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September 3, 1963

Undated, unsigned handwritten note, possibly by Minister without Portfolio Galili

Written by an unknown author (possibly Galili) to an unknown recipient, this document dates from September 1963. It points to the fact that Israel saw itself as stricltly in adherance to the nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Ben Gurion in his letters to President John F. Kennedy, referred to the note as “B.G letters”. The note consists of a list of short explanatory statements on the nature of these commitments and how Israel interprets them.

 

Editor's note: Because of the unique provenance of this document, it should be treated as unauthenticated and interpreted skeptically. Readers are strongly encouraged to read the associated essay by Or Rabinowitz.

1962

Lam‘i al-Muti‘i, 'From Bandung to Casablanca' (Excerpts)

While in 1947 the Indian organizers of the First Asian Relations Conference invited a Yishuvi delegation, eight years later the Bandung Conference organizers did not invite Israel. At the same time, the second half of the 1950s signaled the start of Israel’s long “African Decade,” which would end only when many African states cut their diplomatic ties with the Jewish State after the 1973 October War. The first two countries to establish diplomatic ties with Israel were Ethiopia, in 1956, and Liberia, in 1957; in the 1960s, many others followed, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Thousands of Africans studied in Israel. Moreover, thousands of Israeli engineers, agronomists, architects, geologists and others who had participated in nation-state building in Israel worked often for years in development projects in Africa and also, though less so, in Asia and Latin America. And as Ronen Bergman’s 2007 PhD thesis “Israel and Africa: Military and Intelligence Liaisons” shows, Israel exported weaponry and Israeli officers shared with the militaries of recently decolonized African countries their expertise in warfare and in controlling civilians. After all, Israel blitzed through the Egyptian Sinai in 1956, had won its first war back in 1948-1949, and from then until 1966 kept its own Palestinian citizens under military rule.

In fact, the Israeli Defense Forces and the foreign intelligence agency Mossad were central to Israel’s involvement in Africa. The core reason for Israel’s interest in Africa was political and strategic. Israel needed allies in the United Nations, where postcolonial Asian countries were turning against it. And it wished to minimize the dangers of postcolonial Arab-African alliances and to extend to parts of Africa its “periphery doctrine” of honing relations with Middle Eastern countries that neighbor Arab states, like Iran and Turkey. As it did so, Israel at times shared some contacts and information with the US government; becoming a US asset was a boon to the Israeli government, though it remained fiercely independent-minded.

Hence, we have the text reproduced here: translated English excerpts from a 1962 Arabic-language book that shows how Arab nationalists read Israel’s Africa policy. Moreover, as works like Haim Yacobi’s Israel and Africa: A Genealogy of Moral Geography (2016) and Ayala Levin’s Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958-1973 (2022) show, the afore-noted political and strategic imperatives were steeped in well-rooted Zionist aspirations—aspirations that were colonial in type though not name—to be a Western developmentalist pioneer in the world. These aspirations pertained especiallyto Africa, which, literally bordering Israel, has helped shape Israelis’ view of their place in the world. At the same time, however, Israelis explicitly framed this pioneering self-view within a view of Africans as people who, like the Jews, had recently escaped colonial conditions and reached independent statehood.

May 31, 1961

State Department Telegram 5701 to U.S. Embassy United Kingdom

British Embassy was informed about the contents of President Kennedy's discussion with Ben-Gurion on the Dimona reactor.

June 9, 1961

Memorandum by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs Armin H. Meyer of White House Discussion on Ben-Gurion/Kennedy Meeting

Notes from Meyer on the Ben-Gurion/Kennedy meeting in New York.

June 7, 1961

Ambassador Harman’s Record of Ben-Gurion/Kennedy Meeting, with attachment on the 'Atomic Reactor' (and transcript), sent with cover letter by Mordechai Gazit to Israeli Foreign Ministry

Israeli record of conversation between Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and President Kennedy in New York.

May 30, 1961

Memorandum of Conversation, 'President Kennedy, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, Ambassador Avraham Harman of Israel, Myer Feldman of the White House Staff, and Philips Talbot, Assistant Secretary, Near East and South Asian Affairs'

US memorandum of conversation of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and President Kennedy's discussion in New York.

May 18, 1961

Memorandum, by L.D. Battle, Executive Secretary, to McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 'American Scientists’ Visit to Israel’s Dimona Reactor'

President Kennedy told the new US ambassador to Israel, Walworth Barbour, that he was concerned about Israel’s insistence on a secret visit as well as the "absence of a 'neutral' scientist" in the visit to Dimona. The State Department took the position that it was better to put up with Ben-Gurion’s "sensitivities" about secrecy than "have no visit" at all

May 1, 1961

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Philips Talbot to Secretary of State, 'Ben--Gurion Visit and Israel’s Reactor'

Ambassador Harman requests that the US visit to Dimona be delayed until after Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and President Kennedy meet in New York on May 30th.

May 1, 1961

Deputy Assistant Secretary Meyer Memorandum of Conversation, 'Visit to Israeli Reactor'

Armin H. Meyer discusses the US visit to Dimona with Mordechai Gazit.

April 11, 1961

Memorandum by Assistant Secretary Jones to Secretary of State Rusk, 'Your Appointment with Israeli Ambassador Harman'

Jones informs Rusk that Israel is ready to allow a US visit to Dimona, but it must be kept secret. Jones also informed Rusk that the Atomic Energy Commission had selected two of its scientists to make the visit: Ulysses Staebler, assistant director of reactor development and chief of the Civilian Power Reactors Branch, and Jesse Croach Jr., a heavy water reactor expert with Dupont, the AEC’s principal contractor for heavy water reactor work.

Pagination