Israeli-Ugandan relations

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Israeli-Ugandan relations
Location of Israel and Uganda
IsraelIsrael UgandaUganda
Israel Uganda

The Israeli-Uganda relations describe the interstate relationship between Israel and Uganda .

history

Colonial Uganda

In 1903, the British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain submitted the British Uganda Program to the Zionist Theodor Herzl to offer an area of ​​around 12,950 km² to persecuted Jews as a home on the Mau Plateau . This area is now part of Kenya . In 1905 three commissioners sent by the Zionist Congress examined the suitability of the offered territory. Two of them spoke out against the settlement plan, which is why Congress rejected the offer.

Postcolonial time

Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eschkol with Uganda's Chief of Staff Idi Amin and Uganda's Vice-President John Babiiha at Entebbe Airport (1966)

Even before Uganda's independence in 1962, Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion began to forge strategic partnerships with countries on the fringes of the Arab world in the 1950s . Part of the "Peripheral Doctrine" was also the equipment and training of the Ugandan armed forces as well as development aid through construction projects and in agriculture. In 1967, Israel sold arms worth $ 7 million to the African state. Under Milton Obote , the first president of Uganda, the African country saved Israel from 1969 in the fight against the Sudanese central government in Khartoum (by supporting the anyanya -Rebellen in the south of Sudan ). This was supposed to prevent Sudan from helping to retake the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Later, however, Obote stopped helping the Anya-Nya to improve relations with the neighboring country. In addition, like other African leaders, he is said to have condemned Israel's "aggression" against Egypt.

Uganda's military chief Idi Amin, on the other hand, was friends with the Israeli military attaché Baruch Bar-Lev and came from the border region with Sudan, so he welcomed the support for the Anya-Nya. In 1963, Amin was trained as a paratrooper by the Israel Defense Forces. Bar-Lev supported Amin in building a loyal battalion within the Ugandan armed forces, which was trained by Israelis. The unit consisted of paratroopers and had tanks and other armored vehicles. In January 1971, Amin used Obote's trip abroad to Singapore to take power with his troops. Israelis are said to have served Amin as an advisor. There are different statements here. After Obote was overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971, the new ruler once again supported the South Sudanese rebels and continued military cooperation with Israel.

After coming to power, Amin was the first to visit Israel, where he was received by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan . Israel trained and equipped much of the Ugandan army. In addition, Israel carried out several construction projects in Uganda. When Israel refused to equip Uganda with jet fighter jets for war with Tanzania , Amin became angry with his allies. In February 1972, Amin visited Libya (on board an Israeli plane) and met the dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi there . After the visit, Amin took an anti-Israeli position and became a great critic of Israel. All Israelis were expelled from Uganda, the PLO moved into the former embassy of Israel and on March 30, 1972 Uganda broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.

Operation Entebbe

Memorial plaque at Entebbe Airport

On June 27, 1976, Air France flight 139 from Tel Aviv via Athens to Paris was hijacked after taking off from Athens. The Airbus A300 with 258 passengers and 12 crew members was first diverted to Benghazi in Libya by a Palestinian - German terrorist group and then brought to Entebbe Airport , near Uganda's capital Kampala . Amin greeted the terrorists personally and local Ugandan authorities assisted the hostage takers. The Jewish hostages were separated from the other prisoners and taken to the old transit hall of the terminal. The others were released. In Israel a decision was made to free the hostages with a military operation. On the night of July 3rd to 4th, Israeli troops landed at the Ugandan airport as part of Operation Entebbe and forcibly freed the hostages. All seven terrorists, three hostages, an Israeli officer and 45 Ugandan soldiers died in the firefight, in which Ugandan soldiers were also involved. Dora Bloch , another Israeli hostage who was at the time in a hospital, was murdered on Amin's orders. In order to protect the departure of the freed hostages, the Israeli command destroyed eleven fighter jets that were standing on the tarmac. That corresponded to a quarter of the entire Ugandan air force. The evaluation of the Israeli operation under international law is controversial. While Western states tolerated Israel’s actions, UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim called the incident a “serious violation of the sovereignty of a member state.” An explicit condemnation of Israel did not find a majority in the United Nations Security Council .

In 1979 Idi Amin was overthrown.

After Idi Amin

In July 1994 Uganda resumed diplomatic relations with Israel. Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni is a loyal ally of the West and Israel too. He has already visited Israel several times. The Ugandan military is being trained and equipped again with Israeli help. In addition, Israel is deporting Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to Uganda under a third country agreement . Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , brother of the Israeli commander of the Yonatan Netanyahu special unit who was killed in the rescue operation , visited Uganda in 2016.

In 2017, a Chabad center was established in Kampala .

About 400 foreign Jews, mostly Israeli citizens, currently live in Uganda. Hundreds of Ugandan agricultural students are doing internships in Israel with the help of Israeli scholarships. In addition, many Ugandans travel to the holy places in Israel as pilgrims.

Judaism in Uganda

Flag of the Abayudaya community

The approximately 1500 Abayudaya today are a community from the Baganda ethnic group in Uganda who profess Judaism . They live mainly in Nabugoya near Mbale and Pallisa . They are descended from Africans who adopted the Jewish faith in 1919 . They were persecuted under Idi Amin (1971–1979), so that at the end of the dictatorship only 300 of the former 3000 were still alive. Since 2002 they have been partially recognized by the World Jewish Congregation. Recognition by the State of Israel is still pending.

diplomacy

The Israeli embassy in Kenya is responsible for Uganda . In October 2017, Israel opened a visa section in Kampala.

Uganda has no representation in Israel.

See also

Web links

Commons : Israeli-Ugandan Relations  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Heymann: The Uganda Controversy. Edited with an Introduction. In: The Minutes of the Zionist General Council. Vol. 1, Jerusalem 1970; Vol. 2, Jerusalem 1977.
  2. ^ Jewish Virtual Library: Zionist Congress: The Uganda Proposal , accessed June 29, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Helen Epstein : Idi Amin's Israeli Connection , The New Yorker, June 27, 2016 , accessed June 29, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b Henry Kyemba: A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin , S. 239, Ace Boks 1977, ISBN 978-0-44814-640-9 .
  5. ^ Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Idi Amin and Israel: First Love, then Hate , August 20, 2003 , accessed June 29, 2018.
  6. ↑ Kyemba p. 72.
  7. ↑ Mamadou Tall: Notes on the Civil and Political Strife in Uganda , pp. 41-44, A Journal of Opinion, Spring / Summer 1982, Volume 12, Issue 1/2, jstor 1166537, doi 10.2307 / 1166537.
  8. ↑ Kyemba p. 55.
  9. ↑ Jamison, M .: Idi Amin and Uganda: An Annotated Bibliography , pp. 155–156, Greenwood Press 1992.
  10. ↑ Kyemba p. 56.
  11. ^ Curtis, Michael; Gitelson, Susan Aurelia: Israel in the Third World , p. 312, Transaction Publishers 1976, ISBN 978-0-87855-603-8 .
  12. ↑ Hijacking of Air France Airbus… (PDF, 10 pages), p. 1, in: Keesing's Record of World Events. 1976 (English)
  13. ↑ Ulrich Beyerlin: Treatises: The Israeli liberation action of Entebbe in an international law perspective. (PDF file; 2.3 MB) at: zaoerv.de Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, 1977.
  14. ↑ Gerhard Hanloser : Federal Republican Left Radicalism and Israel - Antifascism and Revolutionism as Tragedy and Farce. In: Moshe Zuckermann (Ed.): Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Israel criticism. Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-872-8 , p. 194.
    Matthias Brosch (Hrsg.): Exclusive solidarity. Left anti-Semitism in Germany. From idealism to the anti-globalization movement. Metropol, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-938690-28-3 , p. 343ff.
    Timo Stein: Between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. Anti-Zionism in the German left. VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-18313-8 , p. 52.
  15. ↑ a b Donald Macintyre: Binyamin Netanyahu visits scene of brother's 1976 Entebbe airport death , July 4, 2016 , accessed June 29, 2018.
  16. ↑ 1976: Israelis rescue Entebbe hostages , BBC - On this day. July 4, 2008. Retrieved July 26, 2009. 
  17. ↑ Jonathan Kandell: Kurt Waldheim, Former UN Chief, Is Dead at 88. In: New York Times, June 15, 2007, accessed July 21, 2014 (English).
  18. ↑ a b Chabad.org: Uganda Becomes the 100th Country With Chabad , November 19, 2017 , accessed June 29, 2018.
  19. ↑ a b Ministry of the Interior of Uganda: ISRAEL OPENS VISA PROCESSING OFFICE IN KAMPALA , October 27, 2017 , accessed on June 29, 2018.
  20. ^ The Jewish Journal: Ugandan Gershom Sizomu ordained as first black sub-Saharan rabbi , May 21, 2008 , Memento accessed June 29, 2018.
  21. ^ Jewish Virtual Library: A History of the Abuyudaya Jews of Uganda , accessed June 29, 2018.
  22. ↑ Embassy of Israel in Kenya: Israel - Uganda Bilateral Relations , accessed June 29, 2018.
  23. ^ Uganda's Foreign Ministry , accessed June 29, 2018.