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Category: Egypt

Turkish FM: Israel wants to be only democracy in ME

Davutoglu criticizes Jewish state for ‘linking’ Egyptian opposition to Iranian regime, trying to define itself as ‘purely Jewish’

Aviel Magnezi

“Israel is losing its allies only because of its policies,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told CNN-Turk News Saturday night.

Addressing the collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt, Davutoglu said Israel “takes pride in being a democracy, but does not want any other country to be a democracy.”

The Turkish FM continued to criticize the Jewish state, saying it would be difficult to achieve peace in the Middle East if such a peace hinges on Israel’s “security demands.”

According to Davutoglu, Israel has tried to link the Egyptian opposition to the Iranian regime and make the issue a regional problem. “If Israel feels threatened at this time, it must first check itself,” he said before heading to Iran for an official visit.

“Despite (US President Barack) Obama’s efforts over the past two years, the peace process is stuck. Who is responsible for this? The settlement building policy, the control over conquered territories – all these don’t point to a peace-inducing attitude,” he said.

“(Israel) cannot establish a purely Jewish state. It believes it can exist in complete isolation from its surroundings. This is a hard goal to achieve –trying to divide the Middle East.”

'Israel must check itself.' Egyptians celebrate (Photo: AP)

Davutoglu rejected the notion that a Mubarak-led Egypt would preserve peace and stability in the region. “Israel lost countries it had diplomatic relations with, and now it fears losing countries it considers close, her said.

According to Ankara’s top diplomat, Israel is the Middle East country most in need of reflection as demonstrations break out across the region.

Addressing the Turkish report on the deadly IDF commando raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish vessel, Davutoglu said the responses to the incident indicated a shift in the international community’s attitude towards Israel. “Our claims pertain to the preservation of international law and human rights, while Israel’s security-related claims are archaic and outside the boundaries of international law.

“I don’t know of any friendly, objective nation – be it European or American – that would agree to such a distinction. With time, everyone will understand that Israel’s actions cannot be legitimized just because its people have suffered in the past,” said the Turkish FM.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4028072,00.html, 13.02.2011

February 14, 2011
Turkish Lessons, if Any, for Egypt

By Joshua W. Walker

With the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Friday after thirty years in power, it appears increasingly likely that the long-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood will gain political clout in whatever new government emerges in Cairo.

Globe file photo: Supporters of Turkey's Justice and Developpment Party (AKP) waved national and Palestinian flags at a 2009 rally.

The Brotherhood, suppressed under Mubarak, advocates an “Islamist” agenda, which has alarmed some American analysts worried about the possibility of Egypt turning into a new Iran. But others have argued that the danger posed by the Brotherhood is exaggerated and point to Turkey, where a conservative Muslim party has been in power since 2002, as proof that an Islamic religious movement can coexist with democracy in the Middle East.

Indeed, Turkey has been cited by many as a model for the whole Arab world as it seeks to cope with the demands of greater democratization, economic prosperity, and political representation.

But comparisons to Turkey should be approached with caution. Despite their superficial similarities, the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) have little in common, Egypt and Turkey represent different political traditions, and the shape of any possible government in Cairo is unlikely to look much like that in Ankara. The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t look to Turkey for inspiration — and neither should secularists worried about how to contain them.

The first lesson to internalize is that the AKP, despite rhetoric that to some Western ears may sound similar to the Brotherhood’s, is a far cry from more hard-line groups in the region. The Turkish political vocabulary simply does not provide for such concepts as shariato advance an “Islamist” political agenda, as promoted by groups such as the Brotherhood.

Turkey’s geo-political traditions also offer checks on extremism that differ from Egypt’s. As the former imperial head of the Middle East, Turkey inherited a legacy of strong institutions personified by the highly visible role of the military. Turkey is also a member of NATO, and has had a privileged geo-strategic value to the West that provides a moderating influence.

Turkey, unlike Egypt, also has accommodated Islamist groups for decades, which has produced a tradition of Islamic parties playing by the rules that simply does not exist in Egypt. Turkey has experienced four military coups, but since the 1950s has been a multi-party democracy where the military chose to exert its power behind the scenes and allow more conservative Muslim parties to compete as long as civilian politicians abided by the constitutions the military wrote. Attempts to discredit and ban political parties that advocate an explicitly Islamist agenda has kept the AKP committed to Turkey’s secular rules of the political game, and is largely why they have been so successful. The AKP have won every election since its emergence in 2002 as a religious conservative party, whereas the Brotherhood has never played in or by the rules in Egypt — in part because Egyptian authorities moved so aggressively against Islamist parties, leaving them no place in the system.

Because it must compete, the AKP also speaks to Turks across a much wider range of issues. Today the AKP speaks for a large portion of the Turkish voters who want to see changes made in the approach and character of both their Republic and its international relations toward the West and Israel. With a majority of the Turkish parliament and municipal administrations controlled by the AKP since 2002, the very structure of the secular Turkish Republic is beginning to change. Not through a radical revolution, but rather through an incremental and technical process mandated by the Turkish constitution, something the Brotherhood has never been a part of in Egypt. The AKP draws its strength from its pragmatism not its ideology, a lesson that is often overlooked in the contentious debates about Turkey’s “turn to the East.”

With the fastest growing and largest economy in the Middle East, Turkey is uniquely placed to play a decisive role in providing incentives for the newly transformed governments and movements of the region. As a longtime ally of the West and new partner of the Middle East, Turkey has been seeking the role of mediator in every available arena including Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia. The AKP has been hosting delegations from Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood since its arrival to power in Ankara and has boasted of itsmoderating effect. This is something Egypt is nowhere close to doing and on which the Muslim Brotherhood has shown little interest given their dogmatic ideological stance.

At the end of the day, the AKP is a uniquely Turkish phenomenon unlikely to be repeated. Turkey did not transform itself from a defeated post-Ottoman state led by Ataturk’s military to a flourishing market-democracy overnight — it has been almost a century in the making. Before pundits turn Turkey into a role model for the post-Mubarak Egypt, we should have a better understanding of the very different contexts in which they have arisen.

Joshua W. Walker is a post-doctoral fellow at the Crown Center at Brandeis University and a research fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

, February 13, 2011

February 14, 2011
The Economist’s unforgivable silence on Sayyid Qutb’s anti-Semitism
By Richard Cohen

Qutb was hanged in 1966 by the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser after the customary torture. He had been the intellectual leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and a man of copious literary output. One of his efforts was called “Our Struggle with the Jews.” It is a work of unabashed, breathtakingly stupid anti-Semitism, one of the reasons the New York Review of Books recently characterized Qutb’s views”as extreme as Hitler’s.” About all this, the Economist is oddly, ominously and unforgivably silent.

This is both puzzling and troublesome. After all, it’s not as if Qutb was some minor figure. He is, as a secondary headline on the Economist review says, “the father of Islamic fundamentalism,” and it is impossible to read anything about him that does not attest to his immense contemporary importance. Nor was Qutb’s anti-Semitism some sort of juvenile madness, expressed in the hormonal certainty of youth and later recanted as both certainty and hairline receded. It was, instead, the creation of his middle age and was published in the early 1950s. In other words, his essay is a post-Holocaust work, written in full knowledge of what anti-Semitism had just accomplished. The mass murder of Europe’s Jews didn’t give him the slightest pause. Qutb was undaunted.

But so, apparently, are some others who write about him. In his recent and well-received book, “The Arabs,” Eugene Rogan of Oxford University gives Qutb his due “as one of the most influential Islamic reformers of the [20th] century” but does not mention his anti-Semitism or, for that matter, his raging hatred of America. Like the Sept. 11 terrorists, Qutb spent some time in America — Greeley, Colo.; Washington, D.C.; and Palo Alto, Calif. — learning to loathe Americans. He was particularly revolted by its overly sexualized women. Imagine if he had been to New York!

The Economist’s review is stunning in its omission. Can it be that a mere 65 years after the fires of Auschwitz were banked, anti-Semitism has been relegated to a trivial, personal matter, like a preference for blondes — something not worth mentioning? Yet, Qutb is not like Richard Wagner, whose anti-Semitism was repellent but did not in the least affect his music. Qutb’s Jew-hatred was not incidental to his work. While not quite central, it has nevertheless proved important, having been adopted along with his other ideas by Hamas. Qutb blames Jews for almost everything: “atheistic materialism,” “animalistic sexuality,” “the destruction of the family” and, of course, an incessant war against Islam itself.

Obviously, this is no minor matter. Critics of Israel frequently accuse it of racism in its treatment of Palestinians. Sometimes, the charge is apt. But there is nothing in the Israeli media or popular culture that even approaches what is openly, and with official sanction, said in the Arab world about Jews. The message is an echo of Nazi racism, and the prescription, stated or merely implied, is the same.

The Economist and Rogan are insufficient in themselves to constitute a movement. Yet I cannot quite suppress the feeling that the need to demonize Israel is so great that the immense moral failings of some of its enemies have to be swept under the carpet. As Jacob Weisberg pointed out recently in Slate, the “boycott Israel” movement is oddly unbalanced — so much fury directed at Israel, so little at countries like China or Venezuela. Can it be that the French philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch was prescient when he suggested years ago that anti-Zionism “gives us the permission and even the right and even the duty to be anti-Semitic in the name of democracy”? The line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, a demarcation I have always acknowledged, is becoming increasingly blurred.

Because the Economist’s book reviews are unsigned, it’s impossible to know — and the Economist would not say — who’s at fault here. So the magazine itself is accountable not just for bad taste or unfathomable ignorance but for disregarding its own vow, published on its first page, “to take part in a severe contest between intelligence . . . and an unworthy timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” During the week of July 15, it didn’t just lose the contest — it never even showed up for it.

cohenr@washpost.com

www.washingtonpost.com, August 10, 2010

—

Cohen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Cohen (surname), the most common Jewish surname
- Kohen, a direct male descendant of the Biblical Aaron, brother of Moses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen
February 13, 2011
Spirit of Egypt protest spreads to Yemen, Algeria and Syria

Demonstrators gather on streets of Sana’a as Algeria aims to defuse tensions by lifting 19-year state of emergency

Tom Finn in Sana’a and Mark Tran

Opposition demonstrators wave Yemeni flags as they take part in a ‘day of rage’ in Sana’a. Photograph: Hani Mohammed/AP

Reverberations from the mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt continued to be felt around the Arab world as demonstrators gathered on the streets of Yemen for a “day of rage” and Algeria became the latest country to try to defuse tensions by lifting its 19-year state of emergency.

More protests are expected across the region following Friday prayers, including in Syria, where activists have used Facebook to organise demonstrations in front of parliament in the capital, Damascus, and at Syrian embassies across the world.

Major demonstrations both against and in support of President Ali Abdullah Saleh took place in Yemen within a few miles of each other in a battle for hearts and minds in the capital, Sana’a.

Around 20,000 protesters, most of them young men, occupied three major roads around Sana’a University in some of the biggest anti-government protests Saleh has faced in his 32-year rule. Large-scale demonstrations also took place in other cities, including Ibb and Taiz. The nationwide demonstrations went ahead in defiance of a plea from Saleh to call off all planned protests, rallies and sit-ins.

Police opened fire and used tear gas to break up one of the marches, witnesses said, and security officials confirmed that one demonstrator was critically wounded by police fire. Two others were also reported to have been hurt in the eastern town of Mukalla.

“Together we fight against poverty, corruption and injustice,” the protesters at Sana’a University chanted, between intermittent bursts of music and speeches delivered by opposition politicians from Yemen’s Islamist, socialist and Nasserite parties.

In Sana’a, soldiers watched from rooftops as students wearing pink bandannas – a reference to the uprising in Tunisia – formed a human wall around the protesters to see off potential clashes.

“Saleh needs to form a new government,” said Mohammed al-Ashwal, the director of political affairs for Yemen’s Islamic party, Islah. “We’ve had enough of being left on the sidelines. Let the Yemeni people decide who will rule them in clean, fair elections.”

Echoing protesters in Egypt, Yemen’s opposition had planned to hold their demonstrations in Tahreer, or Liberation Square, in the heart of the capital. Government authorities beat them to it, however, filling it with marquees and sending hundreds of tribesmen to camp out there overnight.

By this morning the square was filled with thousands of middle-aged Yemeni men. Placards bearing pictures of the president were handed out to supporters and groups of men shouting pro-Saleh slogans were set off at regular intervals to parade through the streets.

“Saleh keeps this country from collapse,” said a 70-year-old man from the southern city of Taiz cloaked in a tattered Yemeni flag.

In a last-ditch attempt to appease the protesters, Saleh announced on Wednesday that he would step down in 2013 and that his son Ahmed would not succeed him. “No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock,” Saleh said, referring to ruling party proposals to abolish term limits that would have allowed him to run again.

Saleh, however, reneged on a similar pledge before Yemen’s last round of presidential elections in 2006. “You are tired of me and I of you. It is time for change,” Saleh told parliament in July 2005. Shortly afterwards, thousands of Yemenis protested in Sana’a, demanding the president change his mind, which he did.

In Algeria, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was quoted by official media as saying that the state of emergency would end in the “very near future” after he met ministers. The 72-year-old leader, who was first elected in 1999, also said the government should adopt new measures to promote job creation and that state-controlled television and radio should give airtime to all political parties, the official APS news agency reported.

Bouteflika said protest marches, banned under the state of emergency, would be permitted everywhere except in the capital. The concessions followed protests last month, when several people sought to copy the fatal self-immolation of a 26-year-old unemployed university graduate, Mohamed Bouazizi, in Tunisia.

The president’s announcement came ahead of a planned march by opposition leaders, human rights groups, unions, students and unemployed workers for February 12 in Algiers. A repeal of the state of emergency and an end to a ban on new political parties were among the demands of the opposition.

The call for today’s protests in Syria has been orchestrated through Facebook, particularly on the Syrian Revolution page, “liked” by over 13,000 people.

President Bashar al-Assad has played down any prospect of contagion from Tunisia and Egypt. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal this week, the media-savvy Syrian leader said his country was stable because the government was more in tune with its people.

“We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries, but in spite of that, Syria is stable,” he said. “Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people’s beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance.”

But mindful of the economic hardships that triggered the collapse of the Tunisian government, the Syrian government announced late last month that it had increased the heating oil allowance for public workers.

www.guardian.co.uk, 3 February 2011

February 4, 2011
A Turkish Solution For Egypt

JONATHAN SCHANZER and KHAIRI ABAZA

The New Republic, February 2, 2011

Patrick Baz /AFP/Getty Images – Egyptian demonstrators hold up a placard in Cairo as protesters flooded Tahrir Square in their relentless drive to oust President Hosni Mubarak's regime. If Mubarak's government falls, Egypt may have to navigate a transitional period.

Jonathan Schanzer is vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Khairi Abaza is a senior fellow at FDD, and a former Wafd Party official.

President Mubarak’s government may soon collapse. Popular support for him has evaporated, and while the Obama administration has declined to officially take sides in the Egyptian protests, it is clearly looking toward some sort of endgame. But what form would such a transition take? Oddly, the most obvious possibility is a plan that has, in its broad contours, been around since the mid-1980s.

In September 1980, Turkey’s government was overthrown in a military coup, but the military cooperated with interim civilian leaders and ultimately presided over a peaceful democratic transition that included the creation of a new constitution in 1982 and elections in 1983. This example inspired members of Egypt’s nationalistic, business-oriented Wafd Party, which was resurrected — after disappearing in 1952 — at about the same time. So in 1984, a plan based on Turkey’s experience was drawn up and presented by Ibrahim Abaza, a member of the executive bureau (and the father of one of this article’s authors), Yusuf Hamed Zaki, a member of the party’s high committee, and a handful of others. It envisioned a military-backed caretaker government that could maintain order on the streets, create a safe political space, and then guide the nation into representative governance. While Egyptian newspapers debated the merits of the plan, the Mubarak regime, which had been in power for only a few years, ignored it. Similarly, several successive U.S. presidential administrations listened politely, but opted not to pressure their allies in Cairo.

Now, former International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Mohammed ElBaradei and his followers are demanding a series of reforms that track closely along these lines. As ElBaradei explained to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, “the next step … as everybody now agrees on, is a transitional period” followed by “a government of national salvation, of national unity” that would “prepare the grounds for a new constitution and free and fair elections” while the “army will be able to control the situation.”

Echoing the Wafd Plan, ElBaradei hopes the military will ensure that President Mubarak flees the country and then keeps the peace during a period of transition to democracy. To safeguard against abuses of power, the opposition plan would ensure that no one figure holds a monopoly of authority within the provisional government. Order would be maintained by the military, while an interim cabinet would handle political matters and the transition to democracy. Cooperation between the two would be critical.

The plan also envisions a gradual, managed transition to open political competition that would give political parties — which have suffocated under Mubarak’s rule — time to put down roots and sprout branches. The process would be designed to mitigate the power of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups that reject democratic principles, without excluding them entirely from the political process. The transition period of a year or more would potentially level the playing field; the Brotherhood has a head start on everyone else, having developed social infrastructure throughout the country, and significant grassroots support.

Egypt would also need an interim president — such as ElBaradei or recently appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman — who would oversee the drafting of a new constitution that guarantees the liberties of all Egyptians. This is particularly necessary because the political opposition stands unanimously against the current constitution, which is based on socialist and non-democratic principles.

After this transition period yields a governing document and functioning political parties, Egyptians would go to the polls, while the military would ensure the safety of the voters and international vote monitors, who must be invited into the country to observe and certify free and fair elections.

For President Obama, supporting such a plan would make good sense. It would enable him at last to shun Mubarak and support the Egyptian people, while doing everything possible to ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood does not fill the country’s political vacuum. It should also be attractive to Washington because it relies on the Egyptian military. True, this is the same military that started this mess with the Free Officer’s Coup of 1952, but it still has the trust of the people (it has not fired on the protestors). President Obama might even have a little leverage here, thanks to the estimated $2 billion per year in aid that buys Egypt advanced military hardware.

This is not a plan without risks, but inaction carries risks of its own. Embraced by the reformers and protest leaders, the plan prescribes concrete steps toward democracy while minimizing the likelihood of chaos or Islamist rule. And the fact that it has its origins in the Wafd Party means it is an indigenous idea, not a foreign imposition on the Egyptian people.

Washington Mulls Its Role In Egyptian Politics Feb. 2, 2011

What Should The U.S. Do To Encourage Democracy? Feb. 2, 2011

The Limited Influence Of The U.S. In Egypt’s Upheaval Feb. 1, 2011

Partner content from: THE NEW REPUBLIC

www.npr.org, February 2, 2011

February 4, 2011
Sudan Division: Mossad Wrote the Script

Israelis can tell the whole story of Sudan’s division – they wrote the script and trained the actors

By Fahmi Howeidi

Now that we have been unable to defend the unity of Sudan, it might benefit us to understand what has happened there. Perhaps that will alert us to the fact that secession of the south is not the end, but is one of a series of splits intended to dismantle the Arab world surrounding Egypt.

From very early on, Zionists realized that minorities in the Arab world represent a natural ally to their state of Israel and so they planned to build bridges with them. Zionist representatives communicated with the Kurds in Iraq, the people in southern Sudan, the Maronites in Lebanon, Kurds in Syria, and the Copts in Egypt; Zionism adopted the principle of divide and conquer, and saw that the most effective way to fragment the Arab world was to create secessionist movements within it. In doing so, it sought the redistribution of power in the region in such a manner to make a group of marginal countries lacking unity and sovereignty, all the easier for Israel, in cooperation with non-Arab countries to control them one after the other later. All the rebel movements triggered by ethnic and sectarian groups in the Arab world have drawn support and advocacy from Israel, which has adopted these separatist movements, as witnessed by the Kurds in Iraq and the rebel movement in southern Sudan.

This situation helps us to understand Israel’s strategy towards the Arab world, which is designed to encourage minorities to express themselves so that they may eventually seize self-determination and independence from the state. What helps in all of this is that the Arab world, contrary to what the Arabs claim, does not consist of one cultural and civilized unity – the mythical “Arab nation” but it is a diverse mix of cultures, religions, ethnicities and multilingualism. Israel has been used to portraying the region as a mosaic that includes in its midst a complex network of multi-linguistic, religious, nationalism forms between Arabs, Persians, Turks, Armenians, Israelis themselves, Kurds, Baha’is, Druze, Jews, Protestants, Alawites, Sabians, Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Circassians, Turkomans, Assyrians and so on.

According to Israel’s view, when a land or part of a land has minority groups within it but no collective history, the real history is the history of each minority. This has the purpose of achieving two main objectives:

First, it rejects the concept of Arab nationalism and the call for Arab unity; Arab nationalism in the Israeli perception is an idea shrouded in mystery, if not irrelevant. Arab unity is a myth because the Arabs pay lip service to one nation, but live within mutually incompatible states. It is true that most are united by language and religion, but that is also the case with people across the English- or Spanish-speaking worlds, but that does not make them one nation.

Second, this is used to justify the legitimacy of Israel’s presence in the region as just one more to add to the mix of nationalities, peoples and languages, for which the perception of unity is an illusion. The logical conclusion of this train of thought is that each group of people (whether calling themselves a nation or not) has its own state; thus does Israel gains its legitimacy as one of many nation-states in the Middle East.

The preceding thesis is taken from a text book: “Israel and the South Sudan Liberation Movement”, published in 2003 by the Dayan Centre for Research on the Middle East and Africa. The author is retired head of Mossad Moshe Faraji. I have referred to him on more than one occasion. He is worth looking at again as the crop sown by Israel and its allies since the 1950s is beginning to bear fruit.

Another senior Israeli, former Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter, referred to Sudan in his 2008 lecture delivered to the Institute for Zionist National Security Studies. “There have been Israeli estimates since Sudan’s independence in the mid-fifties that this country, although far from us, should not be allowed to become a force added to the power of the Arab world because if its resources continue under stable conditions, it will make it a power to be reckoned with.” Hence, Israel’s attention has been directed towards Sudan, hoping to exploit the situation.

Sudan provides strategic depth to Egypt. This was evident post-1967 when Sudan and Libya provided training facilities for the Egyptian air force and army; Sudanese forces were sent to the Suez Canal zone during the war of attrition waged by Egypt between 1968 and 1970. For these two reasons, Dichter added, Israel had to work on weakening Sudan and prevent it from becoming a strong, unified state. This strategic perspective is necessary, he said, for Israeli’s national security. It is worth noting that Dichter’s lecture took place almost thirty years after the peace agreement signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979.

When asked about the future of southern Sudan, Dichter replied: “There are international forces led by the United States that are determined to intervene in Sudan so that the South will become independent, and the same for the Darfur region, like the independence of Kosovo. The situation in southern Sudan is not unlike that in Darfur and Kosovo, in that the two regions aspire to independence and acquire the right to self-determination after their citizens fought for that.”

Israeli support for the rebels in southern Sudan has gone through five stages notes Colonel Faraji:

Phase 1 started in the fifties. For nearly a decade, Israel focused on providing humanitarian aid (medicines, food and doctors) and was keen to provide services to refugees who were fleeing to Ethiopia. The first attempts to invest in the tribal differences in southern Sudan itself began in order to intensify the conflict and encourage the South to secede from the Arab north. Israeli intelligence officers stationed in Uganda opened channels of communication with the leaders of the southern tribes to study the demographic map of the area.

Phase 2 began in the sixties with Israel providing military training in special centres established in Ethiopia. At this stage, the Israeli government became convinced that keeping Khartoum busy with internal wars was sufficient to make sure that it would be unable to provide any support for Egypt’s struggle with the Zionist state.

Proselytizing organizations active in the south encouraged Israel to send members of its intelligence services under the cover of humanitarian aid; the prime goal was to train influential people to sustain the tension in the region. At this stage, Israel also expanded its support to the rebels by providing weapons through Ugandan territory; the first of such deals was in 1962, with mainly Russian armaments which had been captured by Israel when it took part in the aggressive Suez campaign in 1956. Fighters were trained in southern Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya before being pushed over the border to fight inside Sudan.

Phase 3 extended from the mid-sixties into the seventies, when the flow of arms to Southern Sudan was facilitated by an Israeli arms dealer called Gabi Shafine, who was working for Israeli intelligence. Shipments of Russian weapons won by Israel in 1967 were dropped by Israeli cargo planes. Israel also established a school for infantry officers to train the cadres necessary to lead the rebel factions. Israeli elements were involved in the fighting to lend their expertise to the South. At this stage groups were taken to Israel to receive military training. At the beginning of the seventies another channel for the delivery of Israeli support to South Sudan through Uganda was opened officially.

When it seemed that the rebel movement was about to collapse in 1969, Israel made a tremendous effort to urge the rebels to continue their fight, and used every method available to them to persuade southerners that they were engaged in a national struggle between Arab-Muslims in the north who were dominating a Black-African-Christian-Animist south.

Phase 4 from the late seventies through the eighties saw the African continent witness several major diversions (e.g. drought in Ethiopia) which did not stop Israel from supporting the rebels; indeed, support increased after Ethiopia became a regular conduit for the delivery of weapons to the South. John Garang emerged at this stage as a leader supported by Israel; he was received in Tel Aviv and given money and weapons. Israel was keen to train his men in various martial arts; ten pilots were trained to use light fighter aircraft.

Phase 5 started in late 1990 with expanding Israeli support; shipments reached the south through Kenya and Ethiopia. Israel provided the south with heavy anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft guns. At the beginning of 1993, the coordination between Israel and the SPLA (the southern army) included funding, training, armament, information and supervision by Israeli technicians of military operations.

It is clear that Israel has been eyeing southern Sudan for more than half a century.

A worthy observation is that the insurgency in the south began in 1955, one year before the Declaration of Independence of the state of Sudan. This illustrates that the oft-cited reason for southern secession – the implementation of Shari’a Law by the government of Al-Turabi in 1989 – is merely an excuse; this is a struggle that has gone on long before such proposals were even mooted.

While Israel was supporting the southern rebels with arms, Western countries were continuing their diplomatic efforts to arrange the division of Sudan through a referendum. The peace accord signed between the Khartoum government and the rebels was reached with British, American and Norwegian sponsorship. For more than fifty years, the people of Sudan have faced armed insurrection on one side and diplomatic pressure and dirty tricks on the other. If just a quarter of such an effort had been applied on the situation in Palestine, the problem would have been resolved decades ago. Self-determination appears to be acceptable, indeed highly desirable, if it will weaken a predominantly Arab state, but off the agenda when it involves the Palestinians obtaining their rights against the Zionist state of Israel.

They have planned for this division of Sudan and look set to get what they wanted. As for the Arabs, they have stood and watched as mere spectators. I hope that this is not a precursor for further disappointments to come.

Source: Al-Khaleej Times

www.shoah.org.uk, 16 January 2011

February 2, 2011