines reportedly conducted test launches of cruise missiles capable
of carrying nuclear warheads in the waters of the Indian Ocean, off
the south-eastern coast of India. India replaced apartheid South Africa
as the main partner of Israel, providing it with substantial naval depth.
Cooperation in aerospace technologies, such as the supply of Israeli drones
to the Indian army, went apace with the growth of military ties. Israel
has also become a major supplier of security expertise and equipment for
India’s anti-terrorist operations, which constituted a high priority after the
attack of Islamist militants on several targets in Mumbai in 2008. Indian
troops are part of the UN peacekeeping detachment on Israel’s border
with Lebanon.
As in the case of China–Israel relations, academic and other research
scientists have played a major role in strengthening military cooperation
between India and Israel. A wide-ranging agreement on research
cooperation was signed between the two countries in August 2012.13
At the same time, India continues to support Palestinian positions
in international organisations and has consistently condemned Israel’s
military actions. While it votes for most pro-Palestinian resolutions at

13 http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3718489.ece
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 19

the UN, it no longer sponsors them as in the past. In the framework

of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Committee on Palestine, India
pledged to continue to work with other members of the committee in
an endeavour collectively to support the Palestinian cause; India’s Prime
Minister Singh did likewise in July 2009 at the 15th summit of the NAM
at Sharm al-Sheikh. Since 2005 India has taken part as an observer in the
meetings of the Arab League. Nearly five million Indian citizens work
in the Arab countries, and their remittances constitute $10 billion. The
total volume of trade with Arab countries was $114 billion in 2010 and it
continues to increase (PTI 2010).

How People in Russia, China and India View Israel and Palestine
The attention paid by the more educated citizens of the three Asian
countries to Israel and Palestine (and vice versa) can be roughly gauged
with the help of Google Trends. For the period 2004–2012, Russian
internet users have consistently searched for Israel ten times more often
than for Palestine. Searches originating in India follow a similar pattern,
though the gap between searches about Israel and those about Palestine is
not nearly as great as in Russia. Chinese searches for, respectively, Israel
and Palestine, particularly for those using Chinese characters, exhibit an
even more balanced pattern. However, for all the three countries, searches
for information about Israel are significantly more frequent than those for
data on Palestine.
Searches for ‘Israel’ from those countries are largely related to tourism.
Chinese searches to ‘Israel’ also touch on political news and relations
between Iran and Israel. The interests become even more political if
one examines searches originating in India, which include terms like
‘Israeli conflict’, ‘Iran-Israel’, ‘Israeli army’, and ‘history of Israel’, as
well as, curiously, ‘Israeli women’ and ‘Israeli girls’, who actually score
more highly than ‘Israeli news’ and ‘Israeli military’. Indian searches for
‘Palestine’ focus even more on the Israel/Palestine conflict and Palestinian
history. Russian searches for Israel involve mostly questions of tourism.
Russian and Ukrainian searches for ‘Israeli’ refer almost exclusively to
the Israeli Cultural Centres in major cities of the two countries. The
Russian Google searches for ‘Palestine’ yield mainly combinations with
Israel, usually for geographic maps. This is part of the general disaffection
from politics characteristic of post-soviet Russian society. It should not be
surprising that the political and military aspects of Israel and Palestine do
not interest Russian internet users while those in China and even more in
India have greater interest in these issues.
Israeli searches for ‘Russia’ in Russian relate mostly to news and soccer
but also to ‘criminal Russia’, the title of a popular TV series. Former
20 Holy Land Studies

Soviet citizens who keep in touch with their native country, its culture
and even sports seem to account for most of these searches. However, in
Hebrew these searches focus on a wider range of subjects, including travel
to Russia, Russian dictionaries, Russian theatre, and Russian women.
English-language searches from Israel appear similar. Israeli searches for
‘India’ and ‘China’ refer mostly to questions of travel and, unlike searches
for ‘Russia’, have declined steadily since 2004.
While support for Israel in most Western countries suffers from a
significant democratic deficit (the elites are mostly pro-Israel while the
citizens are not), Israel appears truly popular in China, India and Russia.
An Israeli-funded survey found India’s population to have the highest
degree of pro-Israel sentiment in the world. 58% of citizens of India show
‘significant sympathy’ for Israel as compared with 56% of Americans, 52%
of Russians and 50% of Chinese. This sets China, India and Russia apart
from Western European countries where pro-Israeli sentiment remains
much lower (34% in Britain, 27% in France and 23% in Spain).14
Tourism from China, India and Russia to Israel has been steadily
increasing but the figures for 2011 vary widely: while nearly half a million
came from Russia, only 38,000 came from India and fewer than half that
number from China.15 India has long been a favourite with Israeli young
people (40,000 a year) looking for a place to unwind after the gruelling
compulsory military service.16 Russia attracted 75,000 Israeli tourists in
2011,17 even though the profile of these tourists may be quite different:
many are former Soviet citizens travelling to their native country on
Israeli passports. It should be noted, however, that public opinion rarely
influences foreign policy-making. This is true of most Western countries,
and, a fortiori, of the three non-Western nuclear powers in Asia.

Effects of the Arab Spring

Throughout the years there have been a number of common positions
taken by the three countries on the Middle East, and more specifically,
on the Israel/Palestine issue. China, India and the Soviet Union voted for
qualifying Zionism as racism at the UN General Assembly in 1975. That
resolution was revoked in 1991 – Gorbachev’s Soviet Union sponsored
this revocation, India voted for it and China absented itself at the vote.
When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006, China,
India and Russia, unlike many Western countries led by Canada, refused
14 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3696887,00.html.
15 http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/shnaton/text_search_eng_new.html?CYear=2012
&Vol=63&input=arrivals.
16 http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-04-06/news/29388871_1_
indo-israel-india-and-israel-diplomatic-relations.
17 http://tassgraphics.ru/item?id=27460.
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 21

to call Hamas a terrorist organisation, considered its parliamentarians

elected representatives of the Palestinian people and invited them to pay
official visits to their respective capitals. China, India and Russia also
condemned Israel’s two major attacks on Gaza and the seizure of the
Peace Flotilla by Israel’s Navy. When China hosted the new Egyptian
president Muhammad Morsi in September 2012, it expressed support for
an independent Palestinian state and its role in international organisations.
China, India and Russia have provided aid to Palestinians both in Gaza
and the West Bank, and there are several projects afoot, such as the
construction of a Jawaharlal Nehru school in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem.
Among the three countries, post-Soviet Russia, still groping for its role in
the world, may be the least pro-active in terms of initiatives in Western
Asia.
All three Asian giants relate to ‘the Iranian nuclear threat’ as an
Israeli-American political fabrication rather than a realistic prospect. They
support Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear technologies, and deplore
Western policies of punishing Iran. China, India and Russia have multiple
joint projects in Iran’s energy sector, and Iran remains an important partner
for all three countries. Western economic sanctions against Iran tend to
strengthen Iran’s economic and political relations with China, India and
Russia. This is one of the paradoxical consequences of Israel’s campaign
against Iran.
Policy-making with respect to Israel/Palestine in China, India and
Russia have something important in common. Western benevolence
towards Israel has been based largely on biblical analogies and on guilt
for the horrors of the Nazi genocide. These factors are irrelevant in
the context of the three Asian nuclear powers. Christianity is marginal
in China and India, and both countries are far from Eastern Europe
where the industrialised massacre of Jews took place in the 1940s. Russia,
albeit mostly Christian, is the successor state of the Soviet Union, which
almost single-handedly vanquished Nazi Germany, the perpetrator of the
genocide. Therefore unlike Germany, neither China, India, nor Russia
carry the historical weight that would prevent them from judging Israel
and its treatment of the Palestinians on its merits. It appears that it is the
ebb and flow of the arms trade with Israel that tends to affect most the
countries’ position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus when, due to
American protests, Israel cancelled a major weapons sale to China, Beijing
markedly raised its voice in defence of the Palestinians (Ramachandran
2004).
The Israel/Palestine conflict does not seem to be a factor in shaping
the three countries’ attitudes to the Arab Spring. China joined Russia in
preventing the UN Security Council from following the Western line on
Syria. The two countries had supported the UN resolution authorising
22 Holy Land Studies

the use of force in Libya for humanitarian reasons, but learned their lesson
when the actual attack of NATO air forces led to a regime change. The
loss for China of nearly 20 billion dollars in contracts in Libya18 as a
result of Western military intervention in the country sharpened China’s
interest in expertise in Arab affairs, including Israeli expertise. In this
particular instance, the Arab Spring may have pushed China somewhat
closer to Israel, while at the same time China joined Russia in strenuously
opposing outside interference in Syria’s affairs. Many Russian sources view
the Arab Spring with suspicion, either as US-manipulated or as chaotically
leaderless. A Russian Foreign Ministry official advised Russian Muslims to
avoid countries affected by these events in planning their studies abroad.19
At the same time, the spike in oil prices in reaction to the Arab Spring has
substantially benefited Russia’s economy, which is quite dependent on the
export of hydrocarbons.
In conclusion, it is clear that the end of the Cold War has reinforced the
position of Israel with respect to the three non-Western nuclear powers.
The Arab countries that used to benefit from Soviet support found
themselves either isolated such as Syria, or found a new willing patron in
the United States. The abandonment of socialist principles on the part of
the three governments has enabled them to establish close relations with
Israel, which operated the switch from socialist to neoliberal economy
almost as fast as post-Soviet Russia. Right-wing economic policies and the
resulting discontent of the citizens make Israeli expertise and equipment
in crowd control and counter-insurgency particularly valuable for many
governments, including those in Beijing, Delhi and Moscow. Concern
about the fate of the Palestinians has been eclipsed in the three countries
almost as much in Western countries where the non-existent Iranian
bomb has served as a ‘weapon of mass distraction’. While Israel successfully
diverted world attention to Iran, the situation in Gaza and the West Bank
seems to have been effectively marginalized as an international concern.
The Palestinians currently face a shortfall of the foreign financial aid
which sustains them while the occupation stifles economic activity in both
territories. A financial collapse was barely avoided in summer 2012.20
At the same time, the Palestinians’ struggle received a boost from
the leaders of 120 countries gathered in Tehran for a NAM Summit in
August–September 2012.21 These countries constitute two thirds of the
membership of the United Nations and 55% of the world population.
China and India as members, and Russia as a guest, were represented
at the Tehran meeting. President Putin sent warm greetings to the
18 http://www.china.org.cn/business/2012-04/05/content_25063631.htm.
19 http://en.ria.ru/russia/20121225/178396948.html.
20 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG04Ak06.html.
21 http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=345741.
 Yakov M. Rabkin Russia, China, India and Israel–Palestine 23

meeting, which was sharply condemned by the Obama administration.22

In November 2012, the three countries voted for the upgrading of
Palestine’s status at the United Nations supported by the overwhelming
majority of nations. It remains to be seen if the NAM and the UN
positions will have any positive effect on the Palestinians.
Israel’s current relations with the three Asian giants give little reason
to expect these powers to strengthen any quest for peace and justice
between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. There is little to be gained
from supporting the Palestinians, either in political or economic terms.
What support is given remains largely within the confines of resolutions
at the UN and other international organisations, resulting in little more
than lip service to the Palestinian struggle. The Arab Spring has further
removed the question of Palestine from the respective lists of immediate
foreign-policy concerns compiled in Beijing, Delhi and Moscow. All three
would like to see the status of the United States diminished in the region,
and it is in this context that the Palestine/Israel conflict may draw the
attention of these nuclear powers. In the wake of the Arab Spring, none of
them views support for the Palestinians as capable of bringing tangible or
even symbolic benefits in the short term. However, a note of humility may
be in order. As the dissident Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov remarked
during his exile from Moscow in the early 1980s, when he saw no future
for democratic change in his country: ‘the mole of history digs invisibly,
and we know that historical changes often occur suddenly’ (quoted in:
Shlapentokh 1990: 161).

References
Burns, John (1985) ‘Israel and China Quietly Form Trade Bonds’, New York Times,
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Dasgupta, Punyapriya (1992) ‘Betrayal of India’s Israel Policy’, Economic and Political
Weekly 27 (15/16): 767, 769, 771–2.
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UBSPD).
Inbar, Ephraim (2004) The Indian-Israeli Entente (Ramat Gan, Israel: The Begin–Sadat
Center for Strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University).
Gerberg Itzhak (2010) India–Israel Relations: Strategic Interests, Politics and Diplomatic
Pragmatism (Tel Aviv and Haifa: Israel National Defense College, IDF, with the
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Heptulla, Najma (1991) Indo-West Asian Relations: The Nehru Era (New Delhi: Allied
Publishers).
Jacobs, Andrew (2010) ‘Israel Makes Case to China for Iran Sanctions’, The New York
Times, 8 June.

22 http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3840313.ece.
24 Holy Land Studies

Joint (2012) ‘Joint stamps mark 20 years of India-Israel relations’, Jerusalem Post, 18
October.
Katz, Yaakov (2011) ‘Chinese army chief here to talk defense cooperation’, The
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Christianity at the Cradle of Zionism’, Mediterranean Review 5(1): 75–100.
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partner in arms bazaar’, Economic Times (India), 23 September.
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