‘Enormous milestone’: Israeli PM Netanyahu after Adani acquires Haifa port

After Adani Group on Tuesday acquired Israel’s port of Haifa for USD 1.2 billion, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that it is an “enormous milestone”. According to him, it will “significantly improve connectivity between the two countries in many ways.”

“I think this is an enormous milestone…Over 100 years ago, and during World War I, it was the brave Indian soldiers who helped liberate the city of Haifa. And today, it’s very robust Indian investors who are helping to liberate the port of Haifa,” Netanyahu said, as quoted by news agency PTI.

He added that he had discussed with his “good friend” PM Modi about the “vision of having connectivity between our countries in many ways, transportation lines and air routes and sea routes”.

“We have initiated several dozen technology relationships wherein we have offered the entire Adani portfolio of companies to be a giant sandbox for us to learn together,” Netanyahu added.

Meanwhile, the Jewish nation’s envoy to India said that his country has “deposited the port to an important Indian company like Adani” and the event signifies the trust between the people of both the nations.

“The Haifa port is a strategic port for Israel. We’re really depositing it in the hands of an important Indian company like Adani. It’s a symbol of trust between our people. I hope that this investment will be the opening element of a long string of future corporations,” Naor Gilon, Israel’s Ambassador to India, told news agency ANI.

Speaking on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is observed on January 27, he said “Learning about the Holocaust is a universal message to the world of tolerance, to the different, to the weak. I think this is the message that is coming out of The International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

Stating that antisemitism does not exist in India, he added, “Jews for 2000 years have been living in India and antisemitism is not even a word that is known here in India. We think that the message of tolerance has to go everywhere, also in countries that did not suffer from the Holocaust.”

Besides the takeover of the Port of Haifa – Israel’s second largest port- the Adani Group also vowed to transform the skyline of the Mediterranean city as part of its decision to invest more in the country, including opening an artificial intelligence lab in Tel Aviv.