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Tuesday, March 8
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Lecture: Abramovitz, Supporting Sustainable Development in Israel and Africa (Berkeley, March 8, 2016)
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Tag Archives: Africa
New Article: Orkaby, The 1964 Israeli Airlift to Yemen and the Expansion of Weapons
Orkaby, Asher. “The 1964 Israeli Airlift to Yemen and the Expansion of Weapons Diplomacy.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 26.4 (2015): 659-77.
URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2015.1096691
Abstract
Based on oral history accounts of surviving members of Israel’s first International Squadron and organisers of the military airlift to Yemen in 1964, this analysis examines the origins of the squadron, its mission to Yemen, and its impact on Israeli foreign policy in Africa. The founding of the International Squadron in 1963 incorporated the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser into the Israeli air force and gave the military and Foreign Ministry the country’s first long-distance transport capability. The initial successful military airlift to Yemen in May 1964 opened the possibility for additional clandestine military aid missions to sub-Saharan Africa and Kurdistan and marked the beginning of an era of Israeli “weapons diplomacy.” The Squadron’s incorporation of more advanced transport planes during the 1970s presented the Foreign Ministry with the capability of reaching Latin America and Asia, an essential factor in Israel’s expanding global arms market and later humanitarian missions.
New Article: Muaelm, Jewish Community and Israeli Foreign Policy toward South Africa under the Apartheid Regime
Mualem, Itzhak. “The Jewish Community and Israeli Foreign Policy toward South Africa under the Apartheid Regime – 1961-1967.” Jewish Journal of Sociology 57.1-2 (2015).
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5750/jjsoc.v57i1/2.94
Abstract
The discussion of a diaspora’s influence of a sovereign state’s foreign policy provides a new perspective on the nature of international relations. Foreign policy in this context is analyzed in this paper through various theoretical approaches. First, the Realistic approach, examining inter-state relations between Israel and South Africa and the black continent states; The second approach, the Neoliberal approach, examining the processes of cooperation in social and economic areas; The third approach, the State-Diaspora model, examining the impact of the Jewish context on relations between Israel and South Africa. The diaspora phenomenon is universal. However, this case is unique due to the influence of the Jewish Diaspora over Israel’s foreign policy. This unique discussion leads to the existence of a complex Israeli-Jewish foreign policy.
New Article: Heimann, France, Israel and the Former French Colonies in Africa, 1958–62
Heimann, Gadi. “A Case of Diplomatic Symbiosis: France, Israel and the Former French Colonies in Africa, 1958–62.” Journal of Contemporary History (early view; online first).
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009415596059
Abstract
This article deals with the interesting three-way relationship between Israel, France, and the former French colonies in Africa located south of the Sahara during the years 1958–62. The main argument of the paper is that in French Africa Israel and France maintained a sort of symbiosis: by seeking its own self-interest, each side fulfilled a vital function for the other. France showed great patience with Israel’s attempts to penetrate its former colonies, more so than vis-a-vis any other countries. From Israel’s standpoint this was a great opportunity, since it granted Israel a kind of exclusivity over supplementing French aid in its former colonies: France removed possible competition and made the assistance that Israel could offer even more attractive to the Africans. For its part, Israel saw itself as being required, almost without exception, to obtain France’s consent of undertakings that it initiated in the African states. Therefore, if it was decreed that the new states in Africa were to receive assistance from other countries, then Israel was a convenient default, since it, more than any other country, showed sensitivity to the French interests there.
New Article: Bar-Yosef, Heart of Darkness in Israeli Culture
Bar-Yosef, Eitan. “‘The Horror’ in Hebrew. Heart of Darkness in Israeli Culture.” Interventions (early view; online first).
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2015.1079499
Abstract
Tracing the intricate presence of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in Israeli culture, this essay explores how elements of the novella (the journey to Africa, the iconic Kurtz, and the nature of ‘darkness’) have been repeatedly evoked, both implicitly and explicitly, in various cultural contexts. Focusing on three major episodes – the emergence of political Zionism in the 1890s; young Israel’s intensive involvement in Black Africa in the 1960s; and the pessimism that engulfed Israeli society after the 1973 war – the essay suggests that the novella’s relevance to Israeli culture is rooted in the work’s fluid allegorical mode, which parallels tensions and contradictions that have characterized the Zionist project from its inception. This mirroring reached a climax in the journalistic work of Adam Baruch, who offered a highly stylized postcolonial reworking of Heart of Darkness in his influential account of a journey undertaken to find a disgraced Israeli general, self-exiled in Africa. The search for the Israeli ‘Kurtz’ thus continues to function as a powerful emblem of Israel’s colonial violence.
New Book: Yacobi, Israel and Africa
Yacobi, Haim. Israel and Africa. A Genealogy of Moral Geography, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Geography. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Through a genealogical investigation of the relationships between Israel and Africa, this book sheds light on the processes of nationalism, development and modernization, exploring Africa’s role as an instrument in the constant re-shaping of Zionism. Through looking at “Israel in Africa” as well as “Africa in Israel”, it provides insightful analysis on the demarcation of Israel’s ethnic boundaries and identity formation as well as proposing the different practices, from architectural influences to the arms trade, that have formed the geopolitical concept of “Africa”. It is through these practices that Israel reproduces its internal racial and ethnic boundaries and spaces, contributing to its geographical imagination as detached not solely from the Middle East but also from its African connections.
This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East and Jewish Studies, as well as Post-colonial Studies, Geography and Architectural History.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Family Album
Part One: Israel in Africa
Chapter 1: Africa’s Decade
Chapter 2: The Architecture of Foreign Policy
Part Two: Africa in Israel
Chapter 3: Consuming, Reading, Imagining
Chapter 4: North Africa in Israel
Chapter 5: The Racialization of Space
Part Three: Israel in Africa II
Chapter 6: Back to Africa
Conclusion
Haim Yacobi is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
New Article: Alroey, The Idea of a Jewish State in Western Africa, 1907-1913
Alroey, Gur. “Angolan Zion. The Jewish Territorial Organization and the idea of a Jewish state in Western Africa, 1907–1913.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 14.2 (2015): 179-98.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1006009
Abstract
This article traces the attempts in 1907–1913 by the Jewish Territorial Organization to set up an autonomous Jewish entity in West Africa. The Territorialists laid down three criteria for the choice of a territory: (1) A tract of land that must be large enough in size to allow for the absorption of mass Jewish migration. (2) A fertile territory that could provide a livelihood for the Jews who went there. (3) A sparsely populated territory so that no ethnic tensions would be created between the Jews settling there and the local residents. One likely territory was Angola, which at the beginning of the twentieth century was under the protection of the Portuguese government. The plan failed. However, the importance of the “Angola Plan” was to highlight the position of the Territorialists towards Africa in general and Angola in particular.
New Book: Rovner, In the Shadow of Zion
Rovner, Adam L. In the Shadow of Zion. Promised Lands before Israel. New York: New York University Press, 2014.
URL: http://nyupress.org/books/9781479817481/
Table of Contents (click for PDF)
Preface
Introduction: They Say There Is a Land . . .
- Noah’s Ark on the Niagara: Grand Island, New York (1818–1848)
- Greetings from the Promised Land: Uasin Gishu, East Africa (1903–1905)
- Angolan Zion: Benguela Plateau (1907–1914)
- The Lost Jewish Continent: Madagascar (1933–1942)
- New Jerusalem, Down Under: Port Davey, Tasmania (1940–1945)
- Welcome to the Jungle: Suriname (1938–1948)
Epilogue: Go to Uganda
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Abstract
From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel’s successful foundation has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism’s prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle East.
In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement, and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it.
Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness.
Visit the author’s website: http://www.adamrovner.com/
Cite: Yaron et al., Analysis of Israel’s Policy Towards African Asylum-Seekers
Yaron, Hadas, Nurit Hashimshony-Yaffe and John Campbell. “‘Infiltrators’ or Refugees? An Analysis of Israel’s Policy Towards African Asylum-Seekers.” International Migration (Early View: Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue).
URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.12070/abstract
Abstract
This article adopts a genealogical approach in examining Israeli immigration policy by focusing on the situation confronting African asylum seekers who have been forced back into Egypt, detained and deported but who have not had their asylum claims properly assessed. Based on immigration policies formulated at the time of Israeli independence, whose principle objective was to secure a Jewish majority state, we argue that Israel’s treatment of African asylum seekers as ‘infiltrators’/economic migrants stems from an insistence on maintaining immigration as a sovereign issue formally isolated from other policy domains. Such an approach is not only in violation of Israel’s commitment to the Refugee Convention, it directly contributes to policies which are ineffective and unduly harsh.
ToC: Israel Studies 15,3 (2010)
Israel Studies 15,3 (2010)
Table of Contents
Special Issue: The Making of Israeli Foreign Policy
Guest Editors: Gabriel Sheffer and Natan Aridan
Introduction
pp. v-xi
HTML Version | PDF Version (62k) | Summary
Articles
Moshe Sharett and the Origins of Israel’s Diplomacy
pp. 1-26
HTML Version | PDF Version (590k) | Summary
Subject Headings:
Moshe Sharett, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jewish Diaspora
pp. 27-46
HTML Version | PDF Version (598k) | Summary
Subject Headings:
- Israel and the diaspora.
- Sharett, Moshe, 1894-1965.
- Israel. Miśrad ha-ḥuts.
- Israel — Foreign relations.
Jewish Issues in Israeli Foreign Policy: Israeli-Austrian Relations in the 1950s
pp. 47-60
HTML Version | PDF Version (492k) | Summary
Subject Headings:
- Israel — Foreign relations — Austria.
- Austria — Foreign relations — Israel.
- Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) — Reparations.
- Israel and the diaspora.
A Small Nation Goes to War: Israel’s Cabinet Authorization of the 1956 War
pp. 61-86
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Subject Headings:
- Sinai Campaign, 1956 — Diplomatic history.
- Israel — Politics and government — 1948-1967.
- Cabinet system — Israel — History.
On Two Parallel Tracks—The Secret Jordanian-Israeli Talks (July 1967–September 1973)
pp. 87-120
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Subject Headings:
- Israel — Foreign relations — Jordan.
- Jordan — Foreign relations — Israel.
- Arab-Israeli conflict — 1967-1973 — Diplomatic history.
- Arab-Israeli conflict — 1967-1973 — Peace.
Africa in Israeli Foreign Policy—Expectations and Disenchantment: Historical and Diplomatic Aspects
pp. 121-142
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Subject Headings:
Incoherent Narrator: Israeli Public Diplomacy During the Disengagement and the Elections in the Palestinian Authority
Shaul R. Shenhav
Tamir Sheafer
Itay Gabay
pp. 143-162
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Subject Headings:
- Communication in international relations — Israel.
- Mass media and international relations — Israel.
- Israel — Foreign public opinion.
Ambiguity and Conflict in Israeli-Lebanese Relations
pp. 163-188
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Subject Headings:
- Israel — Foreign relations — Lebanon.
- Lebanon — Foreign relations — Israel.
- Lebanon — History — Israeli intervention, 1982-1984.
- Lebanon — History — Israeli intervention, 1996.
- Sovereignty.
Document
Israel’s Refusal to Endorse the American Friends of Israel (1956)
pp. 189-201
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Subject Headings:
- American Friends of Israel.
- Montor, Henry.
- Israel and the diaspora.
- Jews — United States — Politics and government — 20th century.
- Israel — Foreign relations — United States.
- United States — Foreign relations — Israel.
Contributors
Contributors
pp. 202-204
Cite: Miles, Israel’s Religious Vote in Comparative Perspective
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Miles, William F. S. "Israel’s Religious Vote in Comparative Perspective: An Africanist Analysis ." Israel Affairs 16,1 (2010): 179-200.
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Abstract
Invoking the framework of religion and politics, this article contrasts the explicitly Judaic dimension to the 2009 elections in Israel with the implicitly Muslim one in 2007 in Nigeria. It also highlights the organizational, political, and theological similarities between fundamentalist (qua haredi) Judaism in Israel and fundamentalist (qua Sufi) Islam in Nigeria. Despite the obvious dissimilarities between Israel and Nigeria in terms of demography, standard of living, and dominant religion, both are relatively young democracies in which religious belief, practice and identification occupy key roles in their respective political behaviour and electoral politics. Both polities have also experienced increasing politicization of religion since independence. Proponents of legislating sharia in Nigeria and halacha in Israel unwittingly share compatible policies. Similarities in the organization, leadership, and political functionality of ultra-Orthodox and Sufi religious brotherhoods in the Jewish state and northern Nigeria transcend creedal differences.
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URL: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a918952331
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Keywords: Nigeria; religion; elections; sharia; halacha; brotherhoods
Online Israel Studies Bulletin Board 