Democratic Palestine : 26 (ص 30)
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- Democratic Palestine : 26 (ص 30)
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government in Ghana. In 1983, the Israeli secret service,
Mossad, was reported to have worked with the US and British
intelligence services to promote mercenaries who should incite
ethnic divisions in Ghana. In 1984, Ghana’s government
criticized Togo and the Ivory Coast for harboring mercenaries.
According to the Washington Post, June 15, 1986, «... two
years ago, Israeli intelligence helped the CIA find an officer
who had been kidnapped by the Ethiopian government.»
(What the Post describes as ‘kidnapping’ was the Ethiopian
government’s legitimate effort to unravel a CIA plot against
the country.) In Nigeria, a country threatened with division
under the guise of religious differences, «Israel has also been
funding various movements, clandestine and otherwise, whose
main goals seem to be to run anti-Arab, anti-Islamic and anti-
communist crusades» (Guardian, July 24, 1987).
Despite its proclaimed democratic ideals, the Zionist state
finds it useful to aid repressive regimes. Faced with recurring
opposition, these regimes need outside help to stay in power
and are thus vulnerable to manipulation, while ‘Israel’ gains a
market for its military hardware and expertise. The presidents
of Zaire, Liberia and Cameroon are all three protected by
Israeli-trained elite units, while the Israeli ambassador to
Liberia is a former inspector general of police (International
Herald Tribune, July 28, 1987). Cameroon’s president, Paul
Biya, established a security department managed by Mossad
agents after the coup attempt of April 1984. In Malawi, which
never broke relations with ‘Israel’, the state youth movement
was eStablished by advisers from Gadna and Nahal (official
Israeli paramilitary formations). This youth movement «is
used as the tyrant’s private instrument for murdering political
opponents, terrorizing workers by flogging, and torturing
anyone who dares to doubt the divine wisdom of the nation’s
‘father’ Dr. Benda» (Israel Shahak, JIsrael’s Global
Role: Weapons for Repression).
Israeli help was pivotal in helping Liberia’s President Doe
survive a coup attempt.in November 1985, after he had nar-
rowly won in rigged elections. According to Liberians present
in Monrovia at the time, the Israeli embassy jammed the
communications system of the Patriotic Forces that attempted
the coup. Israeli forces wearing Liberian army uniform retook
the radio station captured by the coupists (Israeli Foreign Af-
fairs, March 1986). Soon afterwards, there was an Israeli-
Liberian agreement on cooperation against ‘international ter-
rorism’ (Zionist-imperialist double talk for liberation
movements). «Israeli experts have recently conducted seminars
in Monrovia on how to deal with terrorists» (Jerusalem Post,
June 18, 1986). While Doe’s main concern is simply staying in
power, the Zionist state scores points in the reactionary cam-
paign to blur the contradiction between imperialism and the
underdeveloped countries, by blaming all problems on so-
called terrorism.
EXPLOITING FAMINE
In its efforts to penetrate Black Africa, Zionist officials hold
out the carrot of development aid, advertising Israeli expertise
in agricultural, infrastructural, medical and industrial pro-
jects. The old Zionist myth of having made ‘the desert bloom’
in occupied Palestine has been used since the initial phase of
Israeli activities in Africa. In the eighties, it is marketed with
new vigour, capitalizing on the prevailing famine. In addition,
African states are led to believe that the Zionist lobby will help
procure more US aid. Though this lobby has few qualms about
promoting regimes with bad human rights records, like Zaire
30
and Liberia, these efforts have not yielded the desired fruit. So
far, the most prominent Israeli endeavor in relation to the
famine in Africa was using this as justification for the airlift of
Ethiopian Jews to ‘Israel’. The real aim of this operation was
not humanitarian aid but increasing the settler population in
occupied Palestine, despite the fact that as Black Africans, the
Ethiopian Jews encountered harsh racism and were forced to
prove their ‘Jewishness’ upon arrival in the ‘promised land’.
All in all, Israeli aid to Africa is much exaggerated. At a
symposium in Ghana on Israeli policies towards sub-Saharan
Africa, one speaker told the forum: «Israeli assistance has at
most represented 0.5% of all foreign aid to African nations,
while much of its largesse takes the form of military supplies
and training» (US Guardian, September 18, 1985). In addition
to the Israeli weapons industry, the beneficiaries of Israeli
projects are likely to be the CIA, the Mossad and the apartheid
regime’s intelligence service (BOSS) that specializes in
destabilization, terror raids and death squad-style executions
of ANC cadres in various African countries, having already
disposed of Mozambique’s revolutionary leader Samora
Machel.
Over the years, the US has sent millions of dollars in covert
aid to ‘Israel’ for operations in Africa, according to the
Washington Post, June 15, 1986, which also noted that the
knowledge gained in these efforts helped the Israelis in their
1976 raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda. The presence of
thousands of Israelis working on various aid projects and
economic enterprises in African countries provides an ideal
cover for the Mossad’s intelligence gathering and covert
operations.
PERPETUATING SUBORDINATION
‘Israel’ has extensive economic activities in Africa, often in
the absence of diplomatic relations. These have a more subtle
but just as subversive role in that they maintain African coun-
tries’ subordination to foreign capitalist interests. African
leaders, who are truly concerned about their countries’ in-
dependence and growth prospects, should evaluate the ques-
tion of relations to the Zionist state in terms of their own na-
tional interests.
Many of the Israeli economic activities in Africa are related
to luxury projects or the rulers’ personal wealth and prestige.
For example, in the Ivory Coast, some of the 300 Israeli ex-
perts working there are involved in managing the president’s
pineapple plantation. In the capital, Abidjan, Israeli contrac-
tors recently completed an enormous cathedral as well as
hotels. «The luxury hotels, the palaces for the rulers, the
monopolistic companies - all this was and is built in close
cooperation with Israel, first and foremost with the Histadrut-
owned corporations and secondarily with private companies»
(Shahak, ibid). Thus, the Israeli role reinforces the social
disparities in a country where 80% of property belongs to the
president, his family and a few select cronies.
A branch of the Histadrut construction company, Soleh
Boneh, which builds settlements in the occupied West Bank, is
also active in Cameroon. Thousands of Israelis, many of them
retired military officers, are working as experts in Cameroon in
the fields of agriculture, tourism and industry, as well as in the
military and security departments. The Israeli company, Yona
International, is erecting a new defense ministry building in
Monrovia, and has also secured a concession for felling and
marketing Liberian timber, using equipment brought in from
‘Israel’. - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 26
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