India’s new ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen hauled Washington over the coals on its increasingly close ties to Islamabad. In a meeting hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and attended by several Republican Congressmen to discuss the nexus between Indian American and Jewish American interests and the triangular coincidence of goals between India, Israel and Washington, the Ambassador indicated that past incidents of terrorism in India and the ways to finance such activities may have had the active collusion of the Pakistani government.
“Alright, we understand expediency, but all that we are saying is ‘don’t let tactical moves sabotage long-term goals,’” asserted Ambassador Sen at the meeting, held at the Park Central Hotel in New York City during the Republican Convention.
He pointed to documented evidence and media reports in the past that had shown terrorist camps being operated by army generals in Pakistan, and the links between drug-running and terrorism, “but this has been ignored.”
Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA), tried to defend the Bush administration, declaring Pakistan a close non-NATO ally in the face of evidence of nuclear proliferation.
“The question is how do we respond. Secretary Powell has made clear that Pakistan is the center of global instability. One thing we are learning is that sometimes we may do things that are counter-productive. Secretary Powell has determined that it’s better to be constructive in our relations with Pakistan and that is in the interests of India as well.”
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), agreed that it was tough to reconcile nuclear proliferation with building an ally. Although human rights are sometimes relegated to a footnote among diplomats, the proliferation and human rights “are front and center of our relations with Pakistan.”
Smith stressed the importance of demanding explanations on what Islamabad is doing on these issues in every diplomatic meeting. “We hope it will make a difference over time in Pakistan. We cannot not push these issues.” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) said he saw the commonality of interests between India, Israel, and the United States. “The artificial barriers between India and the United States have been eradicated,” he noted. Calling India and Israel “outposts of democracy,” Wilson, who chairs the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, said: “We have a common situation in that we are all targets of terrorism.” India has been a long-time target losing 60,000 citizens, Israel has had its losses and now the United States had experienced it. “We are working with Israel and we are working with India. We are in a common war,” Wilson asserted.
Ambassador Sen gave a detailed account of the history of relations between India and Israel – the people and governments – since ancient times and the exponential growth in trade and technology relations between Israel and India, as well as between India and the United States.
Just three weeks into his office in Washington, Ambassador Sen said he was surprised how little was known about the deep-rooted and ancient relations between Israel and India and the Jewish community in India, 70,000 of whom now live in Israel.
The first Jewish settlement in India was in the 1st Century and in World War I, two Indian regiments liberated Haifa from Turkish/German attacks, he pointed out.
India and Israel, he noted, “are bastions of democracy,” and called earlier estranged relations “abnormal.” Trade between India and Israel, he noted, had risen to nearly $2 billion from a mere $160 million a few years ago.
“It’s not an accident that the first country Israel established relations with after the United States in order to build institutional structures for counter-terrorism was India,” Ambassador Sen pointed out.
“Terrorism has a method in its madness,” he stressed, because it targets the identifiers of democracy, the stock exchanges in Mumbai and New York, the parliament complex in India, and the nexus between drug trafficking, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. “This is a volatile mix we cannot afford.”
