Israel’s first PM called Nehru a ‘great man’. Asked him to moderate peace in the region

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Ben-Gurion was fond of Nehru, despite the latter’s diplomatic distance from Israel and his support for the Palestinian cause. This was an unprecedented and unrepeatable phenomenon in Israel’s diplomatic history. Nehru’s democratic leadership, secular politics, and socialist instincts attracted Ben-Gurion’s attention. “Democracy in India is one of the greatest marvels of our time. Undoubtedly, this has been largely due to the personality of Nehru…” he had said when he was invited to deliver a speech on ‘Democracy in the World’ at the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, an influential think-tank in California in 1963.

India, under Nehru, kept a diplomatic distance from Israel for various reasons including immediate national interest and the non-resolution of the Israel-Arab/Palestine issue. There was one small window when Nehru was about to initiate full diplomatic relations with Israel: in March 1952. As prime minister and foreign minister, he instructed civil servants to prepare a budget for establishing a resident mission in Tel Aviv. After the first general election of 1951, such a possibility was first restrained due to budgetary constraints and later due to the Suez Canal crisis—when Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt in 1956.

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as usual ga sanka nakinchadu kada..