NEW DELHI (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime and India’s decision to finalize an investment protection deal is aimed at reinforcing both sides’ fascist policies and providing impunity for each other, experts have said.
Earlier this week, the Israeli regime said it was finalizing an Investment Protection Agreement (IPA) with India that aims to offset the perceived risk of investing in each other’s sides in light of rising insecurity.
Several experts and human rights activists told Middle East Eye that the agreement was an attempt to assuage low investor confidence and also provide material cover for the Zionist regime’s war on Gaza.
“Under the cover of an investment relationship - one which will surely bear lethal consequences for the marginalized in both places - India and Israel will grant impunity to each other for their illegal and discriminatory activities,” an Indian-American organizer based in Boston, told MEE.
“This move ensures that both sides will immensely profit off of the growth of their own fascist ideologies. This is terrifying,” the activist, who asked to remain anonymous over fear of reprisals, said.
Speaking at the announcement of the potential IPA deal, Zionist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich described the deepening economic ties as one of the “goals” he had set out to achieve as minister, a move observers note has been met with committed reciprocity from Delhi.
“Deepening economic ties with India is one of the goals I have set,” Smotrich said, before describing India as a “true friend of Israel”.
Abdulla Moaswes, a Palestinian writer and academic based in the UK, told MEE that the Indian government deliberately used burgeoning economic ties with the Zionist regime to project “diplomatic victories to its voter base, amongst whom support for Israel is a popular sentiment”.
Moaswes said the support for Israel was driven by the Indian ruling party, the BJP’s, fascination with Zionism, adding that New Delhi had correctly presumed that continued support for the regime would serve it far more with its constituency than condemning the ongoing war in Gaza, which scholars and international rights bodies have labeled a genocide.
Under Narendra Modi, India has been inching ever closer to a Hindu Rashtra, or a Hindu State, in which Hindus enjoy supremacy over other groups.
Muslims and Christians are the focus of attacks and are made to feel as if they are second-class citizens. Meanwhile, large portions of civil society have been dismantled, with dissenting voices in the media repeatedly targeted.
Meera Sanghamitra, a national convenor for the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), told MEE that India’s deepening relationship with Israel was especially “shameful” given Delhi’s decision to abstain from a United Nations-backed resolution last month that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“Beyond the shameful vote abstention at the UNGA [in June 2025], the current regime’s moves to deepen diplomatic and business ties with a genocidal nation is morally reprehensible,” Sanghamitra said.
“We demand the Indian government not to clinch the investment protection agreement with Israel and instead join the international community to hold the Netanyahu regime accountable for all its war crimes,” she added.