Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Uganda

From Powerbase
Revision as of 07:29, 21 October 2026 by Geography Bot (talk | contribs) (Relabel sources per v2 rule: 'partisan' replaced with '[X]-side' (named after whose source it is), per David)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The Abayudaya and their struggle for recognition, a small Chabad-served expatriate community, close military ties under Obote and early Amin, the 1972 break, the 1976 Entebbe raid, deportations of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, and renewed defence cooperation under Museveni

Uganda has two distinct Jewish presences:

  • the Abayudaya, an indigenous community of about 2,000 whose conversions the Israeli state has largely refused to recognise;[1]
  • a small, mainly Israeli expatriate community served by Chabad since 2017.[2]

"Israel" trained Uganda's army and air force in the 1960s, and Idi Amin expelled all Israelis in 1972.[3] The 1976 Entebbe raid took place on Ugandan soil.[4] Between 2013 and 2018 "Israel" sent Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to Uganda under "voluntary" departure schemes that Amnesty International calls forced.[5]

Jewish community and religious life

History

The Abayudaya trace their Judaism to the early 20th century, when the Ugandan statesman Semei Kakungulu declared himself Jewish and began adopting Jewish practices.[1] The American Conservative movement began converting members in 2002 and, in 2008, became the first Jewish movement to recognise them as Jewish.[1]

The community today

The Abayudaya number about 2,000. Their leader, Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, has also served as a member of parliament. In 2016 they opened a new synagogue centre at Nabagoye, which Sizomu called "our Jerusalem". He said the community was not looking to emigrate.[6] The Jewish Agency recognised the community in 2016 for the purposes of the Law of Return. In 2018 the Israeli Interior Ministry nonetheless refused the first application by a member, Yosef Kibita, saying it was "a matter of principle regarding conversions in this community".[7] After seven years in court and four conversions, Kibita was approved for citizenship in August 2024. The Israeli government still treats the Abayudaya as an "emerging" Jewish group that is ineligible for citizenship without conversion.[1]

How far is it Zionist? No Zionist federation or Israeli fundraising body was found in Uganda. The Abayudaya are a religious community, not a Zionist one; their leader stresses that they want to stay in Uganda.[6] The expatriate community is served by Chabad, which is a religious rather than a Zionist movement.

Chabad

Main article: Chabad Lubavitch of Uganda

Rabbi Moishe and Yocheved Raskin set up Chabad of Uganda in Kampala in October 2017. It was announced as the movement's 100th country.[2] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi in Uganda.[8]

Zionist movement and advocacy

No organised Zionist movement was found in Uganda. The Zionist movement's main historical link to the territory is the British Uganda Scheme of 1903. The land it offered actually lay in present-day Kenya, and the Zionist Congress rejected it in 1905.[9]

Israeli state and commercial ties

Obote, Amin and the 1972 break

The Daily Monitor describes the early relationship:

  • In February 1963 Golda Meir, then foreign minister, visited Uganda, and several technical cooperation agreements were signed.
  • Israeli officers trained Uganda's air force, paratroopers, armoured corps and infantry.
  • The air force's first pilots trained in "Israel" on Fouga jets bought from "Israel".
  • Israeli firms built the Bugolobi flats, the Kampala–Gulu highway and Arua airfield.[3]

Amin attended an Israeli paratrooper course in 1965. According to Arye Oded, a former Israeli diplomat, he received paratrooper wings although he did not complete it, "because he was an important officer friendly to Israel".[10] Israeli interest in Uganda was tied to Sudan:

  • The Monitor reports claims that "Israel" intended to use Uganda to arm and train the southern Sudanese Anyanya rebels.[3]
  • Oded writes that it was in "Israel"'s interest that "an independent entity should be established in southern Sudan".[10]

Milton Obote accused "Israel" of helping Amin's coup of 25 January 1971. "Israel" denied it, and whether it did help "remains the subject of debate".[10][3]

Amin then asked for a £10 million loan and for Phantom jets to use against Tanzania, and was refused. After a visit to Muammar Gaddafi in February 1972, he declined on 22 March to renew the military agreements. On 23 March he gave the Israeli ambassador and all Israeli military personnel, "together with all agents of Mossad", four days to leave. Three days later he expelled all Israeli nationals.[3]

Entebbe, 1976

On 27 June 1976 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Baader-Meinhof group hijacked an Air France flight from Lod via Athens to Paris and diverted it, via Benghazi, to Entebbe. Ugandan soldiers, in the words of Ehud Barak, then one of the rescue planners, were "totally co-operating with the terrorists". On the night of 3–4 July Israeli commandos stormed the old terminal:

  • all seven hijackers and their accomplices and about 20 Ugandan soldiers were killed;[11]
  • three hostages and the unit commander, Lt Col Yonatan Netanyahu, died;
  • the hostage Dora Bloch, who had been taken to hospital in Kampala, was murdered on Amin's orders the day after the rescue.[4]

The operation, codenamed Thunderball, was renamed Operation Yonatan; "Operation Thunderbolt" is the name popularly used for it.[4] In July 2016 Benjamin Netanyahu marked its 40th anniversary at Entebbe, where he was greeted by President Yoweri Museveni.[11] He also held a regional summit there with leaders from Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania.[12]

Museveni and defence cooperation

On a visit to Entebbe in February 2020, Netanyahu told Museveni: "you open an embassy in Jerusalem, I'll open an embassy in Kampala". Museveni replied, "We are studying that".[13][14] In September 2022 Uganda and "Israel" signed a defence cooperation memorandum. Uganda's defence ministry says "Israel" has collaborated with the army in "training, intelligence collection, air space management and border protection". It also credited "Israel" with a big role in building Uganda's air defence.[15] In 2014 the defence ministry's order of close-combat weapons from Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) for elite units led to the arrest at Entebbe of two Israeli arms dealers. Ugandan courts later cleared them.[16]

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records:

  • 1960s: Israeli Magister trainers, C-47 transports, Super Cub light aircraft and Sherman tanks;
  • from 2002: 155mm towed guns, ATMOS self-propelled guns (2003 and 2008), CARDOM mortars (2008), Spike anti-tank missiles (2016) and SandCat SPEAR mortars (2021).[17]

Third-country deportations, 2013–2018

From 2013 "Israel" transferred Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers on a "voluntary" basis to unnamed "third countries", in practice Uganda and Rwanda. According to Amnesty, many left because they had been ordered to report to the Holot detention centre, or feared they would be. Under a new deportation procedure of January 2018, those who accepted would receive $3,500 and a ticket, and those who refused could be detained.[5] The International Refugee Rights Initiative interviewed people sent to Uganda and Rwanda between 2014 and 2015. It found that their Israeli travel documents were taken from them on arrival, leaving them without status.[18]

Uganda has consistently denied having any agreement. On 3 April 2018 its foreign minister, Henry Okello Oryem, reportedly said: "We do not have a contract, any understanding, formal or informal, with Israel". Even so, Israeli officials told the Supreme Court that a Ugandan deal was still valid. On 15 April 2018 the court suspended the deportation plan, and Amnesty reported that negotiations with Uganda continued.[5]

Trade

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Israeli imports from Uganda of $10.6 million in 2025 (2024: $11.0 million) and exports to Uganda of $17.3 million (2024: $5.3 million).[19]

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Uganda separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[20] Only one member of the Abayudaya, Yosef Kibita, has been accepted under the Law of Return, in 2024.[1] Migration in the other direction came through the deportation of asylum seekers from "Israel" to Uganda.[5]

Political interference

Obote's charge that "Israel" helped Amin seize power in 1971 was denied and remains disputed.[10][3] In 2020 Netanyahu publicly pressed Museveni to move Uganda's embassy to Jerusalem.[13]

No credible sourced link between Jeffrey Epstein and Zionist or Israeli activity in Uganda was found, so this page has no Epstein section.

See also

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, After long legal fight, man from Ugandan Jewish community is approved for Israeli citizenship JTA, 16 August 2024.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Uganda is 100th outpost for Chabad-Lubavitch JTA, 20 November 2017.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Isaac Mufumba, When Amin sent Israelis packing Daily Monitor, 24 March 2024.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Raffi Berg, Recollections of Entebbe, 30 years on BBC News, 3 July 2006.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Amnesty International, Forced and Unlawful: Israel's Deportation of Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum-Seekers to Uganda Amnesty International, 2018 (critical).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Josefin Dolsten, Lacking status in Israel, Jews in Uganda see new synagogue as 'our Jerusalem' JTA, 15 September 2016.
  7. ↑ The Forward, Israel Will Not Recognize Uganda 'Jews' The Forward, 31 May 2018.
  8. ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026 (Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States-side).
  9. ↑ Embassy of Kenya in Tel Aviv, Kenya–Israel Relations Kenya Embassy Tel Aviv, accessed 21 October 2026 (Kenyan government-side).
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Arye Oded, Israeli-Ugandan Relations in the Time of Idi Amin Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1 October 2006 (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs-side).
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 BBC News, Israel's Netanyahu in Entebbe to mark hostage-rescue anniversary BBC News, 4 July 2016.
  12. ↑ Al Jazeera, Israeli PM's East Africa trip starts in Uganda Al Jazeera, 4 July 2016.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 AFP, Netanyahu urges Uganda to open embassy in Jerusalem The Independent (Uganda), 3 February 2020.
  14. ↑ Baker Batte, Netanyahu: How Israelis took over State House The Observer, 5 February 2020.
  15. ↑ Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs (Uganda), Uganda And Israel Sign Memorandum Of Understanding On Defence Cooperation defence.go.ug, 19 September 2022 (Ugandan government-side).
  16. ↑ The Independent (Uganda), Fight over Israel, Uganda arms deal The Independent (Uganda), 1 December 2014.
  17. ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
  18. ↑ International Refugee Rights Initiative, "I was left with nothing": "Voluntary" departures of asylum seekers from Israel to Rwanda and Uganda ReliefWeb, 8 September 2015 (critical).
  19. ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy) (Israeli government-side).
  20. ↑ 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 (Israeli government-side).
Retrieved from "https://powerbase.info/index.php?title=Jewish,_Zionist_and_Israeli_connections_to_Uganda&oldid=292328"