After nuclear deal, Iran bigger threat than ISIS: Daniel Carmon

Bengaluru: With no dates announced as yet for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel, India’s unabashed ally in the Middle East and the only country with no diplomatic ties with India’s troublesome South Asian neighbour, Pakistan, Tel Aviv is looking to welcome Indian President Pranab Mukherjee in the near future, said Ambassador of Israel to India, Daniel Carmon. He was speaking to Deccan Chronicle after opening Israel’s new consulate here in the defense-IT-BT hub, where India and Israel have forged a strategic synergy.

Mr Modi remains the one leader that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would like to roll out the red carpet for, given the fact that Mr Modi has made it more than plain that he wishes to reinforce ties with Tel Aviv, formally established in 1992 but marred by the inability of the ‘Arabists’ in government to shed their pro-Palestinian tilt.

Mr Modi, backed by the party and the RSS on boosting ties with the Jewish state, received his first congratulatory call after his sweeping 2014 victory from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, beating even U.S President Barack Obama. Similarly, the meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly sessions in September later that year, underlined their coming together to face down ideological adversaries bent on destroying their culture and identity.

For India, it is Pakistan whose military-ISI complex has upped the ante on cross-border attacks across the Line of Control and the hitherto quieter International Boundary in its attempt to box Mr Modi into a corner and stymie his stewardship of India’s upward economic trajectory.

For Israel, it is a newly minted Iran, buoyed by a ‘nuclear deal’ with the United States that will free it of the debilitating sanctions that have kept its economy on hold as the main source of its income from oil stands greatly diminished as oil prices continue to fall.

When asked how India’s ties with the Jewish nation were affected by Delhi’s eagerness to tie up with Tehran, Ambassador Carmon said cryptically, “The Indian government knows exactly how we feel about it. I don’t want to give advice to India on the matter, but our opinion is known, both to India and the U.S."

He was far more trenchant in his criticism of the US-Iran nuclear deal. “It is what I call the ‘deal to lift up the sanction’. Israel is not the only country that feels this way. Our moderate Arab neighbours will tell you the same thing. The deal is just not a good one and we’re saying it openly," he added.

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The ambassador queried the efficacy of the verification mechanisms as laid out in the deal, describing them as “questionable.” “Iran will in essence, be checking itself. They get 24-days advance notice before an inspection happens, so the possibility of a coverup exists,” he said.

Declaring Iran - which will benefit from the release of billions of dollars that were in bank accounts frozen by the U.S. - as a bigger threat than ISIS and Al Qaeda, he said “Iran is a greater threat than ISIS. They are a country with huge resources, they are a regional power and possess the instruments that could be threatening. So yes, we worry about them more than the ISIS, even though they are a concern too. The violence in Lebanon, Yemen, the Gaza strip and Golan has Iran in a key role. Terrorist forces like Hamas and Hezbollah are trained and funded by them. Over the last few months, we have discovered them on a part of our border that we never expected,” he added.

India’s close relations with Israel centre on defence ties and intelligence sharing. India is the largest buyer of Israeli military equipment, and Israel, the second-largest defense supplier to India of defence equipment worth roughly about $9 billion between 1999 and 2009. It supported India when sanctions were imposed after the nuclear tests, and in retaliation Pakistan has targeted Israeli tourists and Chabad House during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

On whether India helped India during the Kargil war, the canny diplomat said, “That’s for Indians to say, not Israel.”