Israel in Africa. Yotam Gidron
have great freedom to act in secrecy, based on the discretion of their members, and at the margins of the law or entirely outside of its realms. While civilian bureaucracies take pride in their rule-bound nature and emphasise consistency, security and intelligence agencies glorify the creative circumvention of rules and rely on opaqueness, informality and unpredictability. As the following chapters demonstrate, the resort to ‘clandestine diplomacies’, covert action and special ‘operations’ has been a salient feature of Israel’s interaction with African states.14
Equally important, and closely linked to the securitisation and informalisation of Israel’s presence in Africa and the opaqueness surrounding it, is its privatised nature. In the early 1960s, Israel’s engagement with African countries was both state-led and underpinned by a distinctly ‘statist’ vision of modernisation and state-building. But in the following decades, private actors became increasingly dominant players. Some of Israel’s largest security firms are technically private enterprises, though they are led and staffed by former members of Israel’s security apparatuses and work closely with Israeli armed forces and intelligence agencies. Some of the most dominant Israeli civilian firms in Africa (operating in the construction and extractives industries) maintain close ties with Israeli officials to advance the business, defence and political interests of elites in both Israel and Africa. Politicians and private actors often work hand in hand in the process of profit-making. The distinction between national interests and private ones can be unclear.
Over the years, some Israeli civil servants, diplomats and politicians protested against these processes of securitisation and privatisation and the lack of transparency surrounding Israel’s operations in Africa, claiming that they undermine Israel’s political objectives, the integrity of its state institutions and its human rights obligations. Israeli Africanist, human rights activist and former member of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) Naomi Chazan wrote in 2006 that behind Israel’s Africa strategy was always ‘an overt struggle between the diplomats and African aficionados on the one hand and the defense establishment and private interests on the other’, which ultimately ‘has been won by the latter’.15 The rise and current operations of Israeli private actors and security firms in Africa is further explored in the following chapters. But while these actors certainly gained the upper hand, it is also important to acknowledge that their domination has not been uncontested. Beneath the surface of Israel’s engagement with Africa always lay an internal Israeli debate about the Israeli state, its institutions and its priorities.
However, it was not only Israeli interests and initiatives that drove Israeli–African engagements or determined their trajectory. Students of Africa’s international relations will be familiar with debates around the agency and leverage of African actors within the international system and vis-à-vis Western or BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They will also be familiar with the argument – put forward by Christopher Clapham in the 1990s – that despite their economic and military marginality in the international sphere, African states are not passive victims of the whims of much richer external actors.16 Rather, they are often able to take advantage of the geostrategic needs of more powerful states, offering them assets such as political loyalty or military access to strategically important territories in return for resources and support which can subsequently be used to advance local African agendas.
This book naturally focuses on Israel more than it does on any specific African state. However, the following chapters also aim to show that just as much as the history of Israel in Africa is a story about Israeli leaders seeking influence in the continent in order to curb their regional adversaries, it is also a story about African leaders utilising the rivalries of the Middle East and North Africa in order to draw Israeli material and political support for their own local ends. As we shall see, what Israel and Israelis did in Africa was determined by the changing economic and political circumstances in specific African states just as much as it was determined by the conditions in Israel/Palestine. As strategies of governance transformed, as flows of resources shifted and as the tools for their accumulation and distribution changed in Africa, so did the ways in which different Israeli actors were seeking to establish their influence on the continent.
Structure, scope and sources
The first two chapters of the book deal with the history of Israel’s engagement with Africa. The evolution of bilateral relations in the longue durée is crucial for understanding their current trajectory and dynamics. Political narratives, like institutional knowledge and capacities (or lack thereof), do not emerge out of nowhere. It is impossible to understand Israel’s contemporary strategic interest and the rhetoric Israelis deploy on the continent without considering Israel’s relationships with African countries in the early post-independence period, from the late 1950s and until the mid-1960s. Israeli foreign minister at the time, Golda Meir, referred to this period as Israel’s ‘African adventure’.17 It was characterised by extensive Israeli civilian and military assistance to African countries as part of a geopolitical competition between Israel and the Arab world, underlined by Israel’s attempt to establish itself as a legitimate member of the international community in general and the postcolonial ‘Third World’ in particular. This period is the focus of the first chapter.
The second chapter explores the transformation of Israel’s engagement with African countries from the 1967 war, during which Israel occupied territories in Egypt, Jordan and Syria, through the Israeli–Arab war of 1973, during which most African countries severed ties with Israel, and until the early 2000s. This period saw a gradual process of militarisation, securitisation and privatisation of Israel’s presence and diplomacy in Africa – a process that was influenced by the political and economic realities in both Israel/Palestine and Africa. One of the most enduring legacies of this period is the deep involvement of the Israeli business sector and arms industry in Israel’s activities in Africa. As noted above, after the end of the Cold War Israeli geostrategic interest in Africa declined and Israel’s presence on the continent was dominated by private actors, many of whom were former security personnel or military men with close links to both Israeli and African financial and political elites.
Chapters 3 to 5 all deal with more recent developments in Israel’s relationship with African countries. The third chapter discusses Israel’s attempts to ‘return’ to Africa over the last decade and their causes. It examines the emergence of Israel’s new geopolitical interests in Africa: curbing Iranian influence and undermining Palestinian diplomatic efforts to pressure Israel to end the occupation. It also considers the new rhetoric surrounding Israel’s African ‘comeback’, which focuses on counterterrorism and insecurity to consolidate and justify alliances, and, as was the case in the 1960s, seeks to position Israel as a developmental model for African countries. Finally, the chapter deals with Israel’s attempts to promote the involvement of Israeli or Jewish private sector actors and civil society organisations in Africa in order to project its influence into the continent, and the role of Israel’s development aid in this context.
The fourth chapter highlights the extent to which Israel’s involvement in Africa has been shaped by the various interests of its local partners and explores the loose and diverse networks of actors that advance these interests. It does so by presenting four interlinked patterns of interactions that characterise Israel’s contemporary engagements with African countries and shape its image and leverage on the continent. The first relates to security: the deployment of Israeli defence expertise by African leaders for propping up their regimes. The second relates to Israel’s position as a link to Washington and therefore to American material and political support. The third relates to the growing influence of Africa’s Pentecostal churches and other evangelical movements on Israel’s bilateral relations and standing on the continent; and the fourth concerns the deployment of Israeli expertise and investments for infrastructure development and state-building.
The fifth chapter investigates Israel’s efforts to control the movement of people between Israel and Africa. It describes, first, the debates around who should and who should not be allowed to cross this frontier and, second, the ways in which such movements have been managed by Israeli state institutions. The recent arrival