Israel to open a consular office in Lagos.21 When the British similarly refused to let Israel send a consul to Dar es Salaam, Israel went ahead and sent a delegate without informing the British about the political nature of his mission. The British later threatened to deport him.22 Similar threats were made in Kenya, after the Israeli representative Asher Naim – who also travelled to Kenya after the British objected to the appointment of an Israeli consul general – met Jomo Kenyatta while the latter was under house arrest.23
As far as establishing diplomatic ties was concerned, the Israeli strategy proved successful. The growth in Israeli presence on the continent during the years of African independence was extraordinary, especially given the fact that Israel was a small, young country, whose ties in Africa did not build on any existing diplomatic networks from the colonial period. By 1963, Israel had 22 embassies in Africa, and by the late 1960s, it had established ties with 33 countries (34 if South Africa is included).24 While some countries clearly had greater geostrategic importance than others, Israel was still unconstrained by an alliance with either side of the Cold War in the early 1960s. It tried to reach out to as many African countries as possible. The only two countries that achieved independence at the time south of the Sahara and did not establish ties with Israel were Mauritania and Somalia.
Official visits of high-level Israeli politicians to Africa and African leaders to Israel became common. Golda Meir first travelled to Africa in 1958, visiting Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, and returned to the continent four more times by 1964, for extensive visits. Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi travelled to West Africa in 1962 and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1966.25 African heads of states and government officials also visited Israel frequently, where they were regularly presented with the country’s development achievements. Africa quickly occupied an important place in Israel’s international strategy. Israel succeeded in showing the world – and primarily its Arab neighbours – that it was not ostracised or isolated but rather recognised and warmly welcomed by a considerable number of young post-colonial nations. Despite its size, limited economic capacity and young age, in Africa Israel became well-known for its military support and technical assistance programmes.
Seeking allies in the Horn
Across Africa, Israeli initiatives sought to consolidate political alliances and curb Arab influence. But while in West Africa Israeli interests were primarily diplomatic, the dynamics of East Africa and the Horn of Africa were viewed as part of the Middle Eastern conflict and Israeli military and intelligence objectives in these regions played an important role. The war of 1948, after all, did not end with peace but rather with a series of armistice agreements, and Israeli leaders were preparing for what some of them viewed as an inevitable ‘second round’. To counter its rivals and as part of a strategy that came to be known as the ‘periphery doctrine’ or the ‘alliance of the periphery’, Israel attempted to establish ties with the countries that surrounded its hostile Arab neighbours – to encircle its enemies with a ring of powerful, non-Arab, friends.26 Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia all fell squarely within the scope of this strategy and became Israel’s satellite allies to its east, north and south. The Mossad was the main institution in charge of cultivating these ‘periphery’ alliances and was therefore deeply involved in Israel’s diplomacy in East Africa.
In the early years of Israeli engagement with Africa, some saw a potential fully-fledged military ally in Ethiopia. It was not only located in a strategic spot, but also possessed one of the largest militaries in Africa and sought to contain Arab influence in the region. The fact that most of the waters of the Nile – Egypt’s economic lifeblood – flow from the Ethiopian highlands only increased the Israeli urge to gain a foothold in the country. When in 1963, Shimon Peres, then deputy minister of defence, together with Yitzhak Rabin, then deputy chief of staff, visited Ethiopia, they met with Emperor Haile Selassie, Prime Minister (and acting foreign minister) Aklilu Habta-Wold and military commanders, and were taken by their hosts on a small private tour to inspect the Blue Nile. ‘It is our goal to reach an alliance with Ethiopia – cultural, economic, and military. We must spare no effort and resources in working toward this aim’, Peres wrote following the visit.27
In fact, by 1963 there were already more than 30 Israeli experts working in Ethiopia, including university lecturers, doctors and engineers, as well as policemen who were advising and training the national police forces.28 The latter were also armed with Israeli Uzi submachine guns.29 A similar number of Israelis were attached as advisors to the Ethiopian army, working with each of its four divisions, the high command, the intelligence, the navy and the air force. As a memorandum prepared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1963 explained, military assistance had to ‘be distributed widely and to the “depth” of the apparatus with a maximal emphasis on our role in the training of the senior command personnel’.30 Israeli intelligence agencies were working closely with their Ethiopian counterparts, training them, and using Ethiopia as a base for operations in other countries.31 The Israeli community in Ethiopia at the time already numbered more than 400 people.32
While much of Israel’s military assistance in the early 1960s was focused on the Ogaden region in southern Ethiopia, where the imperial government was facing a Somali nationalist rebellion, Middle East politics were most influential along the coasts of the Red Sea, in the context of the struggle over Eritrea. In 1950, the UN General Assembly – under US pressure – adopted a resolution federating Eritrea, which was previously an Italian colony, with Ethiopia. By 1960, this led to the emergence of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), a predominantly Muslim armed group that was first formed by Eritrean exiles in Cairo and, inspired by Nasser’s pan-Arab ideologies of the time, opposed Haile Selassie’s hegemonic aspirations in the region.33 Arab countries, primarily Syria, supported the ELF, while Israel viewed the possibility of an independent Eritrean state as a threat to its access to the Red Sea and backed Ethiopia, providing training to the elite units that fought the rebels.34
Ethiopia’s strategic importance also rendered Uganda, Tanganyika (later Tanzania) and Kenya a priority, though the first two were of greater concern for Israel because of their susceptibility to Arab and Soviet influence. Uganda also assumed strategic importance because of the White Nile, which flows through the country on its way to Sudan and Egypt. Following Uganda’s independence, President Milton Obote turned to Israel for military training and arms. Israelis were deeply involved in training the Ugandan army, and some Ugandans travelled to Israel for training as well. By 1967, it was estimated that Uganda purchased more than $12 million worth of arms from Israel, including a number of light planes, transport aircrafts and a dozen tanks, all second-hand.35 Meanwhile, in Tanzania, Israel trained hundreds of military officers, police maritime forces as well as a unit of ‘police paratroopers’ – a short-lived vanity project that apparently ended once it became evident that Tanzania did not possess any suitable planes to parachute the trained policemen.36
Israel as a developmental model
In Israel, as in most African states, the first decades of independence were characterised by an intensive process of state formation and state-led development. Being more than a decade older than most African countries, Israel positioned itself as a model: a young country that made the desert bloom, forged capable state institutions, and succeeded, within a short period of time, in creating a sense of national unity among its diverse population. The image of Zionist nation- and state-building that Israel projected in its early years had a lustre that spoke directly to African visions and aspirations of modernisation at the time. Drawing comparisons between the Jewish and young African states quickly became a central feature in Israeli–African engagements, with leaders highlighting Jewish and African histories of oppression and liberation and the supposedly similar challenges their countries faced. Both Israel and Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere wrote, faced ‘two major tasks: building the nation and changing the face of the land, physically and economically’.37
A distinct characteristic of the Zionist state formation
