South Sudan, Israel’s New Ally

[Valin]

National Review:

Time to lay the foundations for successful statehood.
Daniel Pipes
1/4/12

Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan

It’s not every day that the leader of a brand-new country makes his maiden foreign voyage to Jerusalem, capital of the most besieged country in the world — but Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, did just that in late December. Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, hailed his visit as a “moving and historic moment.” The visit spurred talk of South Sudan’s locating its embassy in Jerusalem, which would make it the only government anywhere in the world to do so.

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Accordingly, independence in 1956 brought civil war, as southerners battled to fend off Muslim hegemony. Fortunately for them, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s “periphery strategy” translated into support for non-Arabs in the Middle East, including the southern Sudanese. Through the first Sudanese civil war, which lasted until 1972, the Israeli government served as the south’s primary source of moral backing, diplomatic help, and armaments.

President Kiir acknowledged this contribution in Jerusalem, noting that “Israel has always supported the South Sudanese people. Without you, we would not have arisen. You struggled alongside us in order to allow the establishment of South Sudan.” In reply, Peres recalled his presence in the early 1960s in Paris, when the then–prime minister and he established Israel’s first-ever link with southern Sudanese leaders.

(Snip)