Modi Faces Backlash Over Israel Trip Days Before Iran Attacks

India’s opposition groups criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his Israel trip last week, saying it gave tacit approval for subsequent airstrikes in Iran that have sparked a crisis in the region.

The main Indian National Congress said on Saturday that Modi’s two-day visit to Israel was ill-timed and gave the perception of “partisan alignment and tacit endorsement” of Israel’s coordinated strikes with the US on Iran. Congress party spokesman Jairam Ramesh said Sunday that the Modi government’s response has been a “betrayal of India’s values, principles, concerns, and interests,” while another Congress leader, Priyanka Gandhi, called the assassination of Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “despicable.”