India & Israel Sign Terms of Reference, Formally Opening FTA Negotiations

Big-ticket trade pacts often begin with seemingly procedural ‘terms of reference’—much like India’s 2004 framework agreement that eventually produced the 2010 ASEAN FTA. This step with Israel revives a process frozen since exploratory talks in 2010, reflecting two structural shifts: India’s aggressive post-2020 pursuit of nimble, sector-split FTAs (see the 2022 UAE mini-FTA) and Israel’s search for Asian partners as EU ties fray. If concluded, the deal would stitch together Israel’s capital-intensive tech ecosystem with the scale of India’s market, echoing the 1962 US–Israel tax treaty that seeded today’s defence cooperation. Over a 100-year horizon, such economic inter-weaving can entrench strategic alignment in the Indo-Mediterranean arc, but its true weight will depend on whether regional instability or protectionist backlashes—both cyclical in history—derail the delicate two-phase timetable.