When Israel supported boycotts against a white supremacist regime
Israel not only boycotted Rhodesia in the 1960s, it fully backed the armed liberation movement that would eventually overthrow its white-led regime.
A Rhodesian soldier questioning villagers near the border of Botswana in the fall of 1977. (J. Ross Baughman)
On September 20, 1966, David Ramin, then Israel’s representative at the UN, presented his country’s official position on Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, to the General Assembly. Israel, Ramin said, condemned Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence in November 1965, which led to the colony of Southern Rhodesia’s secession from Britain and the establishment of a dictatorial regime run by a white minority that discriminated against and oppressed its African majority.