The Jerusalem Post - 05/29/2011 17:34
Monday, 30 May 2011
Geldof in Israel:
Gov't needs to invest more in Africa
By GIL SHEFLER
Talkbacks (5)
Israel’s involvement in Africa alleviating poverty and developing local economies is noble yet it needs to do more, said singer-activist Bob Geldof at a conference on Israel and Africa held in Herzliya on Sunday.
The former Boomtown Rats front man known for his part in fighting poverty in Africa addressed hundreds of attendants at the event organized by the relief group IsrAid with the help of the Pratt Foundation.
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“There’s something noble about the fact that Israel a country born in misery and suffering aspires to assist Africa,” Geldfod said. “The Israeli government needs to start spreading resources to support friends that would assist us down the road. Israel has agriculture, high tech and information that are needed in Africa now. They need investment to further develop Africa. “
Geldof said the unsolved regional conflicts between Israel, the Palestinians and its neighbors need not preclude the Jewish state from reaching out the impoverished continent.
“I know we’re preoccupied with our problems in the region but just because you’re stuck in the gutters you can’t watch the stars,” he said.
Hundreds of people attended the conference which examined the sometimes complicated ties between Israel and Africa. Beside Geldof the event included several prominent Israeli figures with connections to the southern continent.
“We had journalist Itai Engel and singer Idan Racihal, who spoke about their experiences in Africa, as well as people from [Israeli water company] Netafim who spoke about the vast amount of integration and work in Western and Eastern Africa,” said IsraAid head Shachar Zahavi. “We brought our lawyer from Rwanda talking about partnership with the Hebrew University on human rights and refuge. “
Most gatherers at the Daniel Hotel were too young to remember the golden age of Israel in Africa. Back in the 50s and 60s the nascent Jewish state was one of the biggest per capita lenders of aid to developing countries in the world –at one point in time second only to France. An extensive network of Israeli technical advisers and agricultural experts fanned out across the Dark Continent cultivating ties with new nations which, like Israel, had only just gained independence from colonial rule.
Yehuda Paz, the chairperson for NISPED Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development and one of the speakers at the conference in Herzliya on Sunday, was one of those Israeli advisers.
“Every aid project has a political element and a financial one,” said the 80-year-old Brooklyn native. “These are worthy things but that’s not why Israel got involved in Africa. First, it had to do with what Israel should be in the eyes of the world. It’s hard to understand today but Prime Minister Ben Gurion wanted to show the world we were founded on mutual aid and justice. We thought that after 2,000 years Israel will be based on values not just interests. Second, Israel was seen as an example in the fields of agricultural and rural development. Third, Israel was a leader in the cooperative movement with hundreds of thousands of members worldwide as well as in the labor union movement.”
In 1974, however, relations soured quickly. The majority of sub-Saharan countries sided with the Arabs and severed ties with Israel in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. A feeling of betrayal has lingered and Israeli aid to Africa has never returned to its pre-war levels.
“It was terrible and was caused by two things," Paz recalled. 'First, the oil crisis. The Arabs used oil as a weapon and the prices skyrocketed to 20 dollars. The Arabs promised aid to African countries but they never fulfilled their promise. The second was political power of the non-aligned countries.”
During those years Israel also strengthened its ties with Apartheid South Africa, partly as a reaction to its treatment by the rest of the continent, creating yet more tension with Sub-Saharan states. Still, Israeli experts never entirely left the region.
“The now defunct Afro-Asian Institute I was the head of had ties with 50 countries including in Africa all that time,” Paz said. “In later years most African leaders admitted they had made a mistake cutting ties with Israel. I know several leaders of African states who not only personally expressed regret but some of them even expressed shame.”
Nowadays Israel is once again increasing its involvement in the continent through several projects albeit not on the same scale of the past.
“Africa as you know is undergoing a great boom, it is slowly accelerating its economic development although Israeli involvement there isn’t always beneficial –but that’s another issue,” he said. “One has to remember less than one percent of Israel’s imports and less than five percent of its exports are with Africa.”
One claim for greater involvement in Africa is that if Israel ignores it then its problems will eventually show up on its own doorstep. In recent years a growing number of Africans from Sudan, Eritrea and other countries have illegally entered Israel seeking work and refuge. But solving that problem might be beyond Israel’s capacity, Paz said.
“For Israel to stop migration it needs to be an impoverished nation,” Paz said. ”You have to understand there are a billion people who live on less than a dollar a day in the world. One person in eight is hungry. It’s not that they aren’t eating enough steak, they’re starving. They have no future, no hope for their children and they will do everything they can to give them hope.”
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