DEHYPHENATION POLICY

ChinmayaIAS Academy - Current Affairs November 6, 2021 GS2 Leave a comment 589 Views

Recently, on the sidelines of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the Prime Minister of Palestine called for India’s support to play a stabilising role in West Asia by maintaining cooperation with all related parties.
This statement is significant in the context of India’s External Affairs Minister visit to Israel, whereby he excluded a trip to the Palestinian territory.
India in the recent year has been following a dehyphenation policy between Israel and Palestine.

Important points:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. It is linked to the age-old tussle over identity and land starting with Jerusalem.
In 1947, the United Nations (UN) adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.
This led to unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Traditionally, India’s foreign policy towards Israel and Palestine has been a hyphenated foreign policy.
However, hyphenating the ties with Israel – linking them to ties with the Palestinian Authority – essentially prevented India from pursuing a pragmatic policy of what was in India’s best interests.
In recent times, India is being seen shifted towards a Dehyphenation of Policy.

Dehyphenation of Policy:

India’s policy on the longest running conflict in the world has gone from being unequivocally pro-Palestine for the first four decades, to a tense balancing act with its three-decade-old friendly ties with Israel.
In recent years, India’s position has also been perceived as pro-Israel.
In 2017, in an unprecedented move, India’s PM visited only Israel and not Palestine.
Then, the recent visit of the Prime Minister to Palestine, Oman and the UAE is again a continuation of similar policy.
This departure from earlier policy and endorsing an independent policy towards these two rivals is called the de-hyphenation in India’s foreign policy.
It means India’s relationship with Israel would stand on its own merits, independent and separate from India’s relationship with the Palestinians.
The de-hypenhation is actually a careful balancing act, with India shifting from one side to another as the situation demands.
As India moves towards becoming a larger player in global politics and economics, these pre-existing policies are increasingly in need of review, and de-hyphenating Israel and Palestine was a process long past its due date.
In recent years, India has broken the tradition of supporting Palestine at the UN.
In 2019, India voted in favour of Israel at the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) to deny observer status to a Palestinian organisation named Shahed.
Further, India abstained during the voting on a resolution calling for investigation into Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip at the Human Rights Council.