https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-895432
Pahalgam to Operation Sindoor: The India-Israel counterterror alliance - opinion
From the person on the street to the highest levels of leadership, Israel understands India’s need for a zero-tolerance doctrine toward terrorism — because Israel has lived it for decades.
In Israel, cross-border terrorism is a harsh and enduring reality in which civilians are almost always the target. It comes at a high human cost, felt in the sudden rupture of ordinary life. And although Israel faces a uniquely complex security environment, this reality is not confined to the Jewish state.
Just over a year ago, in Pahalgam, India again experienced a similar pattern of violence. Terrorists from across the border in Pakistan infiltrated Indian territory and brutally murdered 26 men in front of their wives and children. It was an act of terror in its most deliberate form.
I remember that I was sitting in a café in Jerusalem last year when I heard the news. As my Israeli friends with me told me about it, their attitudes were not just of sympathy, but also of recognition. They understood instinctively why India would have to respond decisively.
From the person on the street to the highest levels of leadership, Israel understands India’s need for a zero-tolerance doctrine toward terrorism — because Israel has lived it for decades.
India’s response, via Operation Sindoor, reflected that shared reality. Addressing the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it clear that the operation was not just a military action but also a national commitment to justice.
He outlined a strategy that Israelis would immediately recognize: Every terrorist attack would be met with a decisive response, and there would be no distinction made between terrorists and those who sponsored them. His words captured the shift with unmistakable clarity: “Terror and talks cannot go together… water and blood cannot flow together.”
Surgical strikes and strategic alignment
Operation Sindoor reflected a defense and security policy that Israel has refined over decades — precision over scale, intelligence-led targeting, and a constant effort to minimize civilian harm, even when enemies deliberately operate within civilian environments.
Rather than broad escalation, India pursued calibrated, high-value strikes against terrorist infrastructure, mirroring the logic behind Israel’s own surgical operations.
This shared operational logic is clearly evident in the depth of India-Israel defense cooperation: Indian forces leveraged Israeli-origin systems central to modern precision warfare. These included the Barak-8 surface-to-air missile system, a jointly developed India-Israel platform that forms a key layer of India’s air defense across land and sea, alongside HAROP loitering munitions manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries.
The HAROP system, often described as a “kamikaze” drone, enabled highly precise strikes against designated targets, reinforcing the military policy that prioritizes accuracy and controlled escalation over indiscriminate force.
Strategic backing from Israeli officials such as Israel’s Ambassador to India Reuven Azar, along with high-level defense coordination, further underscored that this partnership is not just symbolic — it is also operational.
On the other side, Pakistani forces responded to India’s operation with Turkish-supplied systems, including Bayraktar TB2 drones and KORAL electronic warfare platforms, reflecting the deepening military alignment between Islamabad and Ankara.
Under Erdogan, Turkey has been steadily growing its partnership with Pakistan, a state with nuclear weapons. The trajectory of this relationship invites uncomfortable but necessary questions: How might India and Israel reshape regional deterrence? And what safeguards exist to prevent escalation, given the anti-Israel inflammatory rhetoric from both Pakistan and Turkey?
Water in a time of terror: The security dilemma
One of the most consequential shifts triggered by Operation Sindoor lies in India’s decision to effectively suspend the functioning of the Indus Waters Treaty, following the Pahalgam attacks. This has marked a profound turning point.
Within its framework, India had been sharing critical hydrological data, such as river flows, snowmelt, and discharge levels, with Islamabad, concerning the rivers that flowed from Indian territory, waterways that form a vital lifeline for Pakistan’s agriculture and broader economy.
Following the 2025 attacks, India halted this data sharing and is no longer bound by many of the constraints that previously governed its use of these rivers.
In the long term, India could even divert or regulate water through canals, dams, and barrages to serve its own agricultural and strategic needs. While the immediate impact may be limited, the signal is clear: Cooperation cannot exist if it is isolated from security.
Legally, this move finds ground in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties Article 62, which allows for the suspension of treaty obligations in the event of a “fundamental change in circumstances.” Sustained cross-border terrorism fundamentally alters the conditions under which such agreements — originally premised on goodwill and peaceful coexistence — were signed.
For Israel, this provides a relevant parallel. Even amid conflict, it continues to navigate the complex reality of water supply to Gaza.
Before October 7, only 10 percent of Gaza’s water came directly from Israel, with the rest dependent on desalination and aquifers. Today, despite the conflict, water continues to be supplied through pipelines, even though local infrastructure operates under severe constraints, with the highest risk being to civilians.
This reflects the dilemma facing India after last year’s terror attacks: How long can humanitarian resources remain separate from an ongoing security environment shaped by violence?
Water treaties between unfriendly nations are always complex, but terrorism makes them even more fragile. When life-sustaining infrastructure exists in the same space as groups that deliberately target civilians, governments are forced into difficult and often unfair choices regarding protection, continuity, and risk. Under such conditions, the boundary between humanitarian provision and security vulnerability becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.
Both Israel and India operate within these realities and are therefore frequently subjected to international scrutiny — not because of a lack of humanitarian commitment but because terrorism embeds itself in civilian environments and therefore complicates military response.
Shared challenges and lessons
Beyond optics, the India-Israel partnership is, most importantly, an operational cooperation that saves lives and enables the dismantling of terror networks. Greater awareness of this reality is essential, because it is often overshadowed by simplified narratives that go unchallenged in global discourse.
Examples are the use of terms like “genocide,” “occupation,” or the casual labeling of democratically elected leaders, such as Narendra Modi or Benjamin Netanyahu as “terrorists.”
What we have witnessed in the last two and a half years is a battlefield that is just as powerful as any: the information war.
Despite clear similarities between India and Israel in terms of threats and responses, global reactions differ sharply. Israel faces sustained criticism over the “Palestine” issue, while India’s actions against Pakistan-based terrorism have drawn comparatively less sustained outrage.
As Soraya Deen, a prominent Muslim voice against antisemitism,has argued, the Palestinian cause has now taken on the role of “sixth pillar of Islam,” capable of mobilizing mass sentiment across the world.
But another factor may also be at play: India has been effective in the information domain, communicating the operational success of Operation Sindoor with a focus on strategic outcomes rather than sensationalism, while simultaneously exposing Pakistan-based disinformation networks and strengthening public resilience through media literacy initiatives that help citizens identify and resist fake news.
That is where Israel needs to go next. Intelligence and defense technology are no longer enough if they are not accompanied by clarity in communication.
India and Israel today stand on parallel paths. Both face adversaries that exploit civilians, use human shields, and operate across borders. Both have security and response principles that emphasize surgical strikes, deterrence, and minimizing civilian harm. And both understand that this is not a battle they can fight alone.
Greater intelligence sharing with allies in Europe and the United States, as well as a unified approach to countering terrorism — physically and in the information domain — are essential.
Ultimately, Modi’s words are not just a statement of policy but a reflection of reality: Water and blood cannot flow together. The real question is whether the world is willing to confront why this happens so often — and why those who fight it are judged by different standards.
https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-895432
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