Liberation OrganizationIsrael, north-eastern Africa and the Middle East
Although while writing this book I spent many long days alone in libraries and in front of my laptop in the UK, Israel and Ethiopia, it draws on experiences and insights gained over close to a decade of working, studying, researching and interacting with a great number of people in these countries and others. Any mistakes, intellectual flaws and inaccuracies the following pages include are solely my own, but this book would never have been written if not for the guidance and support of many other individuals.
Among my mentors, colleagues and friends in Israel, I must mention Rami Gudovitch and Orit Marom, who first worked with me and guided me as an activist before and during the expulsion of the South Sudanese community from Israel in 2012, Inbal Ben-Yehuda and Yael Even-Or, who encouraged me to start writing on African and Israeli–African issues, in Hebrew, around that time as well, and Adi Drori-Avraham, who later helped remotely when I was researching Israel’s transfer schemes with Rwanda and Uganda. I am especially grateful for the multiple opportunities I had to learn from and work with the lawyers of the Refugee Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University – Anat Ben-Dor, Aelad Cahana and Yuval Livnat – before, during and after my time as a student in this institution.
Parts of this book draw on data gathered from 2015 as part of my work with the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) in Uganda. Olivia Bueno, Lucy Hovil, David Kigozi, Andie Lambe, Thijs Van-Laer and Tigranna Zakaryan all supported, in different ways and at different times, my research on Israel’s refugee transfer schemes, as well as on several other issues not immediately linked to this book. Lucy has repeatedly encouraged me to take on projects that I myself did not initially know were within my capacity, and I owe her many thanks for that. Her guidance and advice have been instrumental in shaping my academic and professional path in recent years. Tigranna helped with investigating Israel’s transfer schemes in 2017–18, as part of a joint monitoring project carried out by IRRI, the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants (Israel) and ASSAF (Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel).
The book also draws on my research on Israel’s involvement in Sudan’s first civil war, conducted while I was a student in the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford and supervised by Sebabatso Manoeli. This research drew me into writing about Israeli–African engagements in an academic environment despite my initial inclination to avoid this field, which, after several turbulent years of working with refugee rights organisations, felt too personal and controversial for further interrogation. The research was based on archival sources from Israel, the UK and Italy and interviews with former Mossad officials, and was published as an article in 2018 in Journal of Eastern African Studies (12 (3): 428–53). Although this book only deals with this topic briefly, this research informed my views and analysis on some of the wider issues discussed here.
Ken Barlow, then of Zed Books, first suggested writing a book on Israel’s relationships with African countries following a short text I published on the African Arguments blog (africanarguments.org). I thank him for instigating this project. Cherry Leonardi and Jacob Wiebel helped me navigate between this project and my other academic obligations as a student in Durham University’s Department of History. Stephanie Kitchen of the International African Institute guided me throughout the proposal and writing process and read the manuscript at several stages as I amended and revised it. François-Xavier Ada Affana, Arshmeena Durrani, Jacob Wiebel, Justin Willis and three anonymous reviewers also read earlier drafts of the manuscript or parts of it. I thank them all for their enlightening criticism and constructive comments.
Although this book does not explore their experiences and circumstances in great detail, I am indebted to the South Sudanese families who opened their lives and houses to me, first in Israel and, after leaving the country in 2012, in South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia. For reasons of privacy, I decided not to list their names here, but they have taught me a great deal about both Israel and Africa, and unknowingly set me off on a journey I could never have predicted. I am similarly grateful to the many other Sudanese and Eritreans who shared with me their life histories, experiences and dilemmas in recent years, as well those serving or former Israeli officials, not all of whom wished to be named and quoted here, who took the time to talk to me while I was working on this book. Unless mentioned otherwise, interviews referenced here were conducted in Hebrew. Quotes were translated by me.
My sisters, Moran, Inbar, Tehila and Naama, provided invaluable encouragement during the writing of this book, even when we were on different continents. They also often sent me materials from libraries in Israel when I was away. My parents, Adi and Rafi, taught me to ask questions, and then encouraged me to follow my curiosity even when it took me to unexpected places. This book is for them.
On 28 November 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu embarked on a one-day visit to Nairobi. This was – Netanyahu made sure to mention multiple times – his ‘third visit to Africa’ in less than two years. The formal justification for the hasty trip was attending Uhuru Kenyatta’s swearing in ceremony for a second term, after he won a contentious election boycotted by the opposition. The main aim, however, seemed to be publicity – perhaps an improvised substitute for the widely celebrated Africa–Israel summit that was planned to take place in Lomé a month earlier and was ‘postponed’ amidst a political crisis in Togo and rumours that it was being undermined by pressure from Arab countries and calls for boycott. Netanyahu’s formal announcement upon his departure revealed little – merely that it was part of Israel’s efforts to ‘deepen ties with Africa’.1
For security reasons, the Israeli prime minister did not participate in the main inauguration ceremony in Kasarani Stadium, where tens of thousands of Kenyans gathered, but he did attend the exclusive luncheon, where he also had the opportunity to give a short speech. Standing in front of several African leaders and hundreds of high-level government officials and diplomats, Netanyahu duly began by congratulating Kenyatta for his electoral success, but quickly moved on to singing the praises of Israel’s cooperation with African countries and his aspiration to enhance it. ‘We believe in Africa, we believe in Kenya’, he reassured the audience. ‘We love Africa.’ He also called on the present leaders to support Israel’s bid for observer status at the African Union (AU) and stressed the importance of cooperation in the face of terrorism. ‘There is a savage disease’, he passionately warned. ‘It rampages so many countries. Boko Haram, al-Shabaab … if we work together, we’ll defeat the barbarians!’2
That same evening, Yohanes was sitting in the small Eritrean restaurant in Kampala where he worked as a cook and a waiter.3 He was watching the news, and he was not impressed by Netanyahu’s statements. In fact, he was irritated – so much so that when I met him and some of his friends a few days later in that same restaurant, he brought up Netanyahu’s Kenyan speech without me even asking about it. ‘Here he says he loves Africa but there he treats
