Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Mauritania
Mauritania's full diplomatic relations with the Zionist state from 1999, the embassies, the January 2009 freeze over the Gaza offensive, the expulsion of Israeli diplomats in March 2009 and the definitive break of 2010
Mauritania was one of only three Arab states to have full diplomatic relations with "Israel", alongside Egypt and Jordan.[1] Relations were established in Washington in October 1999, under President Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya.[2] Mauritania suspended them in January 2009 over the Gaza offensive, expelled Israeli diplomats in March 2009, and in March 2010 declared the break "complete and definitive".[3]
Jewish community and religious life
History
No historic Jewish community in Mauritania was found in the sources consulted.
The community today
No organised Jewish community was found in Mauritania.
How far is it Zionist? No Zionist or Israeli-linked communal body was found in Mauritania.
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Mauritania, and the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi there.[4]
Zionist movement and advocacy
No organised Zionist movement was found in Mauritania. An academic study describes popular opinion as "generally pro-Arab, pro-Islamic and pro-Palestinian", and says the general population "was never comfortable with diplomatic or trade relations with Israel". It reports that in October 2007 President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi admitted that the relationship "did not have the approval of the majority of Mauritanians".[5]
Israeli state and commercial ties
From secret contacts to embassies (1995–1999)
According to the same study, contacts began in secret in New York, Madrid and Barcelona. The first official ministerial meeting was between Foreign Minister Muhammad Salim Ould Likhal and Shimon Peres in Madrid on 18 June 1995. On 27 November 1995 the two sides agreed to open interests offices in Tel Aviv and Nouakchott.[5] In late October 1998 Foreign Minister Cheikh El Avia Ould Mohamed Khouna visited Tel Aviv. The study says he went to congratulate Benjamin Netanyahu on his election victory. The visit was met with "stringent popular and Arab rejection". Two weeks later he was appointed prime minister. The study says this was seen as "a reward for his visit to Israel".[5]
On 28 October 1999 Mauritanian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ould Sid'Ahmed and Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy announced full diplomatic relations at the US State Department. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hosted them. She praised Taya and Sid'Ahmed for their "courage and determination in supporting the Middle East peace process".[2] A 2020 study by Ifri says Taya wanted relations "mainly to move closer to the United States, even though this decision was extremely unpopular with the citizens of his country". Mauritania had an embassy in Tel Aviv from 1999.[6]
Visits (2001–2005)
The study records several visits:
- a visit by the Mauritanian foreign minister in 2001, who met Ariel Sharon;
- a meeting between Taya and Peres at the Johannesburg World Summit on 5 September 2002;
- a 2005 visit to Mauritania by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
It also notes that Mauritania did not cut relations at the start of the Second Intifada in September 2000, when several other Arab states recalled their representatives.[5]
Freeze and break (2009–2010)
After the Gaza offensive began in December 2008, Mauritania and Qatar suspended political and economic ties with "Israel" in January 2009. This followed calls at an emergency Arab summit in Doha.[1] General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz had seized power in a coup on 6 August 2008.[5] In March 2009 his government expelled Israeli diplomats and ordered the Israeli embassy closed.[3][1] On 20 March 2010 Foreign Minister Naha Mint Hamdi Ould Mouknass said in Nouakchott that Mauritania had cut ties "in a complete and definitive way".[3] The Ifri study says the 2009 closure ended "all official contact".[6]
Commercial ties
The 2011 study says Israeli companies had invested "significantly throughout all sectors of the economy". It adds that many commercial and industrial ties with Israeli corporations persisted after the break.[5]
Arms
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute records no Israeli arms deliveries to Mauritania.[7]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Mauritania separately in its main table of trade by country. Mauritania falls under "Other Countries".[8]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list Mauritania separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[9]
Political interference
The 2011 study argues that Mauritania sought relations partly to win "the support of the Jewish lobby in the American administration", at a time when Washington had placed it on a blacklist for human rights violations.[5] It also says that the high-profile visits and the embassies caused tensions that "eventually factored in precipitating" the 2005 coup against Taya.[5]
No credible sourced link between Jeffrey Epstein and Zionist or Israeli activity in Mauritania was found, so this page has no Epstein section.
See also
- Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States
- Zionist movement
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Morocco
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Senegal
External links
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Al Jazeera, Mauritania 'shuts' Israeli embassy Al Jazeera, 6 March 2009.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 US Department of State, Remarks at Ceremony on Signing of Diplomatic Relations state.gov, 28 October 1999 (US government-side).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 VOA News, Mauritania Affirms Break with Israel Voice of America, 20 March 2010.
- ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026 (Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States-side).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Mahmood al-Kurwy and Faysal Shalal Abbas, Mauritanian–Israeli relations: from normalization to freeze to suspension Contemporary Arab Affairs, vol. 4, no. 1, January–March 2011, pp. 30–50.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Benjamin Augé, Israel-Africa Relations: What Can We Learn from the Netanyahu Decade? Études de l'Ifri, Ifri, November 2020.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 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).
- ↑ 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).