New Delhi: The India Defence Ministry has cancelled the $500m deal with Israeli military firm for manufacturing Spike, an anti-tank guided missile.
According to a News reported in The Wire, this decision was taken to avoid the adverse impact on the indigenous development of the Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) manufactured by the Defence Research and Development Organisation.
The action of Indian Defence Ministry was hailed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a movement to boycott Israeli military industry.
Jamal Juma, member of Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) national committee secretariat and coordinator of the ‘Stop the Wall’ campaign, said that the cancellation is a “huge blow to the Israeli weapons industry”, which he claimed was “deeply implicated in war crimes against the Palestinian people” said in a press statement.
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, said that “Israel’s regime of oppression can never be a model for the great Indian nation that once led the non-aligned movement and upheld the right of all nations to self-determination”.
However The Jerusalem Post quoted the spokesperson of Rafael Advanced Defence Systems as saying that the Israeli firm had “not been officially informed of any change in the decision to purchase Spike missiles”.
The cancellation is described as a major “blow to Israeli-Indian defence ties”, even as it pointed out that India had also recently signed up to a $630 million deal for the Barak 8 system.