NEW DELHL, India, A Davis Cup Tennis tie between India and Israel this month signals an Indian attempt to separate politics from sport, but it has raised fears in Arab countries of a shift in foreign policy, Indian diplomats said.

Arab nations have already protested against the tie which will take place at the Delta Tennis Complex here for three days from July 24.

Maharaj Kumar Rasgotra, India’s former foreign secretary, told Reuters the decision to play the tie was a bid by the government to take Indian politics out of the sporting arena, except where ties with South Africa were concerned.

India pulled out of the 1974 Davis Cup final rather than play South America and last year joined a 32nation boycott of the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh to protest against Britain’s resistance to economic sanctions against South Africa.

Although India barred Israel from taking part in the world table tennis championships in New Delhi earlier this year, the Davis Cup tie now looks certain to go ahead.

“It is a good thing to keep politics out of sport and that is what has happened in this tennis match”, Rasgotra said.

Indian officials said India had never equated Israel with South Africa. India and South Africa have no diplomatic links and Indians are not allowed to visit that country while they are permitted to go to Israel.

India recognized the creation of Israel, but was only against its aggressiveness towards its neighbors and the retention of territory gained in wars, Rasgotra said.

“We have an Israeli Consul General in Bombay and so there is obviously some sort of diplomatic ties,” he said. The two countries have no other diplomatic ties.

Rasgotra, however, said the Davis Cup match did not signal a shift in Indian policies on the Middle East and that it attached great importance to relationships with the Arab countries.

India has been reluctant in the past to have contacts with Israel because of extensive trade ties with Arab countries where thousands of Indian laborers work on construction sites. Their remittances to India have formed a substantial part of its foreign exchange earnings.

India has also deepened on the region for its oil imports.

But a recession in the Middle East has severely curbed building activity there and an oil glut has lessened the dependence of oil importing countries on that region.

A combination of these circumstances could have led India to sanction the tie, the widely circulated Sunday magazine of Calcutta said last month.

It said another factor which might have influenced Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s decision was Pakistan’s alleged bid to develop nuclear weapons.

In an interview with American journalists in March, Gandhi spoke of an Islamic bomb — a term no Indian leader has used before for fear of upsetting Arab countries.

The Sunday Magazine said Gandhi could have been appealing in the interview to the Jewish lobby in the United States to influence Washington’s policy on Pakistan.

India considers Pakistan one of its main threats and has in recent years exerted pressure on the United States to reverse its decision to sell Pakistan sophisticated weapons.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 17, 1987