Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Ivory Coast
A business-based expatriate Jewish community served by Chabad since 2018, Ivorian converts, Houphouët-Boigny's early alignment, Israeli drones and advisers for Gbagbo, Barak's surveillance proposal brokered with Epstein's help, the 2014 security accord and patrol vessels
Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) has a Jewish community of 200 to 300 people, mostly Israeli, French and other expatriates in business. Chabad has served it from Abidjan since 2018.[1] There are also small communities of Ivorian converts. Ties with the Zionist state go back to President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.[2] During the 2002–07 crisis, President Laurent Gbagbo bought Israeli drones and relied on Israeli intelligence and security support.[3] Under President Alassane Ouattara, "Israel" signed an internal security accord with Ivory Coast in 2014. Documents released in 2025–26 show that Jeffrey Epstein helped Ehud Barak pursue a surveillance deal with the country before it.[4]
Jewish community and religious life
History
According to Chabad, a large Jewish community grew up in Abidjan in the 1960s, during a period of rapid infrastructure development. By 1973 it had a Jewish day school that at one point had 300 pupils. Most of the community left in the early 1990s as the country became less stable.[1]
The community today
Chabad puts the community at 200 to 300 people: Israelis, Americans and Europeans, especially French Jews, working in infrastructure, oil and gas, and commodities. One member it names first came to the country to convert Ivory Coast's driving licences to a biometric system.[1] There are also two small communities of Ivorian converts. The larger, Etz Hayim, is led by Avraham Yago, a linguistics professor at the University of Abidjan. In December 2017 Yago and 47 others were converted by a rabbinical court.[5] Yago studied Hebrew at an ulpan in Netanya in 2006, and Etz Hayim calls itself the first Orthodox Jewish community in the country.[6]
How far is it Zionist? No Zionist federation or Israeli fundraising body was found in Ivory Coast. The expatriate community is largely Israeli and is tied to Israeli business in the country.[1] It is served by Chabad, a religious rather than a Zionist movement. The convert communities look to "Israel" for study, but no Zionist activity was reported for them.[6]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Ivory Coast
Rabbi Yerah Bensaid and his wife Debbie set up Chabad of Ivory Coast in Abidjan in 2018. It was the seventh permanent centre under Chabad of Central Africa. Debbie Bensaid is the daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, who heads Chabad of Central Africa from Kinshasa.[1][7] Bentolila had first visited Abidjan as a rabbinical student in 1988.[1] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi in Ivory Coast.[8]
Zionist movement and advocacy
No organised Zionist movement was found in Ivory Coast. Gbagbo openly professed his attachment to "Israel". He linked it to his Evangelical faith and said he first visited "Israel" in 1992 at the invitation of the Labor Party.[3]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomatic relations
Houphouët-Boigny visited "Israel" in 1962 and launched the planting of 10,000 trees there, now the "Forêt Félix Houphouët-Boigny".[2] Ivory Coast broke relations after the 1973 war. In December 1985 Shimon Peres announced, after four hours of talks with Houphouët-Boigny, that relations would be restored.[9] In 1986 Ivory Coast opened its embassy in Jerusalem, but in October that year, under Arab pressure, it announced that it was moving it to Tel Aviv. By then there were "hundreds of Israeli experts in various fields" in the country.[10] The Israeli embassy also records:
- Shamir's 1987 visit to Yamoussoukro;
- Ouattara's official visit to "Israel" in 2012;
- a visit by the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, with an economic delegation in July 2023.[2]
During the 2023 visit the two governments signed a framework cooperation agreement. It covered agricultural innovation, renewable energy, digitalisation, rural electrification and cybersecurity.[11]
Gbagbo, drones and advisers
In a 2008 interview Gbagbo said: "we bought from Israel unmanned planes, the infamous drones, to collect intelligence". The Forward reported that he "was able to count on Israeli intelligence and security support" during his conflict with France.[3] In November 2004 Ivorian aircraft attacked the French base at Bouaké. Le Temps reported that the office of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli defence ministry confirmed reports that Israeli-made drones had been used to reconnoitre the ground beforehand. The ministry said they had been sold legally by a private company. France had already asked "Israel" to stop licensing exports to suppliers in Abidjan, among them Aeronautics Defense Systems of Yavneh. The paper added that several dozen Israeli "military advisers" were working for both Gbagbo's forces and his opponents.[12] The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records two Aerostar reconnaissance drones delivered from "Israel" in 2004.[13]
Security accord, Barak and later arms
On 13 June 2014 the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, signed two agreements in Abidjan: one on regular consultations and one on internal security.[14] Drop Site News traced the background in leaked emails and in Epstein documents released by the US House Oversight Committee (see Epstein below):
- In late 2012 the Ivorian interior minister, Hamed Bakayoko, met Barak, then defence minister, in Tel Aviv to discuss a security accord focused on intelligence and cybercrime.
- In March 2013, after leaving office, Barak received plans from the French-Israeli contractor MF Group for a mobile and internet communications surveillance centre and a video monitoring centre in Abidjan.
- MF Group's head, Michel Farjon, confirmed that the proposals came from his company but said there was "No deal with Ivory Coast, nor any cooperation".[4]
According to Al Jazeera, the Israeli outlet Calcalist reported that Ouattara ultimately did not sign Barak's plan because of its cost, and Barak denied offering to build an intelligence apparatus. Al Jazeera also reports that a 2016 UN report found that the Israeli firm Troya Tech Defence had sold weapons and night-vision goggles to Ivory Coast in 2015, in breach of the UN arms embargo then in force.[15] In December 2020 Israel Shipyards began building two OPV-45 offshore patrol vessels for Ivory Coast. The first, Esperance, reached Abidjan in March 2023.[16][13]
Surveillance
Citizen Lab's 2018 survey of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware listed Ivory Coast among the suspected infection locations of an operator it called ATLAS, whose suspected focus was Morocco.[17]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Israeli exports to Ivory Coast of $4.1 million in 2025 (2024: $3.9 million), and Israeli imports from Ivory Coast of $1.2 million (2024: $0.2 million).[18]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Ivory Coast separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[19] Migration runs the other way: Israelis make up much of the expatriate Jewish community.[1]
Political interference
Israeli arms and advisers became part of the Ivorian civil conflict on both sides, according to Le Temps.[12] Barak's approach to Ouattara's government blurred his public and private roles: Drop Site News argues that the contacts began while he was still defence minister.[4]
Epstein
Documents reviewed by Drop Site News and Al Jazeera show Jeffrey Epstein acting as a go-between in Barak's approach to Ouattara's circle:
- On 18 June 2012, the day Barak met Ouattara in Jerusalem, Ouattara's son David Dramane Ouattara had an appointment with Epstein in New York.
- On 12 September 2012 Epstein met Ouattara's niece Nina Keita, whom he had known since at least 2002. He then went straight to a private meeting with Barak at the Regency Hotel.
- Epstein discussed an October 2012 trip that included Ivory Coast with his assistant. Al Jazeera notes that there are no flight records to confirm such travel.
- Email logs show that Epstein introduced Barak to Ouattara's chief of staff in September 2013.[4][15]
BBC News Afrique adds that, according to the documents, Keita introduced Epstein to Ouattara in New York in 2011 and organised a second meeting in Abidjan in 2012. For that visit, in January 2012, she booked him a suite at the Hôtel Ivoire, and he also met several ministers about investment projects. It also says that in 2014 she acted as an intermediary in talks that led to the purchase of an Israeli surveillance system and of a Boeing 727 for the presidency,[20] although Al Jazeera reports that Ouattara did not sign Barak's plan (see above).[15] Flight-permit emails from January 2012 show Epstein's plane operating from Abidjan,[21] and Abidjan appears in routings for planned African tours in 2011.[22][23] Keita also told Epstein of the arrest of Senegal's Karim Wade, and thanked him in 2016 for what he had done for Wade.[24][20]
The following items come from Barak's two leaked mailboxes (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.[25]
- Visit to Ouattara. On 27 May 2013 Barak asked Sidi Tiémoko Touré to propose a meeting for him with President Alassane Ouattara.[26] On 1 July 2013 Touré confirmed a visit from 30 July to 4 August 2013 at the Sofitel Hôtel Ivoire, in an exchange titled "ISRAELI DIGNITARY PROTECTION".[27] In August 2013 Ergo sent Barak an addendum to its briefing report on Côte d'Ivoire.[28]
- The MF Group proposals. MF Group's March 2013 document, forwarded to Barak by Doron Cohen, sets out three projects pursued through its subsidiary HSS Cyprus:
- a turnkey "surveillance and interception of communications" centre (PSTN, GSM, satellite and IP), using NICE Systems, for the national intelligence coordinator Traoré Vassiriki;
- a NICE video monitoring centre for Abidjan, with contacts Alain-Richard Donwahi of the National Security Council and the interior minister Hamed Bakayoko. MF Group advised that "These tools are strategic... and should not disclosed in a tender";
- the ELTA/Israel Aerospace Industries "Flight Guard" anti-missile system for the presidential planes.[29]
- Tahal water study. In August 2015 Mayer Gniwisch asked Barak to put him in touch with Stanley Fischer, who had led a delegation to Ivory Coast, over a $4 million deal "together with Tahal in Israel" for a study for an Abidjan water project. Gniwisch called it a "precursor for a 600 million project". Barak replied that Fischer, "in his new job", would not intervene.[30]
Barak has said his dealings with Epstein were private investments unrelated to Israeli state affairs, and he did not respond to a request for comment from Drop Site News.[4] The leaked emails come from a hack by the Handala group, published by Distributed Denial of Secrets. Appearing in the Epstein files does not in itself indicate wrongdoing.[15]
See also
- Chabad Lubavitch of Ivory Coast
- Zionist movement
- Ehud Barak
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Senegal
External links
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Dovid Margolin, Raised in the Congo, She Will Now Start Up Chabad in Ivory Coast Chabad.org, 12 July 2018.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Embassy of Israel in Côte d'Ivoire, Bilateral relations embassies.gov.il, last updated 20 February 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Marc Perelman, President of Cote d'Ivoire Reflects on Israeli Support The Forward, 29 May 2008.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim, Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d'Ivoire Drop Site News, 7 November 2025.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, In this West African country, a Jewish community is forming JTA, 26 January 2018.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Francis Abugbilla, How the Jewish community in Côte d'Ivoire is helping to build peace after war UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, 4 February 2020.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Chabad's got a house on Zanzibar — Cote d'Ivoire, too JTA, 24 August 2018.
- ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ivory Coast to Re-establish Diplomatic Relations with Israel JTA, 19 December 1985.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Ivory Coast, Under Heavy Arab Pressures, to Move Its Embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv JTA, 23 October 1986.
- ↑ Abidjan.net, Coopération : la Côte d'Ivoire et l'Israël solidifient leur lien diplomatique à travers un accord-cadre Abidjan.net, 27 July 2023.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Serge Dumont, Des mercenaires israéliens auraient guidé l'attaque sur le camp français de Bouaké Le Temps, 18 November 2004.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
- ↑ APA, Signature de deux accords entre la Côte d'Ivoire et Israël Abidjan.net, 13 June 2014.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Al Jazeera, Did Epstein help Israel push for a security deal with Ivory Coast? Al Jazeera, 27 February 2026.
- ↑ Guy Martin, First Israeli offshore patrol vessel for Cote d'Ivoire arrives home defenceWeb, 8 March 2023.
- ↑ Bill Marczak, John Scott-Railton, Sarah McKune, Bahr Abdul Razzak and Ron Deibert, Hide and Seek: Tracking NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware to Operations in 45 Countries Citizen Lab, 18 September 2018.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Isidore Kouwonou, Ce que les documents dans l'affaire Epstein révèlent sur l'Afrique et certaines personnalités BBC News Afrique, 25 February 2026 (in French).
- ↑ Email to Jeffrey Epstein, "Update", 17 January 2012, US Department of Justice Epstein files release, Data Set 9, EFTA00647682 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email to Jeffrey Epstein, "Africa Tour routing", 15 April 2011, US Department of Justice Epstein files release, Data Set 10, EFTA01866037 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email exchange with Jeffrey Epstein, "Re: airports", 26 September 2011, US Department of Justice Epstein files release, Data Set 10, EFTA01774124 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Kevin G. Hall and Zack Kopplin, Epstein Made Efforts to Free the Son of Senegal's Former President After Corruption Conviction OCCRP, 10 February 2026.
- ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Ehud Barak emails, 27 August 2025, with download at data.ddosecrets.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Email from Ehud Barak to Sidi Tiémoko Touré, "A meeting proposed by Ehud Barak", 27 May 2013, file
ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Sent Messages/1 (3).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026. - ↑ Email from Sidi Tiémoko Touré to Nili Priell Barak, "Re: ISRAELI DIGNITARY PROTECTION", 1 July 2013, file
ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox!2/1 (491).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026. - ↑ Email from Evan Pressman (Ergo) to Ehud Barak, "Cote d'Ivoire briefing report addendum", 2 August 2013, file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!44/1 (419).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026. - ↑ Email from Doron Cohen to Ehud Barak, "FW: files to be transferred to your friend for preparing Friday meeting", 19 March 2013, with MF Group attachment "Ivory Coast.pdf", file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!48/1 (195).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026. - ↑ Email exchange between Mayer Gniwisch and Ehud Barak, "Re: Stanly Fisher", 26 August 2015, file
ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com/Inbox/1 (373).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 21 October 2026.