Israel's ties with South Africa seem to be especially disturbing to many who follow Israel's international activities. Perhaps it is natural that Israel has been castigated more harshly for its arms sales to South Africa than for its sales to other countries: first, because there has been for a decade an arms embargo against South Africa; and second, because of the unsurpassed criminality of the white regime and the uses to which it puts the Israeli-supplied weapons.
It has also been said that those arms sales are understandable, given the striking similarities between the two countries in their day-to-day abuse and repression of their subject populations, South African blacks and Palestinians under Israeli rule; in their operating philosophies of apartheid and Zionism; and in their similar objective situations: "the only two Western nations to have established themselves in a predominantly nonwhite part of the world," as a South African Broadcasting Corporation editorial put it. That understanding, however, is somewhat superficial, and the focus on similarities of political behavior has somewhat obscured the view of the breadth and depth of the totality of Israeli-South African relations and their implications.
Israel's relations with South Africa are different than its interactions with any of its other arms clients. That Israel gave South Africa its nuclear weapons capability underscores the special nature of Tel Aviv's relations with the white minority government and begins to describe it a fulL-fledged, if covert, partnership based on the deter mination of both countries to continue as unrepentant pariahs and to help each other avoid the consequences of their behavior.
For South Africa's sake the partnership is designed to thwart international efforts against apartheid. What South Africa is expected to do for Israel is not as easily delineated; some Israeli critics, in fact, have argued that nothing South Africa can do for Israel is worth the price Israel has paid in international opprobrium.
Israel has become embroiled in an unequal relationship with ambiguous returns. The scope of exchange, though diverse, is meager. The benefit Israel derives from these interchanges is unclear; in any event it is in no way commensurate to that reaped by the other partner in the equation.
Beyond the guessing game (due to the strict secrecy maintained by Israel and to a lesser extent by South Africa) into which discussions of Israeli-South African links frequently deteriorate, it is certain that something of value is being received in Israel. To Naomi Chazan, the Israeli critic whose words appear above, that value received might be worthless, even negative, as she is holding it up to a standard she describes as "the nature and development of an Israeli ethos" out of what she views as Israel's contradictions.
Chazan's image of a liberal, beneficent state of Israel is also the dominant one in the minds of many North Americans. However, during its not quite 40 years, the liberal, or socially progressive state of Israel has existed mostly in the blandishments of fund-raisers and the flatterings of the U.S. media, where it has existed at all.
The Israeli leadership, from the start, were hardened people, who took a hard lesson from the Holocaust and the centuries of Jewish travail that preceded it. The current leadership, where it differs from the founders, almost all of whom have come through the higher ranks of the Israeli military, have not softened.
Their understanding of modern Jewish history , with its themes of the Holocaust and powerlessness, reinforced by long professional military training, causes these elites to be impressed by visible manifestations of power and strength at the same time as they are inclined to be cynical toward false standards of international conduct. Whatever the large and small incentives to be found in links with South Africa, Israel's leaders have pursued them avidly.
2.2) South Africa - An Early Zionist Outpost.
Fifty years before the Holocaust, utterly determined Zionists began going to South Africa to enlist support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. They found support in the flourishing Jewish community and access to leading figures in the British empire.
Small numbers of Jews had arrived in South Africa in the beginning of the nineteenth century - when non-Christians were first allowed to settle in the Cape Colony. In the wake of pogroms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a great migration from Eastern Europe - mainly Lithuania - brought the major part of the present day Jewish community to South Africa. A small number of the new immigrants were socialists who considered the idea of a Jewish national home in Palestine a backward notion; the large majority of South African Jews were rapidly won over to Zionism decades before their co-religionists in the U.S. or Europe.
Early in this century South African Jews began to lobby leaders of the South African government to "persuade them to intercede on behalf of Zionism with the British Government which controlled the fate of Palestine." At the request of Theodore Herzl, considered the founder of Zionism, the South Africans approached Cecil Rhodes, the Cape Colony premier who took personal responsibility for extending Britain's grasp on Africa, and other prominent figures. A 1916 approach to General Jan Smuts, who would later lead the South African government, bore spectacular fruit. As a member of the British War Cabinet, Smuts supported the drafting of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, a statement of Britain's commitment to a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Through the years, though British commitment to the declaration wavered, Smuts' support was constant.
He consistently maintained that the strategic safety of Britain's main line of imperial communication through the Suez Canal would be best assured if there were a British-sponsored Jewish homeland adjacent to it...When the Balfour Declaration was being drafted, his immediate consideration was to find "a formula to which the Great Powers would agree," for staking Britain's claim "to the main role in the future of post-war Palestine in cooperation with the Jews.
In London Smuts befriended Chaim Weizmann, who would become Israel's first president. In 1943, Weizmann wrote a memo to Smuts outlining a plan to develop industry and agriculture in Africa and the Middle East capable of competing with U.S. industry. The scheme was "of great Importance," Weizmann stressed, "and it is doubtful whether there exists any other scheme of equal importance for the future of the empire"
Although the British Empire through which Weizmann and Smuts foresaw the realization of their peoples' futures was about to collapse, their contacts, and Smuts' continuing attachment to Zionism - as premier, the South African leader would remain a stalwart supporter of the Zionist movement, often acting as a fundraiser for Zionist organizations - generated significant momentum for the drive for Jewish statehood.
Many other South African leaders were attracted to the Zionist cause. In 1962, the cabinet of the union of South Africa passed a resolution pledging support in international forums for "a National Home for the Jewish People in Palestine - an object which it regards as an important contribution to peace and civilization."
In 1934, South African Jews formed Africa-Israel Investments to buy land in Palestine. Now owned by Israel's Bank Leumi, Africa-Israel Investments owns choice residential and industrial real estate. South Africans remain as minority shareholders and company debentures are sold in South Africa. Bank Leumi itself has about 1,000 South African stockholders At the height of the civil turmoil in 1986, the Africa-Israel Company was negotiating a $50 million contract with the white South African government and a West German firm to build 1,700 units of housing for blacks near Cape town "in order to calm hostilities there".
In the late 1940s, Prime Minister, Smuts permitted South African Jews to send money and supplies to the Jewish forces in Palestine, as well as permitting a great number of enthusiastic South African volunteers to join the fight to establish the state of Israel. South African Jews have long been the highest contributors to Zionist causes and Israel on a per capita basis.
In May 1948, Prime Minister Smuts extended de facto recognition to the new state.
2.3) The Founding of the State: Jews Should Go "Thither"
In 1948, the end of the British mandate - and the concurrent establishment of the state of Israel - coincided with the accession of a new set of leaders in South Africa. These were the Afrikaans-speaking Nationalists who had supported the Nazis in the recent war and whose defeat of the Smuts government was greatly worrying to South African Jews. However, the Nationalist Premier, Daniel Malan, publicly assured Jews that there would be no discrimination against them.
Malan allowed the money and supplies sent by South African Jews to Israel to continue and even turned a blind eye to the departure of Jewish volunteers.
He extended de jure recognition to Israel in 1949, and in 1953 became the first foreign head of state to visit Israel.
There was a cynical side to all this good will, which would haunt the South African Jewish community in following years. The centerpiece of the Afrikaner Nationalists' campaign platform was apartheid, and they moved quickly to institutionalize the racial segregation that had always been a feature of South African life. According to James Adams, Malan's cordiality to the Jewish community was "a shrewd move." Not only did the Nationalists realize that persecution of the Jews would have sparked both international repercussions and a flight of capital from South Africa, writes Adams, but their granting of concessions: bought off the Jewish hierarchy who were now faced with a very delicate issue of divided loyalty...the Jews were well aware that a vociferous campaign against apartheid might well result in the Malan government or its successors abandoning previous greements...[and] possibly introducing discrimination in some form against the Jewish population.
However, the Transvaal branch of the Nationalist Party continued for several years to bar Jews from membership. And although (spurred by their dislike for the British) Afrikaners had begun in the late 1940s to identify with the establishment of a Jewish state, as the Afrikaner press expressed it, their well-wishing was the kind of support so often given to Zionists by anti-Semites. At a time when the displaced person camps In Europe were flooded with homeless Jews, The Transvaaler editorialized that it "granted the Jew his ideals in Palestine but, at the same time, desire[d] an increasing exodus of Jews thither and not their increase here.
Gen. Yigal Allon, who would later be Israel's Foreign Minister, got a warm reception from South Africa's Defense Minister F. C. Erasmus in May 1956. He warned the South Africans of the Egyptian leader Col. Nasser and said, "it would not be many years before South Africa would have to ask permission to cross the Red Sea. This did not grab the Afrikaner imagination, as South Africa was developing trade ties with Arab nations and did not have a great deal of use for Israel in the 1950s. South Africa did not reciprocate the Israeli establishment of a consulate (in 1949) until 1971, ten years after it was freed out of the Commonwealth of Nations and eight years after the first serious round of UN sanctions against it.
Although Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharrett visited in 1951 and war hero (later Defense Minister) Moshe Dayan in 1957, just as South Africa was being internationally ostracized because of its apartheid system, Israel's interest in closer ties had diminished as it began to successfully court the emerging nations of Africa with creative development assistance programs
The approach to Africa reflected Israel's decision in the late 1950s to leapfrog over Its immediate - hostile - neighbors in its search for diplomatic and economic contacts, Africa, where many nations were just receiving independence, was a natural choice. A friendship cultivated by Israeli Premier Ben Gurion with Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's founding leader, facilitated the approach During the 1960s, Israel signed cooperation agreements with 20 African nations. By 1970, 2,483 Israeli experts had completed assignments in Africa in fields ranging from rural development to banking and construction; and 6,623 African trainees had come to Israel for training.
Israel and its assistance programs were weII received in Africa. Africans identified with Israel as a fellow graduate from British colonialism, and Israel's shirt-sleeve instructors were welcome for their egalitarianism. The Israelis brought none of the political baggage that the former colonizers inevitably carried. Then too, many African leaders admired the rapid progress Israel had made in the social and technological integration of new immigrants, as well as its agricultural achievements. Along with the civilian expertise, military assistance was frequently given to friendly African governments.
Ironically, one of the major fields of emphasis was trade unionism Israel's labor federation, Histadrut, played a leading role in training African unionists and members of cooperatives. Evidence is now beginning to mount which indicates that during its halcyon African days, Israel served as a conduit for money from the CIA.
During its Africa phase Israel dipped deep into South Africa's reserve of goodwill. A joint communique criticizing apartheid was issued in 1961 by Ben Gurion and the president of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). That same year Israel voted to censure remarks made at the UN by South Africa's foreign minister. It aligned itself against the West on a General Assembly vote for sanctions that almost passed. These actions deeply offended the white regime - and alarmed the South African Jewish community which came under Afrikaner pressure to condemn the Israeli actions. (The ensuing backlash to this pressure was of utmost significance, as will be discussed below.)
Even before Israel committed a still graver provocation, siding with African states on a 1962 UN vote to impose sanctions on South Africa - Israel, then led by Golda Meir, was hoping to win African support for a UN resolution calling for direct Arab-Israeli negotiations - the South African Treasury had refused to approve a routine transfer of Jewish donations to Israel. When Jewish officials appealed the denial, the minister of finance said the currency export privilege had been withdrawn because Israel had "slapped South Africa in the face and ganged up with her enemies."
Leaders of Israel's Labor government argued that reasons of state, specifically the necessity of pleasing Israel's African allies, took precedence over the exigencies of the South African Jewish community. In 1963, Israel lowered the level of its diplomatic mission in South Africa, and in 1966 it voted at the UN to revoke South Africa's mandate over Namibia, the colony formerly known as Southwest Africa.
2.4) Israel and South Africa Draw Together.
Although Israel would continue to step on Pretoria's toes in its pursuit of African governments - a 1971 Israeli attempt to make a $2,000 contribution to the Organization of African Unity's (OAU) Liberation Committee triggered another South African cutoff of Jewish funds - Israel's 1967 war delivered a telling blow to its relationships with African nations. Coming at a time of strengthened African-Arab links, the resulting Israeli occupation of Arab and African territory (i.e. Egypt's Sinai) brought about the beginning of a shift in African perceptions: Israel was no longer viewed as an embattled underdog, but a powerful aggressor.
Israel's 1967 war had the opposite effect on South Africa, eliciting its admiration. A team of South African military observers is reported to have flown to Israel "to study tactics and the use of weapons." Israel's war (which resulted in the occupation of substantial areas of Jordan and Egypt) would become one of two battles taught in South Africa's "maneuver schools." In October 1967, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Air Force, General Mordechai Hod, lectured the South African military on the conduct of the war.
The drawing away from Israel of independent African states provided South Africa with a political opportunity. Almost totally bereft of friends itself by the late 1960s, South Africa demonstrated its interest in closer ties by coming quickly to Israel's aid. Currency-hoarding Pretoria permitted South African Jews to transfer immediately an extra $20.5 million to Israel. The white government itself sent replacement weapons and aircraft. After the French embargoed arms shipments to Israel, South Africa, which had also received a great part of its arsenal from France, "ran an emergency service, supplying Israel with just about all the components it wanted.
These gestures generated a response in Israel. In 1968, Israeli politicos formed the Israel-South Africa Friendship League. Menachem Begin was president of this organization when he became prime minister of Israel in 1977. Simcha Erlich headed the League during the time he served as Israel's finance minister. In 1969, former Prime Minister Ben Gurion paid a high profile visit to South Africa and met there with Prime Minister John Vorster. Accompanying Ben Gurion was Chaim Herzog, currently the president of Israel. In 1972, South Africa opened a Consulate General in Israel
After the June 1967 war - four years after the UN's first embargo on arms sales to South Africa - Israel began to sell weapons to the white minority government. Israel was said to have offered South Africa both its Arava short-take-off-and landing aircraft (used by other customers for counter insurgency warfare, see chapter on Guatemala) and plans for the Mirage III aircraft, stolen by Mossad in Switzerland. James Adams in The Unnatural Alliance noted reports that the Arava had been tried in Namibia.
Israel was also said to have offered the apartheid regime weapons captured during the 1967 fighting. By 1971, South Africa was manufacturing the Uzi submachine gun under a license arranged through Belgium. In 1971, it was reported that a Greek freighter had brought high explosives from Eilat to Durban.
During this period Israel's relations with independent African nations continued to deteriorate. Finally, the October 1973 war hastened a mass rupture of diplomatic relations. Between September and November 1973, 22 African governments severed ties with Israel, leaving only 4 independent African nations with diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. (All four, Swaziland, Lesotho, Malawi, and Mauritius, also have relations with South Africa.)
During the 1973 war, South Africa again came to Israel's aid. Defense Minister (later State President) P.W. Botha said that practical ways would be found to manifest South Africa's moral support for Israel. It was reported that the South Africans' sympathy extended to Mirage jet fighters and that these were piloted by South Africans eager for combat experience. The Egyptians claimed that they had shot down a South African Mirage.
The war also drew 1,500 Jewish volunteers from the white-run state. Also, the Pretoria government permitted South African Jews to send over $30 million to Israel.
Israel responded with the appointment of an ambassador to Pretoria in June 1974 - a move reciprocated by South Africa the following year.
Starting shortly before Israel went to war in the fall of 1973, the frequency of visits back and forth between Israel and South Africa increased in status, as well as in number. Yitzhak Rabin, between stints as Israel's ambassador to the U.S. and prime minister, arrived on a fundraising mission in 1973; and Moshe Dayan was hosted by the South Africa Foundation in 1974. Other Israeli visitors to South Africa in 1973 and 1974 included the former Israeli ambassador to Denmark, Israel's Deputy Minister for communications, and Israel's Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who met President J.J. Fouche, Defense Minister Botha and other military brass.
South Africans traveling to Israel included the head of BOSS (the since disbanded Bureau of State Security), Hendrik van der Bergh, and the Mayor of Johannesburg and a team of 15 housing officials led by the director of the building branch of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Far from being irrelevant, or, in another sense, comparable to counting dogs frequenting a favorite fire hydrant, this matter of visits for "pariah" countries is immensely important. Both the Israeli and the South African state-run media go on at great length about foreign visitors - especially ranking officials - or trips abroad by their own dignitaries, whose welcomes are recounted in great detail. This we-are-not-alone syndrome also explains the frequent and almost always baseless predictions that this or that African nation is about to renew diplomatic ties with Israel. That the Israeli visits were more "diplomatic" is explained by the presence of the South African Jewish community and the greater degree of South African isolation.
That the South African visits to Israel during this period appear to have been more "business-oriented" is readily explained by Israel's slightly stronger international standing and its concomitant lack of interest in parading South African political figures before its populace. Recalling Israel's sea change, South Africa's first ambassador to Israel wrote:
The latent support for South Africa, which we knew existed but which had been difficult to quantify came to the surface. Why, it was asked, had Israel been supporting resolutions in the United Nations which were hurtful to South Africa, when South Africa now stood revealed as one of the few countries to stand up and be counted when Israel was in peril?
A number of circumstances propelled the bonding process. The lessons of Israel's recent war took on new significance for South Africa as Portugal was forced to give up its African colonies and South Africa worried about a military threat from the newly independent Mozambique and Angola. Moreover, the Nonaligned Movement, then coming into its own as a force of the developing world, was bringing increasing pressure to bear on South Africa.
Because of its intransigent refusal to negotiate a withdrawal from the territories it had occupied since 1967 and the brutality of its occupation of them, Israel was also the object of intense international criticism. In November 1975, the United Nations General assembly passed Resolution 3379 declaring Zionism a form of "racism and racial discrimination." The resolution also condemned "the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism." Also in 1974 the UN began steps that would result in the conferral of observer status on the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In late 1974, Israel's resistance to the U.S. peacemaking efforts led the Ford Administration to declare an aid moratorium to all countries in the Middle East while Washington "reassessed" its policy in the region. The anxiety this caused Tel Aviv was considerable. (A letter signed by 76 Senators that urged continued U.S. support for Israel "was a blunt reminder to the President...[that] should cause [him] to think twice before making any rash move on the Middle Eastern scene," reflected the level of Israel's consternation at the time).
A scandal breaking in 1975 over CIA "dirty tricks" in Angola led Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to suggest to Israel that it help South Africa with its invasion of Angola. Israel complied with Kissinger's request by sending counter insurgency weapons and instructors. In July 1975, a former Israeli intelligence chief said that senior Israeli military officers were giving South African troops counter-insurgency training. The Economist said Israel had stopped short of sending the troops which Kissinger had wanted, but that the Israelis took his suggestion as a green light for developing a closer relationship with South Africa.
2.5) Conspiracy Opens Up a Whole New Phase of Relations.
In June 1975, Connie Mulder-his star was then rising and, as heir apparent to the prime minister, he had been made Information and Interior Minister-and Information Secretary Eschel Rhoodie made a secret trip to Israel. Their meetings with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Defense Minister Shimon Peres, and six other members of the Israeli cabinet was arranged by Oscar Hurwitz, a Jewish South African and an instrumental figure in the plot that would become known as the "Muldergate" scandal. Les de Villiers, the South African Deputy Information Minister who also attended that meeting, asked the Israelis to recommend a "lobbyist."
The name of New York public relations man Sydney Baron was mentioned and the South Africans retained him. Baron, who had past connections to New York political boss Carmine de Sapio, would funnel $200,000 of South African money into the 1976 U.S. senatorial race of Republican S.I. Hayakawa in a successful attempt to defeat South Africa's nemesis, California Senator John Tunney, a Democrat. In 1978, Baron would repeat the process with a $250,000 South African donation to Iowa Republican Roger Jepson in his successful challenge to Democratic Senator Dick Clark (the author of the Clark Amendment, forbidding CIA involvement in Angola).
These deals were only a fraction of the influence -buying of the secret "information project" set up by the South Africans in the early 1970s. Eschel Rhoodie and Connie Mulder spent at least $100 million in at least half a dozen countries-buying newspapers, setting up front organizations, running junkets for politicians or buying them outright - all in a fruitless attempt to improve South Africa's image. The Mulder gang was ultimately charged with flagrant "financial irregularities" and forced out of office in a 1978 power play that won P.W. Botha the right to succeed the retiring Premier John Vorster.
In the 1975 meetings in Israel, the Labor government under Yitzhak Rabin agreed to play a consultative role in the Mulder-Rhoodie disinformation offensive. (They also apparently agreed to let the South Africans operate Project David in Israel, which funded propaganda and brought South African sports teams to Israel.) They recruited Arnon Milchan, an Israeli arms dealer he would also be used to funnel weapons to South Africa-to launder the funds. Milchan has admitted that he agreed to play this role and said that on one occasion he put 66,000 pounds sterling into a Swiss bank; the money was then withdrawn and used to purchase the London-based magazine West Africa, later sold.
In March 1976, then Defense Minister Shimon Peres made a secret visit to South Africa and invited the South African prime minister to visit Israel. John Vorster arrived in Israel the following month, eager for his first official visit to a democratic state.
The visit by John Vorster was certain to be provocative, but the isolated Israelis must have felt they had very little to lose, and, in South Africa, with its gold and minerals and its complement of Jewish owned transnational corporations, they must have seen a possible substitute for the U.S.