India’s Arab League Outreach Today Is High On Symbolism

India is hosting foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League today for the first time in a decade, a meeting New Delhi sees as an exercise in diplomatic outreach even as the League itself struggles with deep internal rivalries and diminishing political clout. Once projected as the collective political voice of the Arab world, it has failed to live up to the promise.

Nowhere is this paralysis more evident than in Gaza and the Palestinian question, where the inability to forge a unified position has exposed the limits of Arab collective action, turning New Delhi’s engagement into more a diplomatic spectacle than a forum for geopolitical coordination.

"The Arab League is a wishy-washy entity and this meeting has little value," a senior diplomat who did not wish to be named said. At one time, the Arab League, like the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) regularly passed anti-India resolutions on Kashmir. It was common for Indian diplomats at that time to dismiss them as Pakistan’s machinations and not worth the paper they were signed on.

India’s own views on the Palestinians question have shifted from ardent support since independence to a whittling down in the last decades, more so since the BJP came to power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been moving ever closer to Israel and is a good friend of Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet despite this shift, New Delhi believes in a two-state solution and has not changed its position on this crucial issue.

However India’s bilateral relations with several members of the Arab League, particularly the six Gulf Cooperation Council nations - UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar -- are excellent. In fact one of the Modi government’s foreign policy successes has been to transform ties with these important Gulf nations. The PM himself has driven the change.

External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, foreign Minister of the UAE, will co-chair the meeting. This is the second India-Arab foreign ministers’ meeting. The first in 2016 was in Bahrain. The main aim is to promote trade, investment, and strategic relations between India and the Arab world.

Much has changed since that first meeting. Today, Israel has emerged as the most powerful military force in the region, having knocked off the military and political leadership of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s top commanders and nuclear scientists. Iran, Israel’s main challenger in the region, is a shadow of its former self after the 12-day war last year. Iran is at its weakest at the moment with its proxies eliminated and US President Donald Trump threatening to strike Iran again at the back of the regime's deadly crackdown on protesters. War clouds are once more looming over West Asia, rattling the people and the leadership of the entire region.

Trump’s Board of Peace, and the Gaza peace plan will certainly come up for discussion at the meeting. Major Arab countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkiye, Qatar are among the 35 countries that have signed into Trump’s Board. Israel, America’s closest ally in the region is among them. India has been invited but has not so far joined the Board.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, in India for the meeting, is keen to have New Delhi on board. "As a friend to both Palestine and Israel, India can serve as a bridge between the two nations," Shahin told reporters on Friday.

Shahin’s visit to India is the first ministerial trip since President Mahmoud Abbas came in 2017. It will give her an opportunity to personally present her government's views on the evolving situation in Gaza.

On Friday a India-Arab Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture (IACCIA) was established to further business and economic engagement between India and the Arab world. Bilateral trade between India and Arab countries is around $300 billion, much of it because of India’s energy imports from the oil rich sheikhdoms. The plan is to now diversity trade and aim at $500 billion two-way trade by 2030.