A brief history of Somalia's [lack of] relations with Israel

During the Barre era, Somalia joined many Arab and Muslim countries in shunning Israel, before turning to Tel Aviv as the regime crumbled

This is a photo of Yasser Arafat with Siad Barre dated to the 1970s.

In case you haven’t noticed Gaza has been in the news for the last two weeks as Israel continues bombarding the besieged strip after a daring, deadly and ruthless attack by Hamas and several other Palestinian armed groups on October 7. As is often the case the media’s shortcomings in reporting on this have been highlighted as much the brutality of the conflict itself.

The history of Palestinian dispossession, ethnic cleansing and the fact that Israel has turned into an unrepentant apartheid regime under Netanyahu’s Likud party (read here & here) is often missing from how we report on this latest round of eruptive violence which has inflamed tensions in a way that I’ve never seen before in my short career as a journalist. It has led to a lot of Somalis viewing a Medium blog post I wrote as a rookie journalist five years ago about Somalia’s ties with Israel which I thought I’d rework here.

So in a break with my other posts I thought it might be worth exploring something more topical. This post will be about how Siad Barre’s Somalia managed ties with Israel but also how Israel failed in Africa after a promising start in ties with countries on the continent.

During the Cold War Somalia shunned Israel

Somalia does not have, and has never had, formal diplomatic ties with Israel, a principled position it shares with many other Muslim and Arab governments. Although all indications suggest that the policy is relatively popular with the Somali public, the prospect of establishing open ties between the two countries was historically complicated by Israel's limited role in east Africa during the Cold War.

Israel has always maintained an active and well-intentioned, yet flawed foreign policy in Africa, with the continent playing a significant role in the moral imagination of early Zionists. Theodor Herzl, whose pamphlet The Jewish State laid the intellectual foundation for modern Zionism, stated, “Once I have witnessed the redemption of the Jews, my people, I wish also to assist in the redemption of the Africans.”

That might sound a bit weird but early Israeli statesmen held a strong messianic beliefs about their country’s role in the world, with founding president David Ben-Gurion emphasising that if Israel wanted to remain “faithful to its prophetic testament” it would have to “advance righteous and merciful relations between men and peoples.” In 1962, he rhetorically asked if it was the special duty of Israelis to “solve the problems of the human race” or “make an important contribution to their solution”, to which he gave a strong affirmation. Israel, he said, was not a “state just like the rest.”

Golda Meir, a former Israeli stateswoman widely considered the architect of Israel’s Africa policy, made Africa a linchpin of her program when she was first appointed foreign minister in 1956, to the bewilderment of many other senior Israeli foreign policy officials. She reached out to the continent on the basis of a shared struggle for dignity that Jews had in common with Africans, which she believed could build bridges between Israel and the newly independent African states.

“We Jews share with the African peoples a memory of centuries-long suffering,” she said. “For both Jews and Africans alike, such expressions as discrimination, oppression and slavery-these are not mere catchwords… They refer to the torment and degradation we suffered yesterday and today”, she continued. In addition to that, there were pragmatic concerns, as African countries had a large presence in international bodies were votes weighed equally. One Israeli foreign ministry official told Samuel Decalo in an interview for his book, Israel & Africa: Forty Years, that Africa was a “battleground between Israel and the Arabs.” The unnamed official added: “It is a fight of life or death for us.”

Relations between Israel and post-colonial African states initially blossomed. In 1956 Israel developed diplomatic relations with Ghana, followed by other countries, after which Israel dispatched a small army of technocrats in 1958, lending their expertise to help the post-colonial states get started on the project of state-building. During her tenure she also voted in favour of a harsh UNGA resolution condemning South Africa’s apartheid regime. When Mier returned to Israel to explain her decision to the Knesset she said it would have been a “shameful iniquity”, contrary to Jewish morality for Israel not to raise its voice on the issue. Tel Aviv would later retreat from this position, developing warm ties with apartheid South Africa. By 1966, Israel was represented in every independent sub-Saharan African country, with the exceptions of Mauritania and notably for this piece, Somalia.

After Mier’s tenure, realpolitik gradually took hold as political dynamics in Africa evolved with the emergence of independent African Arab governments in the north and the shifting landscape of Muslim countries across Asia. Egypt’s aggressive diplomatic efforts to garner support from other African nations, especially when its territories were occupied following successive defeats by the Israeli military in 67’ and 73’, weakened Israel’s position on the continent.

Already in 1972, Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator severed previously warm ties with Israel. Although Israel didn’t make much of Amin’s decision, by January 1973 Niger, Chad, Congo, and Mali followed suit. The Yom Kippur War in 73’ was the watershed moment when Arab oil producing countries used what King Faisal of Saudi Arabia would describe as the “oil sword”, launching an oil embargo on countries which supported Israel during the war. Zach Levey, a scholar on Israeli foreign policy during the Cold War, used the word “pariahtude” to characterise Israel’s new position in the international system.

Arab governments promised cheap oil and financial aid in a bid to supplant Israeli influence in sub-Saharan Africa. In May 1973, Egypt sponsored a resolution which passed through the Organisation of African Unity condemning Israel’s occupation of Egyptian territories in the strongest terms. African governments began severing ties with Israel with the exception of Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland. In 1975 the United Nations General Assembly declared Zionism a form of racism, with the support of many sub-Saharan African governments. Nigeria would only restore ties as late as 1992.

This hostile atmosphere would eventually lead Israel to developing close relations with apartheid governments like South Africa and Rhodesia whose vulnerability forced them to have a pro-West alignment, as the Soviet Union sponsored anti-colonial movements across the continent.

In the Horn of Africa, Israel always had a more complicated role, given the strategic significance of the region, as well as Israel’s vulnerability in the Red Sea; a reality which was brought into sharp focus after Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran in 1967. Due to Egypt’s vital dependence on the Nile and its historical rivalry with Israel, Tel Aviv fostered strong and cordial relations with Ethiopia. Consequently, Egypt strategically nurtured a close partnership with Somalia, which held irredentist claims to Ethiopia’s Ogaden region.

These regional developments were overlaid with Cold War cleavages when major general Siad Barre came to power in 1969, pulling Mogadishu into the Soviet camp. Moscow’s support was a force amplifier for Somali foreign policy as Mogadishu began extending its policy of support for liberation movements in Ethiopia to the rest of the continent–including movements in two of Israel’s allies Rhodesia and South Africa.

Somalia's 'crucial' role in Eritrea's liberation struggle

In his State of the Nation speech in 1970 Barre said we “shall morally and materially, support the liberation movements of Africa until the last of Africa is liberated from the usurpers of Africa’s wealth, dignity and pride.” In October 1977, Halgan magazine published the Somali Revolutionary Socialist party’s first charter outlining its goals (that is 8 years after Barre to power, mind). On the external front it highlighted the party’s commitment to “support for international solidarity and national liberation” and to “oppose and fight all forms of colonialism and neo-colonialism.” Israel was viewed to be among a clique of “reactionary and imperialist forces” attempting to role back the march progressive governments in Africa and Asia–of which Somalia, of course, was a member in good standing.

On that basis Siad Barre would also condemn Anwar Sadat’s ‘peace initiative’ with Israel as weakening the cause for Palestinian self-determination and cultivate his own close relationship with the Palestinian liberation movement. During Somalia’s presidency of the Organisation of African Unity in 1975, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) head, Yasser Arafat addressed African leaders. Below is a clip from his speech but no translation.

Palestinian fighters had another entanglement with Somalia, when they hijacked a German plane, landing it in Mogadishu as they held it ransom to have members of the Baader‐Meinhof gang and two Palestinians imprisoned in Turkey released. I unfortunately don’t have much else on Somalia and Palestine but perhaps that could make another piece.

In 1974, with Egyptian support Somalia would become the eighth African state to join the Arab League. Ethiopia balanced the Somali-Egyptian-Soviet axis emerging in north-east Africa by developing close but secret relations with Israel and the West. Though Ethiopia was coy about its ties with Tel Aviv, Israel would consider that its most strategic in Africa. The relationship went further between Ethiopia and Israel however. In the early 1950s Israel considered Ethiopia part of its “Periphery Plan”, which aimed to develop ties with non-Arab regimes in its hinterland–Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia.

In 1973, when a number of African countries cut ties with Israel, Addis Ababa grew concerned that it could be left isolated and vulnerable to Egyptian, Somali and Soviet pressure, especially as an Arab backed Eritrean insurgency intensified in the north. To break its encirclement, Ethiopia reached out to Israel to request support in the defence of its ports, radar installations and training for its army units. In his book, Africa and Israel, former Israeli diplomat and scholar Arye Oded, reports that the request came to $5 million.

In a high-stakes diplomatic gambit, Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia, Hanan Aynor, passionately implored his nation to heed the call. His audience included the prime minister Golda Meir and the decorated Israeli general, who at the time held post of defense minister, Moshe Dayan. But despite Aynor’s plea, he couldn't sway them. Dayan, in particular, remained stoically unimpressed. Ethiopia, deeply concerned about potential isolation within the Organisation of African Unity and the looming spectre of hostile reactions from the Arab world, chose to cloak its association with Israel in a shroud of secrecy and silence. Their rationale was as enigmatic as the situation itself.

Moshe Dayan told Aynor: “There is a connection between military aid and political commitment. Five million dollars is a lot of money which it is preferable to spend on training our soldiers for the next war rather than on an Ethiopia which is afraid to display her friendship with Israel.”

During that period, Somalia had been gouging on Soviet-supplied arms, bolstering its military. Ethiopia had also undergone a revolution, toppling the imperial regime in 1974 and ushering in Haile Mariam Mengistu's Soviet-backed Dergue regime. Somalia sought to capitalise on its military superiority and the instability in Ethiopia, attempting an invasion in 1977 with the aim of annexing the Ogaden region. This war had the potential to significantly impact Israel, leaving it without a strategic ally in the Horn of Africa. A decisive Ethiopian defeat would have exposed Israel to a hostile ring of neighbouring countries at the Red Sea’s gateway. Sensing the looming threat, Mengistu reached out to Tel Aviv in 1975, seeking assistance in quelling Somali-backed Eritrean rebels who had seized control of large parts the strategically significant sea-straddling region.

Israeli ambassador Meir Joffe would say it is vital that the Red Sea isn’t turned “into the Arab Sea”, and Ethiopia was the only other country that could prevent such a situation. In his book, Africa and Israel, Arye Oded notes: “Israel was concerned lest an Eritrea Liberation Front (ELF) rebel victory would lead to the closing of the marine passage through the Red Sea to her shipping.” In an interview in Kuwait following Somalia’s invasion of Ethiopia, Barre even accused the Israelis of fighting with the Ethiopians in the Ogaden and training their troops in Asmara–though at present I have seen no evidence to substantiate the claim. Barre’s point is also complicated by the fact that Israel stopped military aid to Ethiopia as Mengistu leaned increasingly on his Soviet and Cuban allies for aid and arms. Addis Ababa also continued a pattern of voting in a hostile manner to Israel at global fora.

The Soviet Union attempted to mediate the conflict but eventually sided with Ethiopia, persuading the Cubans to support the effort to eject the Somali National Army. Somalia recalibrated when it lost Soviet support, terminating its relationship with Moscow and expelling all Soviet officials. Barre, a “recent convert to the West” as a New York Times article would describe him, attempted to re-align his foreign policy but didn’t get much sympathy at first.

Siad Barre, defeated in the Ogaden and more pragmatic and cynical than ever, flirted with the idea of developing an unofficial relationship with Israel, for fear of a domestic backlash, or even possibly meeting the fate of Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who cited his normalisation of ties with Israel as their motive.

Having quelled a military coup in 1978, Barre would declare that the “few” rebel officers who staged the coup were captured, and that “all is well, all is normal”. All wasn’t normal however, Ethiopian sponsored rebel groups would challenge Siad Barre’s increasingly autocratic and brutal rule, debt was high, the war effort ended in failure, there was an influx of refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia lost a key export market when the Saudis stopped buying Somali livestock. In fact, you’d probably say the situation was fucked.

Lacking a superpower patron, Barre needed friends, and after the West only promised him defensive weapons for fear he would launch another campaign against Ethiopia, reports suggest one of the countries he turned to was Israel. In February 1985, before a car accident weakened his grip on power, Barre sent his son-in-law Abdel Rahman Abdi Hussein to Jerusalem to discuss military cooperation. The resulting agreement, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi says in his book The Israeli Connection, “covered a comprehensive program of ‘counter-insurgency’, such as training security personnel.” Barre’s old nemesis, South Africa, he notes served as an intermediary. All the while of course Barre’s public position was freedom, independence and revolution.

During this period, Yossi Alpher, a former Israeli intelligence officer recalls a meeting he had with Barre, when the president hosted him as his guest in Mogadishu. Alpher wrote that Barre’s appearance and demeanour reminded him of a “mafia chieftain in a Hollywood movie”, as he had detected an Italian accent on the deep and coarse voice of the president. As they chatted in the presidential palace, with Barre having nowhere left to turn, he asked Alpher what courses of action where open to him given his isolated geopolitical situation.

Alpher believed that Barre probably expected him to be the “vehicle to Washington”, and so would consider working with Israel if needs be. After travelling around Somalia however and speaking with people across the country, he noticed a simmering clan tension; the anger of those excluded from the ruling clique who were suffering as the Somali economy deteriorated. He doubted the viability of the state and to avoid angering the Ethiopians who were facilitating the migration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, Alpher recommended Barre reach out to Cairo instead to make headway in Washington. Barre did improve ties with Washington in the end to some extent but Alpher’s prediction was prophetic and in 1991 the Somali state imploded under the pressure of its own unresolved political issues.