Israel in Africa. Yotam Gidron
defined but it was decided that a group of four of these leaders – led by Léopold Senghor of Senegal – would travel to Israel and Egypt to obtain information and come up with recommendations. Israeli officials initially considered boycotting the initiative altogether, but eventually decided to cooperate, not least because they did not want to damage Israel’s relationship with African states and hoped that this would be an opportunity to prove that the Arab side was to blame for the stalemate in the negotiations.16 Indeed, Senghor was one of the African leaders most sympathetic to Israel and to Zionism at the time and his conciliatory approach towards Jerusalem drew criticism from Cairo.17 But by the time the mission ended even Senghor was frustrated with Israel’s intransigence, as Golda Meir still refused to announce that Israel was not interested in annexing any part of Sinai. ‘I must say, quite objectively, that the Egyptians made all the concessions they could’, Senghor said later. ‘Being an African, I understand the Egyptian position. Africa ends at the Sinai Peninsula. Territorial integrity has become a myth in our continent and both we and the Semites live on myths.’18
The OAU committee’s key recommendation was that Egypt and Israel should resume their negotiations under the auspices of Jarring. But when its proposal was brought before the UN General Assembly in December 1971, most African countries did not support it. The Assembly instead adopted a resolution that politely expressed its ‘appreciation’ of the African initiative, but explicitly called upon Israel to ‘respond favourably’ to Jarring’s proposal from February that year.19 The OAU summit in Rabat in June 1972 was the final nail in the coffin of the OAU mediation efforts and represented ‘a landmark in the shift of the OAU policy in respect to the Middle East crisis’.20 The OAU deplored Israel’s ‘refusal to respond favorably to the initiative of OAU’, and called on Israel to ‘withdraw immediately from all the occupied Arab territories’.21
Meanwhile, Muammar al-Gaddafi, who came to power in 1969, embarked on a calculated diplomatic offensive against Israel’s involvement in Africa. He achieved his first victory when Idi Amin, shortly after coming to power, decided to switch sides and dump Israel in favour of Libyan patronage, which now appeared much more lucrative. Amin began by refusing to allow the Mossad to continue using Uganda as a base for its operations in southern Sudan, and in March 1972 officially severed diplomatic ties with Israel. The embassy was closed, and hundreds of Israelis left the country. Israel initially blamed the decision on Amin’s erratic and unstable personality, highlighting the fact that before breaking off ties, the Ugandan president demanded unrealistic amounts of military support from Israel, which Israel could not and did not want to provide.22 But in November and December 1972, Chad and Congo (Brazzaville) severed ties as well, and were followed by Niger, Mali and Burundi in early 1973.
When OAU members convened again in Addis Ababa in May 1973, they adopted another resolution on the Middle East conflict, this time condemning the ‘negative attitude of Israel, its acts of terrorism and its obstruction of all efforts aimed at a just and equitable solution’ to the conflict with Egypt and calling for its ‘immediate and unconditional withdrawal … from all occupied African and Arab territories’.23 Hoping that a complete diplomatic collapse could still be averted Israel decided not to disengage from the continent,24 but did not seem to possess a coherent strategy that would allow it to reverse the pro-Arab trend in Africa while also sticking to its position on the occupied Arab territories. In September, the Non-Aligned Conference convened in Algeria, adopting a resolution that equated Zionism with imperialism and called upon all non-aligned countries to support the Palestinians’ ‘struggle against Zionist racist and colonialist settlements for the recovery of their full national rights’ and to ‘boycott Israel diplomatically, economically, militarily and culturally’.25 Togo severed relations with Israel less than two weeks later, followed, in early October, by Zaire.
The Yom Kippur War and its aftermath
On Saturday 6 October 1973, the Israeli calculation that its Arab neighbours would not start a war and that the status quo in the Middle East could be maintained proved wrong. The story is almost too familiar and dramatic to bear repeating: Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) – the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. Israel was caught unprepared. As the Egyptian military confidently crossed the Suez Canal and Syrian forces entered the Golan Heights, confused Israeli soldiers hurried to the fronts from their homes. The US was initially reluctant to send Israel military aid but was ultimately convinced. With its support Israel managed not only to recover but to take the offensive. By the time the war ended, Israeli forces crossed to the west bank of the Suez Canal and were threatening to continue to Cairo.
The war was the final straw in the deterioration of Israel’s diplomatic status in Africa. Dahomey (from 1975, Benin) severed ties on 6 October, the day the war began, followed by Rwanda three days later. The following week, Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal from the Sinai Peninsula into what is unequivocally African soil and the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to raise the prices of oil and place an oil embargo on states supportive of Israel.26 Both events only increased the pressure on African states to distance themselves from Israel, if not out of solidarity with Egypt then out of fear for their own economies. Within a month, another 18 African states severed relations with Israel. The only African countries that did not were Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi and Mauritius. The reward from the Arab world came in the form of various commitments for financial aid and the establishment of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), headquartered in Khartoum.27
As Israeli bureaucrats were exchanging accusations about who was to blame for Israel’s diplomatic downfall in Africa,28 a number of African leaders approached Israeli representations with conciliatory messages that indicated that in fact they did not perceive the break of diplomatic ties with the same gravity the Israelis did. Some even expressed their hope that Israel would continue supporting them with its technical cooperation programmes despite the lack of formal ties. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs found this inappropriate, if not offensive. Providing aid to countries that clearly and openly rejected Israel seemed untenable. Not all Israeli assistance programmes were immediately terminated, but in the following years the number of Israeli experts in Africa and African students in Israel dropped.29
Nonetheless, after overcoming the initial shock of the diplomatic crisis, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did instruct its representatives in the US and Europe that if African states approached them and expressed interest ‘in creating or solidifying a semi-official Israeli presence, we are open to discussion of the matter’.30 Thus, while the active diplomatic network the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had established in Africa essentially vanished, Israeli–African security, intelligence and commercial networks did not. Embassies were shut down, but Israeli interest offices were maintained in Kenya, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. The Israeli national airline, EL-AL, continued to fly to Nairobi regularly, and trade between Israel and Africa not only continued but grew.31 Israeli companies that began operating in the continent during the 1960s stayed when the diplomats left, and even expanded their operations.
In the following years, African votes at the UN clearly shifted towards the Arab position on issues concerning Israel and they overwhelmingly supported resolutions that reaffirmed the rights of the Palestinian people.32 The only exceptions were those states that did not sever ties with Israel, which still occasionally abstained. When the UN General Assembly voted in 1975 on a controversial resolution that defined Zionism as ‘a form of racism and racial discrimination’, only 5 African countries opposed it and 11 abstained, while the rest supported it.33 Meanwhile, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), benefiting from the new momentum of Afro-Arab solidarity, slowly began to broaden its diplomatic efforts in Africa, opening missions in countries that severed ties with Israel and mobilising African support for its cause.34
The rise of covert military diplomacy
In Israel, turbulent days followed the 1973 war. A national commission of inquiry cleared Golda Meir and her Defence Minister Moshe Dayan of responsibility for the failure to predict and prepare for the Arab attack. The public was enraged. On 10 April 1974, amidst mass demonstrations, Golda Meir resigned.