New Delhi-During a historic visit he paid to the West Bank on 10 February 2018, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was presented with the highest Palestinian medal. Presenting the medal, Abu Mazen highlighted the Palestinian people’s acknowledgement of India’s consistent and unwavering support to the aspirations of Palestinian people to have their independent state.
Modi, who is India’s first prime minister to pay a visit to the Palestinian territory, confirmed to the Palestinians that they could count on New Delhi’s support for an independent Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel. India’s Prime Minister also highlighted the fact that New Delhi had long backed the Palestinian quest for nationhood. “I have once again assured [the Palestinian people] that India is bound by a promise to take care of the Palestinian people’s interests,” Modi said after having talks with Palestinian President Abu Mazen in Ramallah. “India hopes that soon Palestine will become a free country in a peaceful manner,” Modi asserted.
Since the establishment of their relationship, India has spared no opportunity to reaffirm its reliable support to the Palestinian issue, where it shared the perception of Palestine is at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Holding firmly to its commitments to the Palestinians and their aspirations, India rejected ex-US President Donald Trump’s statement on Jerusalem. New Delhi’s refusal to Trump’s stance on the holy city provoked big disappointment among the Israelis.
Trump upended decades of US policy in the Arab region when he announced in December 2017 that he would move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Trump’s outrageous decision in this respect increased concerns that the United States had forfeited its strategic role as an impartial broker in the Palestinian-Israeli struggle. Palestinians were outraged by Trump’s decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as they have long sought East Jerusalem as the capital of their independent state.
Trump also announced the US would withhold tens of millions of dollars from the UN agency, known as UNRWA, which provides critical aid to Palestinian refugees, and threatened to cut off all aid. Trump’s decision in this regard was condemned internationally and regionally.
Acknowledging India as an international force of great prestige and weight, the Palestinian people and their leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen are counting on New Delhi’s role to help the achievement of a just peace in the Arab region. The Palestinians also give credit to India for being a rising power at the strategic and economic levels, which could contribute to the achievement of a just peace in our region.
India was the first non-Arab country to recognise the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s authority as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” A PLO office was set up in the Indian capital in 1975, with full diplomatic relations established in March 1980. India’s recognition of Palestine’s statehood came following declaration on18 November 1988; however, relations between India and PLO were first established in 1974.
Appreciating the legitimacy of the Palestinian issue, India has been consistently supporting the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to a State and the consequent imperative need for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region based on the UN Security Council resolution 242 and 388 and 425, as well as the principle of ‘Land for Peace.
