Underlining the civilizational and democratic connects between India and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in his speech at the third edition of the Raisina Dialogue talked about the need to build power in an increasingly insecure world.“The weak don’t survive. The strong survive. You make peace with the strong. You ally with the strong”, he said like a true realist.
The Israeli leader outlined four types of power- military, economic, political and the power of values- that democracies like India and Israel should focus on. Therefore, building submarines, cyber capabilities, science and technology, interceptors are an essential component of the developmental goals.
An alliance of strong and powerful democracies, according to him, would be able to provide a fitting counter to the menace of radical Islam that is the biggest roadblock top peace and prosperity in the world today. “Our way of life is being challenged — most notably, the quest for modernity (and) the quest for innovation (are) being challenged by radical Islam and its terrorist offshoots from a variety of corners,” he said. Strengthening security and defence cooperation remains a major agenda in the dialogues during the on-going visit of the Israeli Prime Minister.
Mr Netanyahu had generous compliments for the Indian Prime Minister and his good friend Mr Modi for the economic revolution spearheaded by him especially the tax reforms. He mentioned that he was ‘astounded to know’ that India had moved up 42 places in the Ease of Doing Business rankings in the past three years. “If you want to have economic power, you must reduce and simplify taxes” Mr Netanyahu said acknowledging the government’s roll out of the GST.
On his TajMahal visit earlier in the day the Israeli Prime Minister harped on the democratic qualities that bind the peoples of two nations. “Democracies bind and connect to each other in natural ways. I saw sympathy and friendship of people. When I walked in streets of India, just like in Agra, someone said to me, we are so happy that you are friends with our PM, we are friends with you & Israel”.
Also present at the event were Prime Minister Modi and External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj. Organized jointly by the Ministry of External Affairs and Observer Research Foundation, the three day foreign policy conference began on January 16 with more than 150 speakers and over 550 delegates participating in it.The theme of this year is “Managing Disruptive Transitions: Ideas, Institutions and Idioms”
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