AT the heart of the war on Iran is the issue of Palestine. That the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi last week suspended their open differences and declared support for an independent Palestinian state is therefore a major development. The gist of the “unanimous” agreement announced by India as this year’s chair does raise some questions since the statement speaks of a two-state solution, not exactly what Iran and its fan club including Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah would be excited by.
Their argument is compelling. When South Africa’s apartheid state wound up, the country was not divided into two but gave equal citizen rights to its black, white and coloured communities, including Indians. Nor did anybody vivify a racially split Rwanda between its Hutus and Tutsi contenders. Muslims, Christians and Jews were living in harmony in Palestine before Britain in cahoots with other colonial powers handed their land to European Jews. Iran and other likeminded entities are wary of a two-state solution, seeing it as a ploy to reduce a Palestinian state to municipal rights against a nuclear-armed Zionist state.
Pious resolutions on Palestine are aplenty. The significance of the BRICS reiteration of support for an independent Palestinian state is, however, two-fold. This was the first clear statement from India on the question of Palestine after Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised Israel his complete solidarity on the eve of the war. It was also a good occasion to verify the UAE’s tepid support for Palestine after the reported secret visit of Benjamin Netanyahu to Abu Dhabi during the hot war with Iran. It was for this reason that Iran possibly eschewed its reservations about a two-state solution. It wanted the laggards in the group to reassess their promise of their abiding ties with Israel.
The BRICS paragraphs on Palestine were therefore interesting. The foreign ministers, for instance, “urged all parties to ensure the maintenance of a ceasefire and full and unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip”. This would rile Netanyahu.
To have India and the UAE on board with a resolution starkly targeting Israel is a feat of sorts, more so when it occurs in New Delhi.
The ministers didn’t stop there. They expressed full “support for the State of Palestine’s full membership in the UN in the context of the unwavering commitment to the two-state solution, in accordance with international law, including relevant UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, and the Arab Peace Initiative, that includes the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine within the internationally recognised 1967 borders, which included the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in order to achieve the vision of two States living side by side, in peace and security. They affirmed the need for adequate representation of Palestine in all relevant international organisations, including multilateral financial institutions, and access to their resources.”
To have India and the UAE on board with a resolution starkly targeting Israel is a feat of sorts, more so when it occurs in New Delhi.
Above all, the BRICS statement reiterated its “grave concern about the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with the resumption of continuous Israeli attacks against Gaza and obstruction of the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory”.
It read almost like a Chinese or a Russian draft that India adlibbed as its statement from the chair: “The ministers … condemned all violations of IHL [international humanitarian law], including the use of starvation as a method of warfare. They also condemned attempts to politicise or militarise humanitarian assistance. They exhorted the parties to engage in good faith in further negotiations to achieve an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and all other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the release of all hostages and detainees held in violation of international law, and sustained and unhindered access and delivery of humanitarian aid.”
It’s well known that post-Revolution Iran’s vehement support for a free Palestinian state instantly brought Israel into the frame as a hostile challenger. Some analysts take a different route to explain the ongoing war and argue with no small historical support that Iran was and is the last of the Muslim states that were marked for destruction under the willful plan conjured by American neocons and their Zionist partners. They saw in the fall of the USSR an opportunity to quell the capitalist pretence of international law, human rights and democracy. The project to launch the great American century is today reflected in Donald Trump’s MAGA, which shares the racist DNA.
But Iran has resolutely withstood American might and Israeli bloodlust, unlike Libya, Sudan, Iraq and Syria, which caved in before imperialism’s military prowess. And this has had its cascading effects in the global attitude towards Palestine. Two outcomes of Iran’s defiance of American military power are discernible from Beijing to London. The UK high court overturned Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s case against Palestine, which he had enforced on behalf of British Zionists against anti-genocide protesters. Remember, the two had colluded to bring down Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour. But they failed to singe the resistance this time.
As a retribution to an already troubled Starmer, and with an implied warning to a future would-be Zionist that might succeed him at Downing Street, the UK high court ruled at the weekend that the government’s 2024 ban on the direct-action campaign group Palestine Action under terrorism laws was unlawful. The court determined that the proscription violated rights to free expression and assembly. Then there was the hurried soft stance on Palestine by India and the UAE at the BRICS ministers’ meeting, suspending their growing cosiness with Israel. This too can be taken as another major outcome of Iran’s determined resistance in the battlefield and in diplomacy.
It was curiously significant in many ways that last week’s meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi, while displaying notable differences on the US-Israeli war on Iran, did speak up for an independent state of Palestine.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2026
