South Sudan: Free From Islam's Barbarians...

South Sudan's Friendship With Israel!

Prime Minister Netanyahu with
South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit

UBA, South Sudan (JTA) – Sudan’s second civil war lasted from 1983 to 2005 and resulted in an estimated 1.5 million to 2.5 million deaths. Juba, the city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital. For one thing, most of the city’s inhabitants are Christian. For another, the Israeli flag is ubiquitous here. Miniature Israeli flags hang from car windshields and flutter at roadside stalls, and at the Juba souk in the city’s downtown, you can buy lapel pins with the Israeli flag alongside its black, red and green South Sudanese counterpart.

“I love Israel,” said Joseph Lago, who sells pens, chewing gum and phone cards at a small wooden stall decorated with Israeli and South Sudanese flags. “They are people of God.” Many South Sudanese are not just pro-Israel but proudly and openly so. There’s a Juba neighborhood called Jerusalem. A hotel near the airport is called the Shalom. Perhaps most notable, South Sudan’s fondness for Israel extends to the diplomatic arena, where the two countries have been building strategic ties in a relationship that long preceded the founding of South Sudan last July.

“They see in Israel a kind of a role model of how a small nation surrounded by enemies can survive and prosper, and they would like to imitate that,” Haim Koren, the incoming Israeli ambassador to South Sudan, said “Israel was the only country that helped the Christian rebels in South Sudan.They provided advisers to the Anyana, which is one reason why the government of South Sudan wanted to sign a peace agreement.

Agriculture is another reason for the alliance. South Sudan’s economic future likely depends on large-scale farming. 

Now free from the Islamofascists.

There was little commercial development in the region during the war years, and the country still imports much of its food from Uganda, despite sitting on some of Africa’s richest potential farmland.

Israel already has a small presence in the country in the form of IsraAid, an Israeli NGO coalition. In March, an IsraAid delegation helped South Sudan set up its Ministry of Social Development, which will provide social work-related services for a population traumatized by decades of war.

“Whenever you say you’re from Israel, they’ll open you the door,” said Ophelie Namiech, the head of the Israeli delegation. “When we say we’re Israeli, the trust has already been built.” (JTA) (Photos: Copyright Control)