Previous research on Israel's relations with the African states has focused almost entirely on descriptions of Israeli assistance programs of the 1960s and early 1970s and the break in diplomatic relations by twenty-two African governments after the outbreak of the 1973 Middle East war.1
See Samuel Decalo, Israel and Africa: Forty Years, 1956–1996 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1998); Susan A. Gitelson, “Israel's African Setback Perspective,” in Israel in the Third World, ed. Michael Curtis and Susan A. Gitelson (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1976); Mordechai E. Kreinin, Israel and Africa: A Study in Technical Cooperation (New York: Praeger, 1964); Leopold Laufer, Israel and the Developing Countries: New Approaches to Cooperation (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1967); Olusola Ojo, Africa and Israel: Relations in Perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988); Joel Peters, Israel and Africa: The Problematic Friendship (London: British Academic Press, 1992).
These accounts are not based on archival sources and deal little with the strategy Israel pursued in Africa in the 1960s. Recently declassified documents in the Israeli State Archive, as well as the archives of Britain and the United States, make possible an elucidation of Israel's strategy in Africa from 1961 to 1967, identification of the policies that Israel adopted to achieve its goals, and an evaluation of the measure of their success. This work argues that early achievements in Africa (the late 1950s and early 1960s) notwithstanding, Israel had by 1967 largely failed to attain its strategic objectives on the continent. Five themes in Israeli foreign policy provide the setting for this article. These are, briefly defined, Israel's diplomatic isolation during the early period of statehood and the geo-strategic dimension of the attempt to relieve that isolation; Arab–Israeli competition outside the Middle East; arms sales and the pursuit of influence; attempts to ally with Western objectives; and the quest for funding.
The near-complete collapse of Israel's position in Africa came only with the “wholesale” severing of relations by the “black” African states in the wake of the 1973 war, and that rupture lies outside the scope of this research. Moreover, although the Arab–Israeli war of June 1967 had already brought the black African states to view Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula as an encroachment on African territory, that clash induced only Guinea to cut ties with Israel. Yet the documentary record demonstrates that the Israelis were, even during the “halcyon days” of their early success in Africa, highly aware that the Arab states, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China offered the Africans aid, diplomatic alternatives, and, for some of the African states, ideological and religious identification with which Israel could not compete. Israel knew that powers hostile to its presence in Africa would eventually bring to bear on the continent the greater resources at their disposal.
Thus, as W. Scott Thompson writes, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser vied with African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana for sway in African organizations and told them how he thought the continent should be liberated.2
W. Scott Thompson, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 1957–1966 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), 154–55.
Arab political influence, especially that of Egypt, manifested itself in increasingly effective fashion at the various Pan-African and non-aligned conferences. In April 1960, the Arab members of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization (AAPSO) prevailed on the participants at the conference at Conakry to adopt an anti–Israel stance. Two months later, the second Conference of Independent African States (CIAS) convened in Addis Ababa and passed an even more sharply worded resolution on Israel's obligations to the Palestinians.
3 Israeli Foreign Ministry Research Division, report on second AAPSO conference, 11 May 1960, Israel State Archives (hereafter, ISA), 3302/7; Embassy in Tel Aviv to Foreign Office, 19 July 1960, Public Record Office (hereafter, PRO), FO 371 151166 V1022/8; Hillel to Meir, 14 June 1960, ISA 3301/5.
In January 1961, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, all three of which were beneficiaries of Israeli development programs,
4 “Israel–Africa Cooperation,” Israeli Foreign Ministry report, March 1961, ISA 4316/12.
signed a declaration at Casablanca condemning Israel as “the pillar of imperialism in Africa.”
5 Thompson, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 46–51.
The fourth AAPSO conference in 1965 adopted a resolution calling Israel “the aggressive base of old and neocolonialism which menaces the progress, security and peace of the Middle East region as well as world peace.”
6 Israel's prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, noted that the peoples of Africa welcomed Israeli assistance “not because we are rich in possessions that enable us to influence them, but because they view the spiritual values enshrined in Israeli
halutziut (Zionist pioneering) as worth learning.”
7 Divrei Haknesset (Israel's Parliamentary Record; in Hebrew) 16–31 March 1959, 22.
Yet as Ali Mazrui points out, the Africans ultimately viewed Israel as a Western state and knew that Zionism, as a particularist nationalism, had no role to play in liberating Africa.
8 Ali Mazrui, Africa's International Relations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1977), 134–45.
In fact, Arab assistance to black Africa reached substantial proportions only after 1973. From 1973 to 1981, the Arab oil-exporting states, mainly Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Libya, extended the black African countries assistance that reached $1.67 billion.9
Taher Hamdi Kanaan, “The Economic Dimension of Contemporary Afro–Arab Relations,” in The Arabs and Africa, ed. Khair El-Din Haseeb (Dover, N.H.: Croom Helm, 1985), 414.
That level of aid contrasts with the limited Arab assistance to black Africa during the 1960s, of which the United Arab Republic (UAR; after 1961, Egypt alone) was the principal source. From 1961 to 1967, Egypt lent four African governments only $65 million, and the June 1967 war significantly diminished Cairo's capacity to extend aid.
10 Tareq Ismael, The U.A.R. in Africa: Egypt's Policy under Nasser (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1971), 159, 251–58.
In comparison, from 1958 to 1966 Israel (despite its own financial contraints) lent ten African states a total of $199 million.
11 Ojo, Africa and Israel, 22.
But the Israelis pointed to the growing support that the Eastern bloc provided Egyptian efforts and the rising level of communist involvement on the continent. From 1959 to 1967, Soviet credits to black African states reached $617 million, and those that the Eastern European states extended totaled $277 million. During this period, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union supplied arms (including tanks and jet aircraft) to Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, and Uganda. During the same period, the People's Republic of China sold no arms to African states but lent governments in the sub-Saharan region $311 million.
12 “Communist States and Developing Countries” (app. A), in Chinese and Soviet Aid to Africa, ed. Warren Weinstein (New York: Praeger, 1975), 246 – 49; The Arms Trade Registers: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1975), 72–92.
Israel made repeated attempts to obtain the support of the United States and Britain for a role in Africa based on the Western powers' recognition of its value as a barrier to this “communist expansion.” The Israelis hoped that support on the scale that they sought would allow them both to play a major role on the continent and to sustain the growing competition with their rivals. Those attempts met with little success. The Israelis obtained only very limited Western support for their African operations and elicted scant recognition of their potential as an obstacle to anti–Western activity there. Nevertheless, by the mid-1960s Israel had assumed commitments in Africa that constituted an overextension of its means.
Files in the archives of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reveal that, by early 1966, the Israelis had established a defense connection (military advisers, paramilitary training, and, in a number of cases, the sale of small arms) with seventeen African states.13
“Defense Aid to African Countries,” 6 May 1966, Israeli Defense Forces Archives (hereafter, IDFA), 1671/92/22.
In 1960, a senior Foreign Ministry official emphasized that “exporting security is effective because prestige is so important to the African states.”
14 Bitan to Foreign Ministry, 5 October 1960, ISA 3301/5.
But Israel's aggressive marketing of its own military proficiency created the expectation among many African governments that diplomatic relations with the Israelis automatically entailed the benefit of their defense expertise. The export of this “commodity” in the pursuit of influence eventually overshadowed Israel's reputation in the field of civilian aid. Moreover, Israel frequently cultivated defense ties with governments that its Foreign Ministry later came to consider unstable, while the sale of arms in Africa failed to satisfy the pecuniary expectations of the Israeli Defense Ministry.
This work proceeds largely in chronological fashion. I will first place in context Israel's early success in Africa through a brief review of its relations with Ghana. In March 1957, Israel's consulate in Ghana became its first embassy in Africa, and this achievement was an important step toward ameliorating Israel's diplomatic isolation. An entire year passed before Egypt opened a diplomatic legation in Accra, and the Israelis made good use of that time. Israel quickly set up assistance projects in Ghana and elsewhere in West Africa, thereby establishing a reputation as a state both able and willing to help in Africa's development. The Israelis also created economic opportunities for their own government concerns and private enterpreneurs, and trade figures cited later place in perspective the scope of those initial endeavors. The Casablanca conference of 1961, at which Ghana subscribed to an anti–Israeli resolution, was an early setback for Israel in Africa. Yet in 1960–61, Israel established relations with fourteen of the sixteen African countries that then became independent, further expanding its diplomatic purview and giving it greater international legitimacy. Israel had achieved its entry to Africa and its first goal on the continent.
Israel's role in the Congo in the early 1960s highlights at once several Israeli aims and the contradictions in policy that they created. Israel regarded the Congo as an avenue toward obtaining influence with the regime there, a chance to demonstrate active support of Western diplomatic and peace-keeping efforts, and an opportunity to show other African leaders, with a view to future arms sales and training programs, what it had to offer in the area of military expertise. Yet, as I will note, Israel thereby compromised the image it strove to project as a small power identified with neither side in the Cold War. At the same time, the United States invited the Israelis to participate in the Greene Plan (for the Congo) but evinced no desire to expand the scope of its cooperation with Israel in Africa.
By 1963, Israel had shifted its principal attention from West Africa to a strategy based on East Africa. Israel's objectives in East Africa included the essentially negative aim of combating Arab, and especially Egyptian, influence that could have frustrated its own goals nearly everywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. But by the mid-1960s, creating close relations with Ethiopia and the states adjacent to it had become Israel's most important goal in Africa. This was a policy based on the Israeli interest in “securing its flank” to ensure freedom of navigation to the Red Sea.15
Shlomo Hillel, former director of the Africa division of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, at the conference “Fifty Years of African–Israeli Relations,” Tel Aviv University, 7 June 1998.
In fact, this goal proceeded from Israel's “doctrine of the periphery,” which, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, brought it to seek to establish relations in the areas beyond the Arab “confrontation” states. Israel forged close ties with Iran and Turkey, viewed ties with Ethiopia as part of this periphery, and regarded as strategically salient the East African states of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Why relations with the last three states became so important to Israeli policymakers will become clear.
In truth, Israel in the late 1950s had failed to secure tangible U.S. support of its Middle East–based doctrine of the periphery.16
Rountree to Dulles, 17 January 1959, U.S. National Archives (hereafter, USNA) 611.84A/1-1759; Ben Gurion's diary, 7 and 23 December 1959, Ben Gurion Archive, Sde Boker, Israel.
But the Israelis considered their increasing involvement in East Africa to be a contribution to regional security that justified a high degree of consultation and cooperation with, as well as the support of, the Western powers. Thus, in the mid-1960s Israel attempted to cast itself in the role of an important ally to Western objectives in Africa. Yet Israel's provision of arms and military training to East African states clashed with British interests while eliciting little appreciation in London and Washington of Israeli policies. Moreover, by 1965 both Britain and the United States took an increasingly dim view of Israel's deepening involvement in Uganda and the extent of the defense connection attendant on that relationship.
Finally, this essay places in high relief the theme of Israel's over-extension in Africa. Documents of the Israeli Foreign Ministry reveal the extent to which, by 1966, officials in that office realized that both civilian and military involvement on the continent had exceeded their government's means and created commitments that Israel would in the future be hard pressed to meet. Israel's Ugandan “adventure” was a major factor in the growing awareness at the Foreign Ministry that in the absence of Western (principally U.S.) support, Israel's interests would best be served by drastically scaling down its activities in nearly all of Africa. Moreover, as this article explains, Israel's Foreign and Defense Ministries took increasingly divergent approaches to Israel's prospects in Africa. The Foreign Ministry viewed askance Israeli relations with “dubious” regimes and wished to reinvest Israel's limited resources mainly in politically “safe” civilian aid. But the Israeli Defense Ministry was intent on exploiting Israel's ties with African states to attempt to create its own arms market on the continent, and the defense connection with Kampala was illustrative of this determination. That relationship lasted until March 1972, when President Idi Amin brought to an abrupt end the Israeli presence in Uganda. Yet as this work shows, by 1967 the Israeli Foreign Ministry believed that the strategy of which that connection had become a major component was seriously flawed.
ENTRY TO AFRICA AND RELATIONS WITH GHANA
By 1958, Ghana and Israel had created a “special relationship” whose key components were the Black Star Line, a joint shipping company financed 40 percent by Israel's Zim Navigation, and the operations of Solel Boneh, the Israeli Histadrut-owned building firm.17
Israel-Ghana Background Paper, May 1958, ISA 3103/10.
In July 1958, the Israeli government granted Ghana $20 million in credits.
18 Ojo, Africa and Israel, 22.
After the 1961 Casablanca conference, Ehud Avriel, deputy director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and from 1957 to 1960 ambassador in Accra, warned that Egyptian influence might bring Ghana's “impulsive” leader, Kwame Nkrumah, to sever relations with Israel. In fact, in February 1961 Nkrumah replaced with British instructors the Israeli trainers at the Flight School that Israel had established
19 Gilat to Limon, 28 October 1960, IDFA, 230/97/530.
and distanced Ghana from the “intimacy” that had characterized ties during Avriel's term as ambassador.
20 Eshel to Africa division, 27 November 1962, ISA 3396/25.
Yet, Avriel noted, Israel's record in Ghana had already made a deep impression on other African leaders,21
Protocol of a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, 24 January 1961, ISA 3302/5.
while both Ghana and Israel remained interested in maintaining relations that served both parties. In early 1962, eighty Israeli technical specialists worked in Ghana,
22 Bitan's review no. 20 from Accra, 26 April 1962, ISA 1903/14A.
and Israel's image was still based mainly on that civilian assistance. Nkrumah was loath to forgo Israeli aid
23 Bitan to Meir, 13 May 1961, ISA 2028/9.
and the intelligence on Egyptian and other Arab activity in Africa that Israel provided him.
24 Hillel, 7 June 1998, “Fifty Years of African–Israeli Relations.”
Israel recognized Accra's importance as a “hub” of diplomatic activity on the continent; in 1962, there were forty-four foreign legations in Accra, twice the number in any other African capital except Cairo.
25 Bitan to Limon, 6 February 1962, ISA 1903/14A.
Moreover, Israel maintained a high level of activity in Ghana because the Arab, Soviet, and Western legations, as well as those of African representatives in Accra, continued to scrutinize the success (and the setbacks) of those assistance programs.
26 Arnon to Africa division, 4 July 1963, ISA 3397/1.
Nevertheless, in 1961 Israel turned much of its attention to other countries in West Africa and pursued a new set of strategic goals in East Africa.
ISRAEL EXTENDS ITS REACH IN AFRICA
In February and March 1958, Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir, whose enthusiasm for Israel's entry into Africa lent it great impetus, visited Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal. Of these five West African countries, only Ghana and Liberia were at that time independent. But Meir had agreed to a policy, urged on her by senior Foreign Ministry officials Avriel and Reuven Shiloah, of exploiting every opportunity to gain access to the areas of Africa nearing independence.27
Shiloah to Meir, 9 February 1958, ISA 3094/30A.
The Israelis focused initially on West Africa and were most eager to forge ties with Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, both of which became independent in 1960. Nigeria was the most populous country on the continent (100 million in 1960), and the Africa division of the Israeli Foreign Ministry considered that country its “next great challenge.”28
Lorch to Argov, 3 June 1960, ISA 3330/14.
In 1963, Israeli exports to Nigeria reached $1.9 million, exceeding those to Ghana ($1.6 million).
29 “Our Exports to English-Speaking African Countries,” Foreign Ministry survey, March 1964, ISA 3501/18.
The Ivory Coast, though less developed economically than Nigeria and Ghana, had rubber and timber in which Israel was interested. In 1963, Israeli exports to the Ivory Coast totaled $479,000.
30 “1963 Foreign Trade with French-Speaking Countries in West Africa,” Foreign Ministry survey, March 1964, ISA 3501/18.
The Israelis also pursued close relations with the Ivory Coast because its president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, had headed the powerful French West African Rassemblement Democratique Africaine and was a highly influential figure on the continent.
31 Thompson, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 12.
In July 1962, Houphouet-Boigny visited Israel; that year, the Israeli Defense Ministry moved its base of operations in West Africa from Accra to Abidjan
32 Bitan to Limon, 6 February 1962, ISA 1903/14A.
and instituted a program of paramilitary training in the Ivory Coast.
33 “Israeli Military and Paramilitary Operations in Africa,” Foreign Ministry survey, March 1964, ISA 3501/18.
In fact, Israel's defense connection to West Africa in the 1960s remained limited almost entirely to the sale of equipment such as communication sets and Uzi submachine guns.34
Ibid., Dinstein to Limon, 6 September 1966, ISA 3993/17.
By late 1966, a lack of interest on both sides brought Israel to phase out nearly all training in the Ivory Coast.
35 “Africa: Israeli Military Aid,” Department of State Research memorandum, 30 January 1970, USNA, RG 59, Subject Numeric File (SNF), DEF 19, Israel–Africa.
But we will see presently why Israel's African strategy brought it to involvement in the Congo and the cultivation of a growing military connection with several East African countries.
ISRAEL, THE CONGO, AND THE GREENE PLAN
Israel viewed with cautious optimism the new Kennedy administration's “activist” approach to Africa.36
Bitan to Foreign Ministry, 8 February 1961, ISA 3302/5.
The Israelis hoped that they could turn the administration's interest in Africa to their advantage by creating opportunities for strategic dialogue and cooperation with the United States. Thus, in 1961 Golda Meir assigned Hanan Bar-On, Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia, to the post of counselor at the embassy in Washington. The Israelis wished to draw on Bar-On's experience in Addis Ababa to heighten U.S. interest in their growing expertise in Africa.
37 Author's interview with Hanan Bar-On, 10 October 2000, Jerusalem.
The Israelis also wished to demonstrate their willingness and ability to advance Western interests. In a report dated March 1961, the Foreign Ministry defined this goal as the “enhancement of Israel's status in the eyes of the powers by virtue of achievements in Africa and the demonstration of its ability to influence African governments to adopt policies favorable to the West in the inter-bloc struggle.”38
“Israel–African Relations,” Foreign Ministry report, March 1961, ISA 4316/12.
For this reason, the Israelis enthusiastically welcomed the State Department's suggestion in 1962 that Israel train soldiers of the Armee Nationale Congolaise (ANC) in the framework of the Greene Plan.
39 See Bar-On's later report to Hillel, 13 January 1964, ISA 3502/11. For a description of the Greene Plan, see Ernest W. Lafever, Crisis in the Congo: A United Nations Force in Action (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1965), 127–30.
Meir impressed on Prime Minister Ben Gurion the urgency of cultivating relations with the Congolese chief of staff and “strong man,” General Joseph Mobutu, and in August 1962 Ben Gurion approved a military mission to the Congo.
40 Meir to Ben Dor, 29 August 1962, ISA 4320/24.
In January 1964, the State Department assigned Israel responsibility for training 700–800 Congolese soldiers to defend government installations in the province of Katanga.41
Bar-On to Karni, 28 January 1964, ISA 3502/11.
In early 1964, the Israelis flew hundreds of Congolese to Israel at Israeli expense to participate in a parachute course in addition to infantry training, making their program particularly attractive to the Congolese. But the State Department rejected an Israeli request to fund a second paratroop battalion, as support for the training of foreign troops in Israel would have required a political decision whose result would have been open U.S. cooperation with Israel in Africa. Both the Defense and State Departments were concerned that identification with and “apparent” sponsorship of Israeli efforts overseas would prejudice the ability of the United States to deal effectively with the Arab–Israeli conflict and pursue other U.S. objectives in the Middle East.
42 Joint State/Defense telegram, 15 January 1964, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19-2, Israel–The Congo.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk urged discretion, noting that “mounting tension over the U.S. role in Arab–Israeli matters increases the need to avoid the public appearance that the United States is promoting the Israeli role in the Congo.”
43 Rusk, telegram, 18 March 1964, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19-2, Israel–The Congo. Nevertheless, the Mossad, Israel's foreign-intelligence agency, obtained “back-channel” U.S. support for an extension of Israel's Congo mission, and on 18 June 1964 Bar-On met with William Brubeck, assistant to the National Security Council, to arrange U.S. funds for the transport of eighty Congolese officers to Israel: see a Mossad representative in the United States to the Mossad, letter, 15 June 1964, ISA 3502/1 (part of this document is still classified). See also Bar-On to Foreign Ministry, 18 June 1964, ISA 3502/1.
Participation in the (initially United Nations–supported) Greene Plan gave the Israelis the opportunity to prove their ability to provide effective military training to other countries, and, as we will see, Israel developed close military ties with Uganda that complemented its growing strategic relationship with Ethiopia. Yet support of the U.S. approach in the Congo points up three main difficulties that Israel faced in the pursuit of its goals in Africa.
First, an Israeli role in training the ANC proved to Washington Israel's effectiveness in supporting a U.S. initiative but in no way changed U.S. reticence regarding cooperation with Israel's projects in Africa, especially those of a military nature. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the White House welcomed Israeli participation but wanted to maintain the “fiction” that Israel's mission was completely independent of that of the United States.44
Unsigned memorandum of the Foreign Ministry, February 1964, ISA 3502/11.
Second, training ANC troops gave the Israelis an opportunity to “display their wares” in Africa but highlighted the military (rather than civilian) aspects of their assistance. Third, Israel's involvement in the Congo compromised its claim to be a “neutral alternative” to which Africans could turn as East–West competition on the continent intensified. During the first years of its diplomatic activity in Africa, Israel attempted to present itself as a state identified with neither side in the Cold War and primarily a source of civilian rather than military aid. The Israelis did so partly to prevent the African states from joining future anti–Israeli “stampedes” at the United Nations based on such issues as water, borders, and refugees, all of which were components of the Arab–Israeli conflict and matters of great concern to the Africans.
45 Ilan to Foreign Ministry, 17 March 1961, ISA 3301/1.
But the Congo was the most divisive issue on the African continent, and a military mission and influence with Mobutu involved Israel in that dispute while compromising its claim to be non-aligned.
THE TURN TO EAST AFRICA
After the Sinai campaign of 1956, Israel cultivated closer relations with Ethiopa. By the late 1950s, both Nasser's rising influence in East Africa and the creation (in 1958) of the Eritrean Liberation Movement were sources of increasing concern for Ethiopian Emperor Haile Sellasie. Israel's performance in the 1956 war had impressed him, and he told Ambassador Bar-On of his interest in receiving Israeli military advisers.46
Responsibility for Ethiopian affairs lay primarily with the Prime Minister's Office and with military intelligence rather than with the Africa division of the Foreign Ministry.
47 Meron Medzini, The Proud Jewess (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1990), 273; Netanel Lorch, Late Afternoon (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1997), 288.
The assignment of jurisdiction for relations with Ethiopia to those agencies means that files in the Israeli archives on the defense connection with Addis Ababa remain closed, but State Department reports shed some light on the scope and activities of Israel's military mission there. According to those reports there were, by the end of the 1960s, forty-five “fixed” Israeli advisers in various parts of Ethiopia and scores of “specialists” whose visits were short but frequent. Israel sold Ethiopia few arms
48 “Africa: Israeli Military Aid.” Israel carried out no significant arms transactions vis-à-vis Ethiopia: see Arms Trade Registers, 74.
but provided training to the Imperial Ethiopian Army, security services, and the regime's Eritrean Emergency Police.
49 Embassy in Addis Ababa to State Department, 4 February 1970, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19, Israel–Ethiopia.
In 1959, senior Israeli diplomats made their government's first “foray” into Kenya, Tanganyika (Tanzania in 1964), and Uganda to establish trade ties and contact with the men who would lead those colonies on independence.50
Elath and Ben-Horin to Foreign Ministry, 15 July 1959, ISA 3094/25 (Tanganyika became an independent state in 1961, Uganda in 1962, and Kenya in 1963).
Avriel was particularly interested in development prospects in Tanganyika and enthusiastic about ties with Julius Nyerere.
51 Avriel to Lurie, 10 February 1961, ISA 3307/36.
In addition to the development of new markets, the Israelis viewed those countries as an East African “strategic hinterland” to Ethiopia, from which Israel wished to exclude Egyptian influence as well as that of the Soviet Union and China. According to Shimon Peres, the Israeli deputy minister of defense, Israel had entered “the battle for East Africa.”
52 Embassy in Paris to Foreign Office, 13 February 1962, PRO, FO/371 164292 ER1022/2.
Israel forged a defense connection with Uganda that endured until March 1972. Israel's archives have blocked access to files on that connection, too, but documents recently released in London and Washington permit both a view of the manner in which the Israelis entered Uganda and the extent of their military support of the regime there.
In early 1964, the government in Kampala turned to the British army to restore order after the Ugandan army mutinied. But in June 1964, the Ugandans dismissed their army's British chief of staff and prevented the remaining British officers from carrying out their training duties. In late July, the Ugandans terminated nearly all British assistance and turned to Israel for military training.53
Morris to Beith, 27 July 1964, PRO, FO/371 175812 ER1073/2.
How did the Israelis persuade Uganda, independent less than two years and with a small British-trained army, to agree to Israeli training instead? In 1963, fifteen Ugandan officers and five pilots attended courses in Israel, and by early 1964 an Israeli mission had begun training Ugandan infantry and a police emergency force.
54 “Israeli Military and Paramilitary Operations in Africa,” March 1964, ISA 3501/18.
According to the Foreign Office, the Israelis had bribed Felix Onama, Uganda's minister of the interior, with £25,000
55 Embassy in London to Department of State, 28 July 1964, USNA, RG 59, DEF 19, Israel–Uganda.
and handed out personal weapons and items of clothing to Ugandan officers and government ministers.
56 Morris to Beith, 27 July 1964.
ISRAEL AND WESTERN OBJECTIVES IN AFRICA
The Israelis were certain that their operations in Africa were an asset to Western strategic interests and determined to persuade the Western powers, primarily Britain and the United States, that an Israeli presence was everywhere to be valued as a bulwark against Soviet and Chinese influence.57
“Egypt and the Eastern Bloc in Africa,” Foreign Ministry survey, March 1964, ISA 3501/18.
In fact, Israel's claim that it augmented Western security in Africa earned only grudging British recognition of that role and hardly dispelled London's deep reservations about the impact of Israeli operations on Britain's African interests. Moreover, as we will see, Israel failed to bring the United States to grant that it was an effective barrier to communism in Africa.
Israel wished to avoid identification with Britain and the “stain of colonialism” in African eyes. But in April 1964, Avriel proposed regular contact with the Foreign Office on African matters. He had long been convinced that Britain's colonial authorities (and later, its embassies) in Africa did everything possible to scuttle Israel's endeavors and wanted British officials in Africa to stop hampering Israeli activities.58
Avriel to Asia–Africa division, 30 January 1958, ISA 3103/10.
Meir promised that Israel, for its part, “would never try to supplant British … training teams in African countries.”
59 Beith to Morris, 7 August 1964, PRO, FO/371 175812 ER1073/3.
In truth, by the end of 1963 Israel's military assistance in East Africa had become a source of concern to Britain. The Israelis trained Tanganyikan infantry officers, naval crews, and pilots.
60 “Israeli Military and Paramilitary Operations in Africa.”
The Commonwealth Relations Office claimed that Israel's role in Tanganyika had contributed to the January 1964 mutiny in the army in Dar es Salaam.
61 “Israel Activities in East Africa,” Commonwealth Relations Office, 22 October 1964, PRO, FO/371 175812. For an account of the mutiny, see Cranford Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania, 1945–1968 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 178–79.
By March 1964, thirty Kenyan officers and five air cadets had trained in Israel.
62 “Israeli Military and Paramilitary Operations in Africa.”
Israel's role in Tanganyika and the manner in which it displaced the British army in Uganda brought London to the view that Israeli ambitions in Africa could threaten Britain's interests in its former colonial territories, and British officials in Africa insisted that Israel's military missions were detrimental to all of the host countries.
63 “Israel Activities in East Africa.”
In January 1965, Avriel “revealed” to the Foreign Office Israel's “Kenya Doctrine,” the gist of which was a policy of “hands off the military” in countries with which the British had a defense relationship.64
Beith to Morris, 15 January 1965, PRO, FO/371 180873 ER1073/3.
But the Commonwealth Relations Office pointed out that the Israelis (paradoxically) jeopardized Western interests merely by becoming involved in defense ventures in any African state: “Israeli military assistance falls short of what the Communist powers can offer and we are doubtful whether it will effectively preempt Russian or Chinese military aid in the long run.”
65 “Israel Activities in East Africa.”
Moreover, by early 1965 Israel had supplied Uganda with four Fouga Magister jet-trainer aircraft. Avriel declared that Israel was supplying the Ugandans both to give them “the feeling of an independent role in African affairs” and because they had already threatened to turn to Egypt, Algeria, or the communists if Israel failed to meet their “minimum requirements.”
66 Embassy in Tel Aviv to Department of State, 16 March 1965, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19-3, Israel–Uganda.
But the British viewed askance this “notable exception” to the hitherto small scale of Israeli arms sales
67 “Anglo–Israeli Talks on Africa,” brief no. 2, 22 February 1965, PRO, FO/371 180873.
because it threatened the military balance in East Africa and whetted Kampala's appetite for more arms.
Israel's technical-assistance programs elicited the acknowledgement of the Foreign Office that these were—at least, in principle—in the general Western interest and preferable to Egyptian or communist aid. In reality, Israeli assistance was necessarily circumscribed; British aid in Africa was about twenty-five times that of Israel.68
Foreign Office to Tel Aviv, 15 February 1965, PRO, FO/371 180873 ER1073/7. For example, in Tanzania, for which comparative figures are available. From 1961 to 1965, Israeli aid to Tanzania was 4.5 percent that of the United Kingdom: See Pratt, Critical Phase in Tanzania, 133.
But the Israelis were still involved in the Congo, evinced a growing interest in Chad, provided training to national liberation movements in southern Africa, and (according to British intelligence) engaged in “subversive” activities in southern Sudan.
69 Morris to Beith, 26 January 1965, PRO, FO/371 180173 ER1073/7.
Israel's involvement in these matters brought the British to agree to high-level consultations to learn what might be gleaned from such talks.
70 See Foreign Ministry record of these talks, 21 October 1965, ISA 744/8; see also “Anglo–Israeli Talks on Africa,” 19 October 1965, PRO, FO/371 181618 J1079/7.
Yet the Israelis themselves contributed to the British impression that a growing lack of inter-office coordination marked their activities in Africa. In October 1964, the Foreign Office noted that Israeli behavior was at variance with principles that Meir had enunciated, such as refraining from supplanting the British in East Africa. The East Africa department claimed that the Israeli Foreign Ministry exercised little control over (defense-related) activities in Africa.71
Atkins to Crawford, 16 October 1964, PRO, FO/371 175812 ER1073/7/G.
This view was exaggerated but not without foundation. In March 1965, Shimon Amir, deputy director of the economic division of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, admitted “the occasional lack of coordination between Tel Aviv and the officers in the field.”
72 Tesh to Goodison, 4 March 1965, PRO, FO/371 180873 ER1073/13.
This lack of coordination became much more pronounced.
In January 1964, Ambassador Abraham Harman approached the State Department with a request for U.S. funding of Israeli aid projects in Africa. The element of competition that underlay Anglo–Israeli contact in Africa was absent from U.S.–Israeli relations. Israel wanted cooperation with Washington and U.S. funding for the expansion of both its civilian and its military assistance on the continent. As Bar-On writes, “Aid extended in Africa helped foster an image, which the Israelis tried so hard to build in U.S. public opinion, that Israel was a friend that could contribute and not only receive.”73
Hanan Bar-On, “Five Decades of U.S.–Israeli Relations,” in Independence: The First Fifty Years, (in Hebrew) ed. Anita Shapira (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1998), 383.
Harman emphasized that Israel served Western interests in Africa, argued that Israel was a “donor” country in terms of its technical aid but not in terms of capital, and remarked that “it would be a shame were such projects to wither for lack of support.”
74 Harman to Meir, 27 January 1964, ISA 3502/11.
In 1965, the United States granted Israel $7 million, channeled through the CIA, for operations of Mashav (Division of International Cooperation) in Africa, providing the Israelis with a crucial source of funding for their activities there.75
But this was a one-time subvention, most of which the Israelis received only in 1967. Moreover, the State Department required the Israelis to submit all other requests for financial support of its aid projects piecemeal. In June 1965, John Jernegan, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, noted the growing “problem” of too many Israeli proposals, which by that time had exceeded thirty. To discourage the Israelis, Jernegan recommended rejection of their application for $120,000 to fund a Nahal (paramilitary) program in Chad.
76 Jernegan to Thompson, 2 June 1965, USNA, RG 59, Lot 68, D145, Box 4.
Israel's repeated attempts to secure funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) yielded meager results, as the agency considered projects only after the host government submitted a detailed proposal for assistance, which the State Department then subjected to close scrutiny.
Israeli attempts to draw the United States into military cooperation in Africa met no success.77
Bitan to Evron, 17 June 1966, ISA 3975/5.
In September 1966, Uri Lubrani, (the Israeli ambassador in Kampala from 1965 to 1968), asked the U.S. ambassador in Kampala to query Washington regarding secret funding for Israel's military assistance to Uganda. Dean Rusk responded that the United States would not become Israel's “silent partner” in Uganda or elsewhere in Africa.
78 Rusk, circular memo, 12 October 1966, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19-9, Israel–Uganda.
On 28 and 29 November 1966, the Israelis met with State Department officials for consultations on Africa. The Israelis were dismayed at the lack of any opportunity to discuss African affairs with AID officials who attended the talks, noting that their State Department hosts “gave the AID people nearly no chance to speak.”
79 Lador to Bitan, 19 December 1966, ISA 3976/10.
In truth, Israel's 13 November 1966 reprisal raid on the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Samua brought the White House to view as inappropriate a prize in the form of subventions to Israel for Africa. On 18 November, the State Department noted that, in view of its strong opposition to Israel's attack, talks with the Israelis on Africa would be set “within the policy framework of overall U.S.–Israeli relations.”
80 Hadsel to Palmer, 18 November 1966, USNA, RG 59, SNF, POL 7, Israel.
President Lyndon Johnson expressed this bluntly. He told Arthur Goldberg, U.S. representative to the United Nations, “What we'll do is, the proper time, we won't be chintzy with them, we'll go back to Africa or something else. … I just think they're damn fools to let that Hussein get thrown out [
sic].”
81 Editorial note regarding conversation between President Johnson and Ambassador Goldberg, 13 December 1966, cited in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1964–1968, 18:722–23.
In April 1967, Johnson personally instructed the State and Defense Departments to transfer $5 million in funds earlier promised to the Israelis for their “anti–Communist programs” in Africa.82
Rostow to Johnson, 7 April 1967, FRUS, 18:786.
In May 1967, Goldberg noted that the United States would “give sympathetic consideration to further support of Israel's assistance programs in Africa … which indirectly benefit us.”
83 Goldberg's memorandum to Johnson, 1 May 1967, FRUS, 18:812–13.
But the State Department expressed particular disquiet over Israel's role in the Ugandan army, to which (Lubrani told the U.S. ambassador in Kampala) the Israelis contributed $1 million annually.
84 Embassy in Kampala to State Department, 19 September 1966, USNA, RG 59, SNF, POL 7, Israel.
The United States encouraged “selective Israeli military assistance” to African countries but wanted Israel to restrict that involvement to training.
85 “Israeli Military or Paramilitary Assistance to African States,” 25 November 1966, USNA, RG 59, SNF, POL 7, Israel.
Rusk instructed U.S. officials to impress on the Israelis the exigency of limiting the arms race in Africa.
86 Rusk, circular memo, 12 October 1966. Yet on 9 June 1968, Israel's defense attaché in Kampala informed the U.S. embassy that Israel had already supplied a total of twelve Fouga jets to Uganda, the last three having arrived at Entebbe the previous day, and that Israel would furnish six Dakota transport planes in addition to the six already in Ugandan hands: Embassy in Kampala to State Department, 9 June 1968, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19, Israel–Uganda.
ISRAEL'S OVEREXTENSION IN AFRICA
In early July 1966, senior officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Mossad, the Prime Minister's Office, and IDF officers representing the Defense Ministry conducted inter-office consultations regarding Africa. The purpose of the meeting was the formulation of recommendations to be presented to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who in late June had returned from a junket to Africa and told the Knesset of his desire to increase Israeli involvement there.87
Divrei Haknesset, 28 June 1966, 46, 1919–22.
But these officials were keenly aware of their country's financial constraints and the likelihood that Eshkol would in fact cut their budgets for operations in Africa. Thus, they sought more cost-effective means and clear priorities for attaining Israel's goals on the continent. Mashav spent 60 percent of its annual budget, approximately $5.83 million, in Africa. Of this sum, the Foreign Ministry spent $4.2 million; the Ministry of Defense, $1.33 million; and the Mossad, $417,000. The meeting produced a consensus regarding the need to phase out costly programs such as paramilitary training and most of the courses for Africans in Israel.
88 Consultations on Africa, 7 July 1966, ISA 3158/1.
Representatives of the Mossad pointed out that their principal operations were in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania, all three of which were vulnerable to “Arab subversion” but also fertile ground for collaboration against Arab interests. The Mossad expressed pride in its achievements in Sub-Saharan Africa, noted that it had “accomplished much” with a limited budget and only twenty-five agents, and aroused no inter-office controversy. The same cannot be said of the demands that the two IDF lieutenant-colonels representing the Defense Ministry raised. They called for a steep increase in Israel's military involvement in Uganda, including the training of high-ranking officers, the Ugandan special forces, and the air force. The army officers claimed that stepping up military assistance to Uganda created important opportunities for future profits for Israeli military industries, Soltam Systems (arms manufacturers), and the Israel aircraft industries. Foreign Ministry officials reacted indignantly. Israel's military assistance to Uganda alone had already cost millions of dollars, and in early 1966 Ambassador Lubrani admitted that Israel's policy of supplying jets to Uganda had been mistaken.89
Obote and his protégé, Colonel Idi Amin, had in early 1965 accepted Czech training on MIG-17 jets, a move probably calculated to demonstrate displeasure at Israel's refusal to become involved in border incidents between Uganda and the Congo: Hunt to Norris, 25 February 1966, PRO, FO/371 187697; Embassy in Tel Aviv to Department of State, 27 August 1965, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19, Israel–Uganda. According to the Israeli Defense Ministry, by the end of 1965 the Ugandans had again turned to the Israelis to train their air force: Dinstein to Limon, 6 September 1966, ISA 3993/17.
Would it not have been possible, they asked, to secure influence in that country through economic ventures rather than military assistance?
90 Consultations on Africa, 7 July 1966, ISA 3158/1.
In fact, by 1966 some senior Israeli officials had begun to express grave reservations about three main aspects of their country's involvement in Africa. First, both Israel's growing economic problems and the increasing realization that trade in Africa would remain very limited made investment and financial aid appear increasingly unpromising. Eshkol noted with satisfaction that in 1965, Israel's trade with Africa had reached $19 million worth of exports and $23 million in imports.91
Divrei Haknesset, 28 June 1966, 46, 1919–22.
Yet even by 1973 (when most of the black African states severed ties with Israel), Israeli exports to black Africa had reached only $30 million and imports $29.1 million. As Peters notes, that level of export was only 4–5 percent of the total volume of Israeli sales abroad. Ethiopia's imports from Israel were only 2.5 percent of all of its overseas purchases, and that was the highest proportion among all African states.
92 Peters, Israel and Africa, 67.
In comparison, in 1973 the exports to sub-Saharan Africa from all of the Arab states combined reached $168 million, and the Arab states imported goods from that region worth $256 million.
93 Kanaan, “Economic Dimension of Contemporary Afro–Arab Relations,” 409.
Between 1963 and 1966, Israel lent seven African states a total of $155 million, including $70 million to Mali and $58 million to Tanzania.94
Ojo, Africa and Israel, 22.
But by 1966, the Israeli economy was in a deep recession. Moshe Leshem, head of the Africa division, wrote in bleak terms of an Israeli “retreat” from the continent and of the dire financial straits of Mashav.
95 Leshem to Avner, 8 March 1967, ISA 3993/17.
After 1966, Israel made no loans to African states, and after the Six Day War, a technical cooperation agreement with Malawi (in 1968) was the only such contract Israel signed with an African country.
96 Ojo, Africa and Israel, 19, 22.
In April 1966, Zvi Brosh, director-general of Mashav, told a senior official of the British Commonwealth Relations Office that “consolidation rather than expansion” was Israel's “watchword” in Africa.
97 Hadow to Morris, 7 April 1966, PRO, FO/371 187697 J1075/1/A.
In February 1967, Gershon Avner, a veteran diplomat, claimed that the entire “Mashav business” had failed to justify its raison d'être. Since 1960, the African states, in response to increased Arab and Eastern bloc pressure, had demonstrated an ever diminishing willingness to support Israel at the United Nations.
98 Avner to Leshem, 21 February 1967, ISA 3993/17.
Thus, in December 1965, all of the African states except Madagascar and Sierra Leone voted in favor of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2052, which reiterated the call for “repatriation or compensation of the [Palestinian] refugees.”
99 Yearbook of the United Nations, 1965 (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1967), 224–26.
In November 1966, even the Ugandan representatives to the Security Council condemned Israel's reprisal raid on Samua, maintaining that “whatever justification might be advanced, the operation was completely disproportionate … to acts of terrorism conducted against Israel.”
100 Second, Foreign Ministry officials subjected their government's support of unstable regimes to increasing criticism. On 24 February 1966, Lieutenant-General J. A. Ankrah's coup in Accra deposed Nkrumah and halted his government's tilt in foreign policy toward the Soviet Union. This brought about a certain improvement in Israel's position there, and Mordechai Shalev, Israel's ambassador in Accra, repeatedly exhorted his superiors to provide a loan that would help restore Israel to the favored status it had earlier enjoyed in Ghana.101
Shalev to Africa division, 3 March 1966, ISA 4007/25; Shalev to Leshem, 10 March 1966, ISA 4007/22; Shalev to Leshem, 23 March 1966, ISA 4007/22.
But Leshem refused to consider even a very modest loan to post-coup Ghana. Israel, he noted, could not offer an inducement of the magnitude requisite for the “purchase” of influence in Accra. The Africa division was also leery that Nkrumah would return or continue from elsewhere to wield influence on affairs of the continent, and Leshem in any case doubted the new regime's ability to do anything for Israel.
102 Leshem to Shalev, 9 March 1966, ISA 4008/19; Africa division/Mashav to Shalev, 9 March 1966, ISA 4007/22; Leshem to Shalev, 19 April 1966, ISA 4007/22.
Moreover, the January 1966 coups in the Central African Republic and Nigeria had heightened the Foreign Ministry's skepticism regarding both civilian aid and military assistance to African states, many of which rested on shaky foundations. Israel's ambassador in Bangui pointed out the difference between military assistance along the lines of the more “credible” Israeli role in the Congo and the pitfalls of “personal” defense contracts with “tottering” African leaders, identification with whom Israel remained saddled after they fell.
103 Sofer to Shek, 11 February 1966, ISA 3993/17. The British ambassador in Tel Aviv remarked that “successful coups in Africa will have confirmed the Israelis in the belief that they have been right to pay special attention to the armed forces in African countries”: see Hadow to Morris, 7 April 1966, PRO, FO/371 187697 J1075/1/A.
Both the extent of military involvement and the nature of defense ties constituted a third source of growing concern among Israeli officials who dealt with Africa. In February 1966, Lubrani admitted to the British ambassador in Kampala that Israel had “overcommitted” itself in Uganda. At the same time, Lubrani claimed that retreat from its role there would create a “vacuum” that the communists would fill.104
Hunt to Norris, 25 February 1966, PRO, FO/371 187697.
In May 1966, Obote placed Israel in a highly awkward position, calling for Israeli pilots to fly Uganda's Fouga jets on strafing runs in Kampala to crush an incipient uprising against his rule. Lubrani refused to comply.
105 See the U.S. ambassador's account of a conversation with Lubrani: Embassy in Kampala to Department of State, 28 May 1966, USNA, RG 59, SNF, POL 23-9, Uganda.
In June 1967, the U.S. ambassador in Kampala reported that Lubrani had told him of the restraint Israel's training mission was urging on Colonel Idi Amin, including the need to “keep equipment simple and against shopping for more glamorous items.” Yet ironically, the Israelis considered the Obote regime reasonably stable. Lubrani told his American interlocutor that Amin was “completely loyal to Obote, aware of his own intellectual limitations, and without political ambitions.”
106 Embassy in Kampala to Department of State, 27 June 1967, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19-9, Israel–Uganda.
In early 1966, Moshe Bitan, deputy director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, took over the retired Avriel's responsibilities for African affairs. Later that year, Bitan submitted a lengthy report to Abba Eban (who earlier that year had succeeded Meir as foreign minister), in which he severely criticized the role of the Israeli Defense Ministry in Africa. Bitan challenged what the Foreign Ministry viewed as the Defense Ministry's desire to turn the continent into an “arms bazaar.” Bitan complained that Zvi Dinstein, director-general of the Defense Ministry, intended to continue to sell small arms to Chad and Gabon and was determined to accomodate Dahomey, which had also applied to Israel for arms. In fact, the Defense Ministry's marketing met with some success, and (according to the State Department) in 1968 Israel sold $500,000 worth of arms to Nigeria and $1.7 million worth of arms to the Congo.107
Embassy in Tel Aviv to Department of State, 11 April 1970, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 19, Israel–Africa.
Hanan Bar-On, who directed the Africa division from 1968 to 1969, attempted to divest senior Defense Ministry officials of what the Foreign Ministry considered unrealistic expectations that such sales would in the future lead to regular and far more lucrative contracts in Africa.
108 Nevertheless, arms sales remained the most conspicuous component of the Israeli presence in Kampala, and Israel signed treaties with the Obote regime. In 1969, Israel trained the Ugandans on armor and later that year supplied Amin's army with twelve (obsolete but functional) M4 tanks, for which Israel manufactured the 76-mm rounds.
109 Embassy in Kampala to Department of State, 8 October 1969, USNA, RG 59, SNF, DEF 12-5, Uganda.
In the view of the Foreign Ministry, Israel's overcommitment in Africa was in great measure the result of conflicting bureaucratic interests and the ambitions of the Defense Ministry. In September 1966, Bitan wrote Eban that
the problem with our aid policy is to a great extent administrative … and has to do with both [paramilitary] youth training and military assistance. … I've encountered a dangerous redundance of Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry operations. With no objective justification, a security empire has been erected in Africa. This interferes with work, foments turmoil, and creates great political risk. We can overcome these encumbrances, but to do so we will have to prevail over vested interests while slaughtering a few holy cows.110
Bitan to Eban, 27 September 1966, ISA 3993/17.
CONCLUSION
Thompson called Israel's entry into Africa from 1956 to 1961, initially achieved through Nkrumah's Ghana, a “great diplomatic coup.”111
Thompson, Ghana's Foreign Policy, 46.
Israel's attainment of that first goal in Africa brought it out of the isolation that marked its earlier international position. By 1967, twenty-nine of Israel's ninety-six diplomatic missions were in Africa. Yet, as this article shows, Israel did not attain the strategic goals that it pursued from 1961 to 1967. Why was this so?
The answer lies primarily in Israel's failure to realize that the Western powers remained almost entirely indifferent to its desire to act as “contractor” for the West in Africa and would not, on the basis of that role, provide the Israelis with the means they needed to combat Arab influence. The Israelis presented themselves as a barrier to both “Nasserist” and “communist” penetration of the continent, offering to induce African leaders to side with the West in the Cold War and supply them with military training and arms. In fact, the expertise that the Israelis acquired in African affairs earned the respect of the Western powers and their willingness to consult periodically on matters pertaining to the continent. But as we have seen, even U.S. and British officials who acknowledged Israel's determination to fight communist influence in Africa doubted the country's suitability for such a role.
Israel assumed that its reward for participation in Western-backed efforts such as the Greene Plan in the Congo would be support, mainly that of the United States, of its own strategic aims in Africa. The Israelis took for granted that warmer relations with the Johnson administration meant that they had only to persevere to achieve the close coordination they sought with Washington in Africa. Yet no more opportunities such as the Greene Plan arose; both Washington and London maintained their reluctance to cooperate openly with Israel in Africa; and even covert coordination between Israel and the Western powers in Africa appears to have been highly circumscribed. By the end of the 1960s, the United States took far less interest in Africa than it had during the idealistic Kennedy period and found little motivation for helping Israel advance its goals on the continent. Moreover, the Johnson administration viewed curtailing its limited support of the Israelis in Africa as a means to induce Israel's “good behavior” on its borders with the Arab states.
Israel's inability to enlist U.S. support of its doctrine of the periphery in the late 1950s and early 1960s also points up the failure to appreciate the reluctance of the United States to back its ventures on the continent. Such support was a policy that the United States felt would compromise its position in the Middle East, and Washington consistently evinced its disinclination to underwrite Israel's strategy in Africa. Despite Israel's numerous bids to secure U.S. funding for both civilian projects in Africa and defense involvement there, the only significant sum that the United States granted the Israelis for those operations (as noted earlier) was that of $7 million, a one-time subvention subject to long-term delay and transferred through the CIA rather than “normal” U.S. assistance channels.
Nevertheless, as documents in the Israel State Archives show, the Israelis continued to petition the United States for aid based on the role in which they perceived themselves. Thus, in a December 1966 meeting on African affairs at the State Department, Israel again sought U.S. backing for its support of the Obote regime in Kampala. The Israelis insisted that their military assistance to that regime not only prevented Obote's turn to the Eastern bloc but also constituted “nation-building” in Uganda. Those U.S.–Israeli consultations included bilateral discussions of affairs in nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa, but they brought Israel no closer to obtaining greater financial backing of the United States for their activities on the continent.112
Lador to Bitan, 2 December 1966, ISA 3976/10.
By 1967, the Israeli Foreign Ministry took a far more circumspect view than earlier of what might be achieved in Africa. Israel had failed to ensure at least the neutrality in the United Nations of a majority of African countries, and those states had long ceased to view Israel as a small power aloof from the East–West strategic and ideological divide. Moreover, the deepening economic recession in Israel brought Israeli officials to admit that in the absence of U.S. funding, competing with Arab influence by maintaining costly assistance projects in nearly every African country was unfeasible. In the view of the Foreign Ministry, Israel had counted on support that was not forthcoming, made the mistake of overextending itself, and had now to reduce its commitments on the continent by reallocating Mashav's limited funds.
By early 1966, the approaches of the Foreign Ministry and its Defense counterpart regarding Israel's strategy in Africa were manifestly discordant. The Foreign Ministry acknowledged that defense-based relationships in East Africa were a strategic exigency and accepted the need to continue covert security ties with Ethiopia and the other states that Israel viewed as its East African “security belt.” But that office viewed as a mistaken investment the Israeli commitment to Uganda and regretted that the greater part of Israel's endeavor in Africa was no longer civilian aid but military involvement.
The Foreign Ministry's limited budget forced it to search, even before the Six Day War, for ways to reduce its commitments on the continent. Following that war, the Defense Ministry actually increased its involvement in those countries but never approached the level of arms sales to which it aspired. Yet Israel's military connections, rather than civilian aid, remained the more prominent aspect of its presence on the continent until almost all of the African states severed ties in 1972 and 1973.
Author's note: I am grateful to Yehoshua Freundlich of the Israel State Archives for his professional advice, patience, and encouragement.
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