The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa
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- ISBN13: 9780375425462
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A revealing account of how Israel’s booming arms industry and apartheid South Africa’s international isolation led to a secretive military partnership between two seemingly unlikely allies.
Prior to the Six-Day War, Israel was a darling of the international left: socialist idealists like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir vocally opposed apartheid and built alliances with black leaders in newly independent African nations. South Africa, for its part, was controlled by a regime of Afrikaner nationalists who had enthusiastically supported Hitler during World War II.
But after Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, the country establish itself alienated from ex- allies and threatened anew by ancient enemies. As both states became international pariahs, their covert military relationship blossomed: they exchanged billions of dollars’ worth of extremely sensitive material, including nuclear equipment, boosting Israel’s sagging economy and strengthening the stressed apartheid regime.
By the time the right-wing Likud Party came to power in 1977, Israel had all but abandoned the moralism of its founders in favor of close and lucrative ties with South Africa. For nearly twenty years, Israel denied these ties, claiming that it opposed apartheid on moral and religious grounds even as it secretly supplied the arsenal of a white supremacist government.
Sasha Polakow-Suransky reveals the previously classified details of countless arms deals conducted behind the backs of Israel’s own diplomatic corps and in violation of a United Nations arms restriction. Based on wide archival research and exclusive interviews with ex- generals and high-level government officials in both countries, The Unspoken Alliance tells a troubling tale of Cold War paranoia, moral compromises, and Israel’s estrangement from the left. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Israel’s history and its future.
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How many more times do we have to hear about Israel having relations with South Africa during apartheid? As if they were the only one, well then is USA, France, Britain, and all the rest, including Iran and the USSR (clandestinely), racist states? I know how many anti-Israel, and pro-Palestine people want their cause to be heard, but its a bring shame on they have to make such insinuations, using selective readings of South African documents and use speculation lacking establishing facts.
One of the books largest “bombshells” is about how South Africa was “offered” “three sizes” of something. Three sizes of what? Underwear? A drink and fries? NO, OF COURSE! “three sizes” has to mean nukes, because Suransky says so!
I really don’t see why Suransky wrote the book, when he knew full-well that Israel needed allies in Africa, so they turned to South Africa, after additional racist states dropped relations with the Jews because they wouldn’t lay down to Arabs and Islam. South Africa under apartheid was incorrect, but how about the states with whom Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and many others had alliances with, like the extremely repressive Soviet Union and their Communist allies? Where is Suransky getting at them on that! But needless to say, there is no proof Israel ever offered South Africa nuclear weapons for sale. If this book didn’t have such an insinuation, no one would even know this book exists! It was the Cold War: agreed that this book comes from the left attacking “the right,” I can easily lob things from the (centre)-right against the left. Even Pik Botha, foreign minister in South Africa during apartheid has said “I doubt whether such an offer was ever made. I reflect I would have known about it.” Shlomo Brom, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, who worked in South Africa in during de Klerk’s time doubts Shimon Peres tried to sell nukes.
There is nothing new learned in this book, except how terribly researched something can be for thousands of trees to die for it, yet this book is inflamatory and brings incitement to new heights. Israel-South Africa as an analogy makes no sense, and anyone should know that, so lying about their bilateral relations doesn’t make it so either. Even additional South African officials have called this book out for what it is. Yelling “imperialism, colonialism, apartheid” against Israel is a huge lie: sorry to say agreed the state of the blogosphere today, it becomes right.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Analytical, detached and a painstakingly researched account of Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. Leader Sasha Polakow Suransky has written the definitive history of the apartheid state and Israel.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The history of cooperation between Israel and the defunct apartheid government of SA has been well served by this new authentic research. The addition of the top-secret document about Israel’s offer (by non-additional than the Nobel Peace prize co-winner, Shimon Perez) of nuclear weapons to a raciest and criminal state like SA under apartheid rule, only further emphasize the treacherous and unethical conduct of the Israeli State in the past. The worst part is Israel’s refusal to admit this shameful episode in its history and it’s unwillingness to abide by any set of international laws or treaties regarding the building, use and proliferation of nuclear weapons.
For further analysis, check Juan Cole’s discussion at:
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Finally, I am impressed by how well the book is written and documented. I highly recommend it.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This book traces the birth, adolescence, and death of the decades-long secret alliance between Israel and South Africa. Based on years of archival research and hundreds of interviews with Israelis and South Africans, it carefully documents the ways in which the two pariah states–facing international criticism and domestic difficulties–engaged in mutually beneficial relations (mostly for economic reasons). Along the way, the reader meets a diverse cast of shady and colorful characters, giving the book something of a spy-novel feel. It’s vital to note that Polakow-Suransky is no lefty Israel-basher–far from it, in fact–and the final chapter on the Israel-Apartheid analogy is the most thoughtful and balanced take I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to reflect of anyone who wouldn’t delight in this book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5