Ethiopia
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Ethiopia
Israel
Israel has been one of Ethiopia's most reliable suppliers
of military assistance, largely because Tel Aviv believed
that if it supported Ethiopia, hostile Arab nations would be
unable to exert control over the Red Sea and the Bab el
Mandeb, which forms its southern outlet. During the imperial
era, Israeli advisers trained paratroops and
counterinsurgency units belonging to the Fifth Division
(also called the Nebelbal--or Flame--Division). In the early
1960s, Israel started helping the Ethiopian government in
its campaigns against the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF).
Even after Ethiopia broke diplomatic relations with Israel
at the time of the October 1973 War, Israel quietly
continued to supply military aid to Ethiopia. This
assistance continued after Mengistu came to power in 1974
and included spare parts and ammunition for United Statesmade weapons and service for United States-made F-5 jet
fighters. Israel also maintained a small group of military
advisers in Addis Ababa.
In 1978, however, when former Israeli minister of foreign
affairs Moshe Dayan admitted that Israel had been providing
security assistance to Ethiopia, Mengistu expelled all
Israelis so that he might preserve his relationship with
radical Arab countries such as Libya and South Yemen.
Nonetheless, although Addis Ababa claimed it had terminated
its military relationship with Israel, military cooperation
continued. In 1983, for example, Israel provided
communications training, and in 1984 Israeli advisers
trained the Presidential Guard and Israeli technical
personnel served with the police. Some Western observers
believed that Israel provided military assistance to
Ethiopia in exchange for Mengistu's tacit cooperation during
Operation Moses in 1984, in which 10,000 Beta Israel
(Ethiopian Jews; also called Falasha) were evacuated to
Israel (see
Ethnic Groups, Ethnicity, and Language, ch. 2).
In 1985 Tel Aviv reportedly sold Addis Ababa at least US$20
million in Soviet-made munitions and spare parts captured
from Palestinians in Lebanon. According to the EPLF, the
Mengistu regime received US$83 million worth of Israeli
military aid in 1987, and Israel deployed some 300 military
advisers to Ethiopia. Additionally, the EPLF claimed that
thirty-eight Ethiopian pilots had gone to Israel for
training.
In late 1989, Israel reportedly finalized a secret
agreement to provide increased military assistance to Addis
Ababa in exchange for Mengistu's promise to allow Ethiopia's
remaining Beta Israel to emigrate to Israel. In addition,
the two nations agreed to restore diplomatic relations
(Israel opened an embassy in Addis Ababa on December 17,
1989) and to increase intelligence cooperation. Mengistu
apparently believed that Israel--unlike the Soviet Union,
whose military advisers emphasized conventional tactics--
could provide the training and matériel needed to transform
the Ethiopian army into a counterinsurgency force capable of
defeating Eritrean and Tigrayan separatists.
During 1990 Israeli-Ethiopian relations continued to
prosper. According to a New York Times report, Tel Aviv
furnished an array of military assistance to Addis Ababa,
including 150,000 rifles, cluster bombs, ten to twenty
military advisers to train Mengistu's Presidential Guard,
and an unknown number of instructors to work with Ethiopian
commando units. Unconfirmed reports also suggested that
Israel had provided the Ethiopian air force with
surveillance cameras and had agreed to train Ethiopian
pilots.
In return for this aid, Ethiopia permitted the emigration
of the Beta Israel. Departures in the spring reached about
500 people a month before Ethiopian officials adopted new
emigration procedures that reduced the figure by more than
two-thirds. The following year, Tel Aviv and Addis Ababa
negotiated another agreement whereby Israel provided
agricultural, economic, and health assistance. Also, in May
1991, as the Mengistu regime neared its end, Israel paid
US$35 million in cash for permission to fly nearly 15,000
Beta Israel from Ethiopia to Israel.
Data as of 1991
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