India Would Not Join the Netanyahu Walkout

As diplomats streamed out of the UN General Assembly during Benjamin Netanyahu’s address, India remained in its seat. New Delhi’s decision was less a vote for Israel than a declaration that Indian foreign policy will not be dictated by diplomatic theatre.

When Benjamin Netanyahu rose to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York, dozens of diplomatic delegations walked out.

India stayed.

That simple contrast became one of the most conspicuous diplomatic moments of the 81st General Assembly. Reports put the number of delegations that left or were absent at around 77, although the United Nations has not published a definitive country-by-country roll call. Footage and contemporary reporting nevertheless confirmed a substantial walkout, including representatives of numerous Arab and Muslim-majority states as well as countries from other regions.

India was among those that remained.

For Narendra Modi’s government, this was not necessarily a declaration of support for every Israeli military action or every statement made by Netanyahu. It was something more characteristic of New Delhi’s increasingly self-confident diplomacy: India will cooperate with Israel, support Palestinian statehood and humanitarian assistance, and maintain its own strategic calculations without automatically joining either camp’s diplomatic choreography.

A conspicuous absence — and a conspicuous presence

The walkout was encouraged by the Palestinian Mission to the UN and began as Netanyahu approached the podium.

The Israeli Prime Minister responded in characteristic fashion, calling those who departed “moral cowards” and challenging other delegates who disagreed with him to leave as well. He proceeded to defend Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and its actions against Iran, while rejecting accusations that Israel was committing genocide.

The spectacle was impossible to miss.

Rows of seats emptied as Netanyahu began speaking. Yet a number of major powers and regional states remained, including the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the United Arab Emirates — and India.

The significance of India’s decision lies precisely in what it did not do.

New Delhi did not join the boycott. Nor did it turn the occasion into a public endorsement of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

That is the point of strategic autonomy.

Delhi’s Israel policy is about more than Gaza

India’s relationship with Israel is no recent diplomatic flirtation.

New Delhi recognized Israel in 1950 and established full diplomatic relations in 1992. Since then, the relationship has expanded dramatically across defense, agriculture, water technology, cybersecurity, trade and research.

Defense remains its most consequential component.

Israel has been an important supplier of military technology to India for decades, with the relationship becoming particularly significant during periods when New Delhi needed equipment, intelligence and specialist systems quickly.

The partnership has also evolved beyond the simple purchase of finished weapons. Israeli and Indian companies have increasingly worked together on manufacturing and technological cooperation, while systems developed jointly by Indian and Israeli organisations have become part of India’s military architecture.

That history cannot simply be wished away because Netanyahu is unpopular in parts of the international community.

The lessons of India’s wars

The roots of the defense relationship stretch back decades.

Israel provided military assistance to India during the 1962 war with China. During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Israel supplied India with equipment and surveillance capabilities at a moment when New Delhi urgently required additional military resources.

The relationship subsequently deepened.

By the time India conducted Operation Sindoor in May 2025, Israeli-origin and jointly developed systems formed part of India’s wider defence inventory. The operation itself was presented by the Indian Government as a response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack and as an effort to strike terrorist infrastructure while avoiding a broader war.

The important point is not that Israel single-handedly determined the outcome of the operation. It did not.

India’s armed forces rely upon a mixture of indigenous, Israeli, Russian, French, American and other technologies.

But the Israeli contribution illustrates why governments rarely discard strategically useful relationships simply because international opinion has shifted.

The China and Pakistan equation

There is a further calculation that cannot be ignored.

India operates in one of the world’s most demanding security environments. It faces China along a heavily militarized Himalayan frontier while maintaining a long-running security confrontation with Pakistan.

That makes intelligence, surveillance, missile defense, unmanned systems and precision weaponry matters of national security rather than ideological preference.

Israel has expertise in many of these areas.

India therefore has an obvious reason to maintain close defense cooperation with Israel even while advocating Palestinian statehood and expressing concern over civilian suffering in Gaza.

That is not necessarily inconsistency. It is the rather prosaic reality of international politics.

The Palestinian question has not disappeared

India’s decision to remain for Netanyahu’s speech should not be mistaken for abandonment of the Palestinian cause.

New Delhi continues to support a two-state solution and has maintained diplomatic and humanitarian engagement with the Palestinians.

India has also provided humanitarian assistance to Gaza and contributed to UNRWA. Its broader policy has involved supporting Palestinian development and political aspirations while maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Modi government’s position can therefore be summarized rather more accurately as both-and, rather than either-or.

India can condemn the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks, maintain close relations with Israel, support Palestinian statehood, provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians and advocate diplomacy at the same time.

There is no requirement for a major power to choose one relationship and destroy the other.

Why the walkout argument misses the point

Some Indian commentators reacted angrily to New Delhi’s decision.

Congress politician Lavanya Ballal highlighted the fact that India had remained in the chamber while dozens of delegations walked out. Other social-media users went considerably further, accusing Netanyahu of war crimes and questioning why Modi’s government had not joined the protest.

Journalist Ranjona Banerji also commented on India’s presence, suggesting that the country would once have been among those leaving.

Such criticism is entirely legitimate in a democracy. India’s foreign policy should be debated vigorously.

But there is a difference between asking whether India should have walked out and assuming that remaining in the room represents an endorsement of Israeli policy.

It does not necessarily follow.

Diplomacy is conducted in rooms full of governments with which one disagrees. A country’s ambassador does not endorse every policy of every government whose representative occupies the same chamber.

Indeed, if physical presence at a speech were interpreted as political endorsement, much of international diplomacy would become impossible.

Hamas and India’s security calculations

There is also an uncomfortable dimension to India’s calculations: terrorism.

Hamas’s October 2023 assault on Israel fundamentally altered the strategic landscape of the Middle East. India has condemned the attacks while also calling for humanitarian protection and a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For New Delhi, the issue is not confined to Gaza.

India has spent decades confronting Islamist terrorism, including attacks linked to Pakistan-based organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Any evidence of cooperation between terrorist organizations operating in different theaters is therefore likely to attract serious attention from Indian security planners.

That does not make Israel’s military policies immune from criticism. It does explain why intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation with Israel remains valuable to India.

Modi’s foreign policy: friendship without submission

The wider lesson is about the evolution of Indian diplomacy under Modi.

The old assumption that India had to demonstrate its virtue by joining whichever diplomatic bloc appeared most fashionable at a particular moment has increasingly given way to a more transactional approach.

India wants American technology without becoming an American client.

It wants Russian energy without becoming a Russian satellite.

It wants close relations with Israel without abandoning Palestine.

It wants partnerships with the Gulf while retaining links with Iran.

And it wants strategic autonomy without retreating into isolation.

That balancing act can look untidy.

It is also the point.

India is too large, too populous and too strategically important to conduct foreign policy according to somebody else’s script.

The UN’s empty seats

There was something almost theatrical about the sight of diplomats filing out of the General Assembly chamber.

But India’s representatives remaining seated carried its own message.

New Delhi was not obliged to applaud Netanyahu. Nor was it obliged to join a mass walkout.

It could listen.

That distinction is important in diplomacy.

The Indian Government’s decision should therefore be understood within the context of a much broader relationship with Israel — one encompassing defense, intelligence, technology, trade and counter-terrorism — while simultaneously maintaining support for Palestinian statehood and humanitarian assistance.

The result is a foreign policy that may frustrate activists on both sides.

That is probably inevitable.

For India, the calculation is straightforward: friendship with Israel does not require hostility towards Palestine, and support for Palestine does not require sacrificing a strategic partnership with Israel.

At the United Nations, New Delhi chose not to follow the crowd.

Whether one approves of that decision is ultimately a matter for political judgement. The strategic logic behind it, however, is difficult to miss.

India increasingly intends to decide for itself where it stands.