India can be useful to both Israel and the Arabs.

Although the date has not been announced yet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Israel later this year, the first visit to the country by an Indian prime minister, writes Bobby Ghosh. This will be historic because both MK Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were against the formation of the Jewish state, so India voted against it at the United Nations in 1948. India finally recognized Israel in 1950. India always supported Palestinians against Israel, although Arabs always supported Pakistan against India. "What is astonishing, though, is the absence of even a murmur of protest from India's friends in the Arab world," writes Ghosh. Islamist terrorism is a threat to Arab rulers, there is fatigue for the Palestinian cause and they are being criticized for not taking refugees from Syria. In fact, Arab leaders are more concerned about the rise of Iran. "Arab leaders have determined that Shia-ruled Iran represents an existential threat to their Sunni-dominated regimes, and recognise that, in this, they have common cause with Israel. Netanyahu's trenchant tirades against the theocracy in Tehran have an enthusiastic audience in Arab palaces." Saudi Arabia has very long border with the south of Iraq, which is Shia, and Iran is supporting a Houthi rebellion in Yemen, to the south of the Kingdom. Arabs were angered by Pakistan's decision not to support them in Yemen. Kuwait already bans visitors from Pakistan. On the Israeli side, they must be worried about the rise of antisemitism everywhere. A journalist wearing a Jewish skullcap was spat at and threatened on the streets of Paris. Attacks against synagogues and on Jews is rising all over Europe, there were 1,309 incidents of hate against Jews in Britain last year and recently a Jewish cemetery was vandalized in Philadelphia, in the US. The Human Rights Council at the UN named Israel as the worst violator of women's rights in the world, last year. Israel has always depended on the US for protection and saw the nuclear deal with Iran as an existential danger to itself. Obama touted the deal as a means of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but critics saw the deal as legitimizing Iran's nuclear ambitions. It did not help that Isreali Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama hated each other. The Arab regimes would like to cooperate with Israel against Iran. But how? "For six decades, their propaganda machines portrayed the Jewish state as an abomination, and have normalised anti-Semitism among their citizenry. The rulers of these states cannot now afford to be seen breaking bread with Israel, and so can only play a form of diplomatic footsie..." writes Ghosh. Which is where India comes in. We can mediate secretly between Israel and the Arabs, buying defence equipment from Israel and persuading Arabs to cut off financial support for Pakistan's terror apparatus. Is Modi up to it?