The virtual meeting was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Saudi Arabia’s Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman and Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar, who was representing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others.
The BRICS leaders joined hands to demand an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to cessation of “hostilities”.
In fact, at the BRICS meeting last evening, President Vladimir Putin accused the US of trying to “monopolise” the mediation of the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Why is BRICS’ Intervention Critical?
“Given the dominance of the US and the close US-Israel relations, discussions on resolving the problem had taken a certain direction. Now, the BRICS countries, including the new members, are trying to somewhat correct that balance,” Bhatia underlined.
The ex-Ambassador highlighted that that the BRICS’ communique issued after the meeting has been unanimous on at least two broader points.
“They have condemned the violence against civilians, whether Israelis or Palestinians. And they have sought to focus the limelight on the two-state solution, which has been put forwards as the long-term solution to festering dispute,” Bhatia quoted from the statement.
India’s Position on Israel-Hamas War
Bhatia noted that there were “nuances of differences” among positions of India and other BRICS’ states in the communique, which have been viewed as being more critical of Israel and described the inability to address the question of two-state solution as the “root cause” of the conflict.
“Generally, India places a very strong focus on counter-terrorism in view of its own national interest. So, India's starting point has been that this present crisis was started by Hamas' 'terrorist' attack on Israel,” Bhatia stated.