In 1893, a young Mohandas Gandhi left India for South Africa, where he would remain for over two decades. There he made a number of Jewish friends and acquaintances, among them the Lithuanian-born architect Hermann Kallenbach. The two remained close friends until the latter’s death in 1945. Kallenbach was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy, but by the 1930s had also become a committed Zionist. Oren Kessler describes Kallenbach’s first visit to India, in 1937, where he visited Gandhi at the behest of Zionist leaders hoping to win support from one of the “great Asiatic civilizations.”

Through their long walks and talks, Kallenbach tried to bring his old friend around to a greater appreciation of Zionism. He found only limited success.

[Kallenbach’s biographer] notes a gap between Gandhi’s public objection to political Zionism and his support for Kallenbach’s “private Zionism.” He continued to insist that Jewish dreams for Palestine could only be realized with Arab goodwill, and refused any political program that circumvented it—particularly one that relied on coercion, political or military, from the imperial authorities of the British Mandate. But as to Kallenbach’s growing desire to settle there as a farmer, the Mahatma was fully onboard.

Gandhi . . . had called for Zionist leaders to make a statement abandoning their reliance on Britain and depending purely on Arab goodwill. Amid the bloodletting of the Arab revolt, this was further than those leaders would go.

[At the same time], Muhammad Ali Jinnah was becoming an ever-louder voice for Muslim self-determination in—and separation from—India. Gandhi knew that publicly backing any Jewish claims in Palestine would have been a gift to his rising Muslim rival. When Britain first proposed partitioning Palestine in 1937, Gandhi was studiously quiet, lest India’s Muslims demand the same (though that’s exactly what happened a decade later, with Jinnah at the helm of the new state of Pakistan).

Not long after, Gandhi would encourage Jews to face the Nazis with the power of nonviolent resistance. (George Orwell explores the perversity of this moral reasoning in his brilliant essay “Reflections on Gandhi.”) He and Kallenbach remained friends however, although the latter, after initially wishing to leave his fortune to Gandhi, eventually left it to the Yishuv. But it would take many decades for the dream of Israel-India friendship to be fulfilled.

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.