Editor’s Note
This article explores the unique role of the diamond trade in fostering deep economic and diplomatic ties between India and Israel, as exemplified by the journey of one jeweler bridging his two homelands.
Ramat Gan (Israel) – In his small office located at the Diamond Exchange near Tel Aviv, Pravin Kukadia proudly presents his collection of precious stones. Between his home country, India, and his country of residence, Israel, diamonds serve as a diplomatic and economic bridge.
Using tweezers delicately, the jeweler reveals a particularly rare pink stone, he says. Starting in 1996, Pravin Kukadia made regular visits to Israel as a buyer for his family business based in the city of Surat, in western India, a major center for diamond cutting and polishing.
jokes the 56-year-old, who now specializes in trading large stones.
In 2003, he moved with his wife and two children to Israel to expand his business, believing the country to be “a major player in the diamond industry” and at the forefront of innovation in the field.
According to Pravin Kukadia, the Israeli Diamond Exchange hosts about thirty Indian companies, making India, the world’s largest diamond polisher, the most represented foreign country.
Most families of Indian diamond traders, about 80 people, live “in the same buildings” near the Exchange in Ramat Gan, a city in the eastern suburbs of Tel Aviv, he tells AFP.
According to Israeli lawyer Joshua Pex, who specializes in immigration procedures, Indian diamond traders enjoy a “special status” in Israel, aimed at promoting exchanges with India.
The Hebrew state also facilitates the granting of work permits for Indian diamond traders, he says.
Another notable fact is that the huge trading center hosts the State Bank of India (SBI), the only foreign bank present there, alongside two Israeli banks.
Boaz Moldawsky, president of the Israeli Diamond Exchange, tells AFP.
he specifies.
According to him,
While India recognized Israel in 1950, it has traditionally expressed its support for the creation of a Palestinian state and long refused to establish diplomatic relations with the Hebrew state, until 1992.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz began an official visit to India on Thursday as part of the 30th anniversary of relations between the two countries, advocating there for strengthening their “security and economic” cooperation, by combining Israeli technological know-how with India’s “extraordinary production capabilities.”
Since the rise to power in 2014 of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu nationalist party of Narendra Modi who had already governed from 1998 to 2004, several large contracts have been concluded. Israel has mainly sold military equipment to India, estimated at about one billion dollars per year, with Minister Gantz also mentioning partnerships in advanced weaponry and drones.
Relations in innovation and technology have tightened, the Israel Innovation Authority tells AFP.
A $40 million (€37 million) innovation fund has been created to encourage partnerships between the two countries, which announced in October that a free trade agreement would be finalized in 2022.
In the “diamond tower,” one of the three buildings that make up the exchange complex in Ramat Gan, Ranjeet Barmecha, another Indian diamond trader, welcomes this rapprochement.
The 72-year-old man, originally from Rajasthan in northern India, was one of the first to settle in Israel in 1979.
At the time, there was no diplomatic representation.
he says jokingly. Since then, five of his six grandchildren have been born in Israel, says the man who speaks Hebrew, adding that he feels “at home” there.