Monitoring Desk: “Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel” is a timely book to understand political and ideological links and dovetailing ethnonationalist projects of India and Israel and Narendra Modi’s authoritarianism ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu State) and its links with Zionism.
The simplest and easiest way of understanding narrative linkages of BJP and Israel is the example that BJP demolished Babri Masjid under the pretext that Muslim ruler Babar constructed the mosque over Ram Janmabhoomi, the hypothesized birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism and Zenoists want to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque claiming that Muslim rulers constructed the mosque over Haikal E Sulemani —- a hypothetical worship place that according to Zionists was constructed by prophets as Hazrat Dawood (A.S) initiated the construction of Haikal. But he could not complete it in his ruling time. Its construction was completed in the era of Suleman (A.S). That’s why it is named Haikal E Sulemani. The Haikal was a house for the worship of God.
The book “Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel” argues that Israel’s state has increasingly become a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy. Looking to replicate the ‘ethnic state’ in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel’s settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism are deeply intertwined.
Hostile Homelands puts India’s relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India’s changing position on Palestine; and the countries’ growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law and justice worldwide.
Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author between Johannesburg and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia, and race in the US. He is the author of The Moslems are Coming and Zuma’s Bastard and has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and the Guardian. Linah Alsaafin (Foreword) is a Palestinian journalist and writer whose work has appeared in OpenDemocracy, Al-Monitor, Middle East Eye, the Times Literary Supplement, and Al Jazeera.
