The Ambanis and Israel

The wedding festivities are set to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

In any country and in any context, such an event would be considered an obscenity. In India, where inequality is more stark than most places, the wedding bill is a ghastly, horrific injustice.

Nonetheless, given our inclination to worship (or hate watch) power, wealth, and celebrity, the wedding has prompted a media frenzy.

Whether we like it or not, the story is everywhere.

The Ambanis are India’s Royal family, after all. They are lavish and disconnected. They are capitalism’s most ugly consequence. And they love being in the news.

They also love Israel.

Who are the Ambanis

Reliance Industries, under Mukesh Ambani, is involved in natural gas and petrochemicals; textiles to telecommunications; in media and entertainment.

The company is a behemoth; a monstrosity.

Under PM Narendra Modi, Reliance has emerged as one of five conglomerates that run a large segment of the Indian economy.

Describing the Ambanis and Adanis (another billionaire family with outsized power and wealth in India) in The Deccan Herald, Prasenjit Chowdhury writes:

“They are the new sultans of corporate India, priests-in-chief of a god of riches able to turn dust into billions.”

Reliance has also managed to shape government policies to its benefit.

Naturally, it has dabbled (not unlike many western billionaires) in sponsoring research and scholarship.

In this case, let’s talk about technology and military expenditure.

As Urvashi Sarkar wrote in her fantastic essay in The Caravan, Reliance played a major role in setting up the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an Indian think tank, based in Delhi.

Despite its attempt to present itself as an independent organisation, ORF is a conduit of its benefactor’s business interests.

For example: ORF’s President Samir Saran is ex-Reliance, while Chairman Sunjoy Joshi is an ex-government bureaucrat in the petroleum and natural gas ministry, a sector in which Reliance is considered a major global player. Then there is the additional detail of the ORF’s Washington office being lead by Druv Jaishanker, the son of India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishanker.

Unsurprisingly, the ORF is known to adopt and amplify policies that promote hawkish foreign objectives as well as neoliberal economic policies that favour big capital and corporations.

It has also partnered with organisations like The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank in the United States, as well as the Middle East Forum (MEF).

The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University describes the MEF as a “right-wing anti-Islam think tank that spreads misinformation, creates “watchlists” targeting academics, and advocates hawkish foreign policy. MEF provides funding to numerous anti-Muslim organizations and has provided legal services to a number of anti-Muslim activists including Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson.”

Each year, in conjunction with the Indian government, the ORF in Delhi hosts a flagship conference called the Raisina Dialogues, in which it routinely hosts Israeli scholars and politicians.

The ORF has tried to present India’s more reluctant approach to Israel in pre-Narendra Modi years as a kind of historical error.

Here is how Sunjoy Joshi introduced Benjamin Netanyahu during the Raisina Dialogues in 2018:

In other words, Reliance has helped India-Israel foment closer ties. And it has paid handsome dividends.

Here is a glimpse into the dizzying Ambani-Israel tech-military-agriculture ecosystem.

Oil & telecommunications

By the early 2000s, Reliance was reportedly already working with Israel Shipyards, RAD (data communications company) and optical ethernet startup Atrica.

During a visit by Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Industry and Trade Minister, to India in 2004, Mukesh Ambani reportedly told him he was interested in helping develop trade relations between the two countries.

In 2009, it was reported that Reliance had leased a facility in Ashkelon from Israel’s Eilatto Ashkelon Pipeline Co. to store diesel.

But it is over the past decade in particular that relations between the Ambanis and Israel increased dramatically.

And it starts in the telecommunications sector.

In 2013, for instance, Reliance Jio Infocomm placed a bulk order for 4G service equipment with the Israeli company Airspan. Simultaneously, Reliance Jio Infocomm acquired a stake in Airspan.

Later in the year, Naftali Bennett, the-then Minister of Economy, traveled to Mumbai and met with Mukesh Ambani. He called for investments in Israel.

In 2015, Mukesh Ambani began shifting his focus towards Israeli startups.

Several several Israeli startups and technology companies visited India during the course of 2015 and made presentations to Ambani. Some of these Israeli start-ups included: SimilarWeb, Celltick, Winapp, Perion Network Ltd., and Outbrain Inc.

GenNext Ventures, a Reliance investment fund, held talks with venture capital funds and private investors in Israel, the US, and the UK.

The purported goal: to assist Ambani find suitable startups for investment and cooperation. I.e., to leverage Israeli expertise for the Indian market.

Later in the year, GenNext managing partner Vivek Rai Gupta articulated his vision:

“We want to hook up to the Israeli ecosystem, and to discover more innovative companies that can enhance the value of the cellular network whose deployment we’re completing right now,” Gupta said.

“The network we’re setting up is only a pipeline, and we’re looking for interesting things through which we can provide value for our users in India,” he added.

On the same trip, Rajan Luthra, the senior vice president of Reliance Industries stated that there were no boundaries to the company’s potential investments in Israel.

“It could be companies in the security, health, and educational sectors, and even entertainment and content,” Luthra said to Globes. “The network will be the biggest in India, and as soon as it’s set up, any service can be put on it.”

At the time, Gupta and Luthra were in Israel as part of a week-long India-Israel forum at Tel Aviv University.

They also attended a meeting with the then-Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

They reportedly wanted Israeli startups to introduce their products to the Indian market before any one else.

Big tech & military

A year later, in 2016, Reliance Defense, a subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure Ltd (and led by Mukesh’s brother Anil Ambani) entered into a strategic partnership with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, the Israeli arms company, focusing on air to air missiles, air defence systems and large aerostats.

Also in 2016, Israel’s National Innovation Authority chose Jerusalem Venture Partners to operate a Jerusalem-based technological incubator in partnership with Reliance Industries, Hebrew University’s Yissum branch and Motorola Solutions. Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) set up the Jerusalem Innovation Incubator (JII), in 2017, with an initial investment of $25 million.

In other words, through this venture Reliance hopes to both invest in and benefit from Israeli start-ups – which are involved in everything from cyber security to cloud services.

During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s January 2018 visit to India, Reliance industries signed an MoU with Israeli tech company mPrest. It was one of several agreements signed between Indian and Israeli companies during Netanyahu’s visit.

Later in the year, Reliance Defence and Engineering Ltd (also Anil Ambani-led) said it had plans to manufacture Kalashnikov class weapons for the Indian military in collaboration with an Israeli weapons manufacturer, the Kalashnikov Israel Company.

In entertainment, Reliance Jio partnered with Israel-based interactive entertainment startup Screenz to create a platform that will allow two-way conversations between broadcasters and viewers in real-time. It was said to be a deal worth $28m.

In October 2018, Reliance Industries, which owns the world’s biggest refining complex, halted imports of Iranian crude ahead of U.S. sanctions against Tehran’s oil sector.

The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) proudly shared the news on X (Twitter).

In 2021, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which Israel helped India cover-up its disastrous policies, Reliance signed a $15 million deal with an Israeli firm for rapid COVID-19 test kits.

How Israel helped India build a false narrative of victory against covid-19

AZAD ESSA

·

APRIL 27, 2021

Hello everyone, As you may have seen or read, India is facing an unprecedented crisis. Hospitals have run out of medical supplies, crematoriums are overflowing; there is panic everywhere. Though no one has suggested that dealing with covid-19 would be anything but complex, understanding how India got to this point is quite a simple affair.

Read full story

Fast forward to in April 2023, an Israeli business delegation led by the Israel Export Institute traveled to India with Nir Barkat, Israel’s minister of Economy and Industry. The delegation met several business leaders, reserving the final day for Reliance Industries. Several Israeli companies met with Mukesh Ambani as well. These include: GorillaLink, Natural Offset Farming, Redler, AnyComplete, MayMaan Research, and Carrar.

In August 2023, Reliance Industries is described as “an anchor” to many startups “in nurturing and mentoring, funding and helping them to raise funds and even getting them acquired by larger companies”.

On 6 October 2023, a day prior to the Hamas-led operation into southern Israel, Anil Ambani and his wife met with Naor Gilon, Israel’s Ambassador to India in Delhi. They purportedly discussed business opportunities between his company and Israel.

Two weeks later, and it was reported that Reliance Industries was looking to acquire Israel-based Tower Semiconductor.

The company spokesperson denied the development, stating, “we are not in talks to acquire Tower Semiconductor. There is no truth in this.”

But given that Indians have been looking to get into producing chips, and Tower Semiconductor has itself hinted it would assist India get into the semiconductor ecosystem, it seems it is only a matter of time before the deal will go through.

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