We are a mid-eastern country, our tastes are shaped by the land we live in and the people who live here, said Gil Hovav, Israeli author and celebrity chef at an international webinar on Israel's food culture, recently. It was only coincidental that Israel had, around the same time, announced diplomatic ties with the UAE. Now, Israel is reportedly in talks to establish a peace agreement with Sudan and perhaps, even Somaliland. There are suggestions that Oman and Bahrain, too, might get into talks of formalising ties with Israel.
These developments are interesting given that the Jewish nation is not even recognised as one by most of the countries in the Arab League. In recent years, however, Israel has been working on its outreach towards the Arab world. The US brokered tie-up with the UAE was the first diplomatic recognition for Israel from the Arab world in 26 years. It has diplomatic ties with Egypt and Jordan, and has established a working rapport with the Saudi Arabia. Thus, flights from New Delhi to Tel Aviv are now direct, flying over the Arabian Peninsula. There are suggestions that Oman and Bahrain, too, might get into talks of formalising relations with Israel.
Though a declared Jewish country, Israel is also at pains these days to showcase its multicultural and diverse religious demography that comprises Jews, Muslims, Bedouins, Christians and Druze. Israelis work as hard in telling the world that not all of the country is made up of the orthodox Jews, there are as many citizens who aren't religious.
It has taken time for Israel to get out of the shadows of its founding people—many of them of East European ethnicities— and embrace itself as a country of the desert and the sea, firmly placed on the Arabian peninsula. As Hovav said, those who go to Israel looking to sample the old world food of Poland and Russia, are surprised. It is no longer even cooked in homes that often. Israel, on the other hand, is more passionate over hummus, the chickpea dish over which neighbour Lebanon dragged it into international litigation for using the word hummus. Luckily, unlike champagne, hummus does not carry a Geographical Indicator tag; so the Israelis were saved from calling their favourite dish chickpea paste, instead.
Hovav, who wasn't using any diplomatic jargon, freely spoke of what he considered high cuisine and named Persian cuisine as the most evolved in the world. It is an entirely different matter that Iran and Israel are far from friends. In fact, observers believe that many Arab countries are getting friendly with Israel only because they have a common foe, Iran.
The country's shift in its diplomacy has similarities with India's recent wooing of the Arab world, too, which has already begun paying dividends. Unlike Jewish state Israel, India is a secular country. However, despite the world's second largest population of Muslims living in India, the Islamic world had always been a little wary of embracing India, especially when these ties had to be juxtaposed with its relations with Pakistan.
Although India has always had relations with the Gulf nations and the Indian diaspora is well entrenched in the workforce of the Arabian deserts, there is a different vigour in the relations with many countries now. India's recent treaties with UAE and Saudi Arabia have paved new paths. There is a Hindu temple being built in the UAE and Saudi Arabia has called out Pakistan for its rantings against the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) since it wasn't taking up the Kashmir issue. It even withdrew a much needed loan to Pakistan over the issue.
The OIC is an influential group of 57 countries and traditionally, it has been one of Pakistan's go-to platforms for India bashing. So, it was indeed a big development when Sushma Swaraj, then external affairs minister, was invited to the foreign ministers' meet of the OIC, last year, by the host UAE. Even when tensions between Pakistan and India rose over the Pulwama killings, the OIC remained steadfast in its invitation to India.
So what is the reason behind the shift? Economy is one big factor. India is a thriving economy, a good country to do business with. Similarly, while Israel craves recognition from its neighbours (many of its citizens have migrated from the Arab world and Africa), again, these are good markets for Israel. As Israeli diplomats often say, their country is too small, and to scale up production of their innovative technologies, they need bigger markets.
Also, while religious identities might be important, in the changing world, they cannot be the only identities, especially when they could hamper growth. So when Narendra Modi skilfully de-hyphenated India's relationship with Israel and Palestine, there was barely a dissenting murmur in the neighbourhood. As the street vendors in Jerusalem—both Arabic and Jewish—are often heard to say, Moses is Moses, but business is business. Interestingly, much of their business is selling Made in India knick knacks to tourists.
