Tag: africa

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LOST TRIBES RETURN: My Brothers the Igbo

During our exile from the Land of Israel we yearned to find our lost brothers, known as the Ten Lost Tribes who were exiled from Samaria in stages 2700 years ago by the Assyrians. Most scholars agree that just like the Bible says, the exiled Israelites were brought east to today’s Pashtun territory straddling the Durand line of Afghanistand and Pakistan.

The following verse in Kings describes the area.

2 Kings 17:6: “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.”

According to Nadav Sofy an activist for reuniting the Bani Yisrael of the Pashtun with the rest of Israel, “The area of the Pashtun is the only area in the world that shares these descriptions.”  While it is true that the area of the Pashtun as well as even areas of Kurdistan and north in the Caucus seems to mirror the above verse, there were three expulsions of Israelites by the Assyrians and probably more.

Nearly two years ago I wrote a post insinuating that the Pashtun had the only accurate claim to the title of Lost Tribes of Israel.  Others with Jewish affinity I have argued come from the Persian period that witnessed thousands across the empire ranging from India to South Sudan join the Jewish people.

While I still believe the Persian period is a great explanation on how Jewish customs are found across this large diverse number of regions, it does not take in consideration west African Jewry.

The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin page 94a asks where the Lost Tribes were sent to.  The first opinion is Africa and the second opinion is the mountains of Shlug, who most scholars indicate are the Caucus Mountains, directly north of the Kurdistan region in Turkey.

So which opinion is right?  I believe it is entirely possible like in other “disagreements” in the Talmud that both opinions may be right.  Remember, the Assyrians exiled the northern Israelites in stages and it is also clear their empire stretched across a vast area from Africa to what is today is Persia.  Interestingly enough it roughly mimics the Persian Empire that rose 250 years later.  It is entirely possible that the Assyrians split the Tribes up and sent them to the Caucuses, Afghanistan and yes Africa.

 

Where in Africa?

Let’s assume the most likely place for the initial expulsion was south or even southwest of Egypt, which was known as Cush or today’s southern Sudan.  From there the tribes would have spread out some moving as has been proven into the Gondor region of northern Ethiopia and the others would have travelled slowly.  In time they moved west and eventually reached what is today known as eastern Nigeria or by the Igbos as Igboland or Biara.


The Igbo are a decentralized group of clans that have a tradition that they migrated from a northern area and are of the tribes of  Ephraim, Naphtali, Menasseh, Levi, Zebulun and Gad.  The British recorded how the Igbo kept circumcision, stayed away from impure meat, practiced biblical purity laws and much more. Their oral traditions are called Omenana, “what to do in the Land.”

Of course, many of the Igbo traditions and oral memory was decimated during the Atlantic slave trade, which the Igbo became an outsized portion of due to their stubborness in the face of their colonial masters. With their conversion to Christianity, many Igbo began to gravitate to Saturday as being the true Sabbath after insisting that was the tradition of their forefathers.

With activists like Daniel Lis, Remy Ilona, and more, the Igbo are quickly finding the ancient origins of their traditions seem to lie in the Bible itself.

With an increased interest by many in Israel to find out lost brothers across the world, the Igbo are literally screaming for recognition. Change is hard. Acceptance of the other is perhaps the greatest test to our need for unity.  We find ourselves in the End of Days where we are to witness the reconnection and merger of the staffs of Judah and Efraim.  We, the descendents of Judah have always expected the Tribes to be in one location and would appear like us, but that was an expectation born out of a faulty notion of our global tribal unit and own experiences.  The fact is the Tribes are scattered throughout the world and it is time we accept their yearning to return and act as the facilitator for their homecoming.

The Igbo, like our brothers in Afghanistan are a test for our stubborness to see reality and past the color barrier we have sponged up from our travels in Europe.  Redemption is as much about our own inner tranformation as it is about bringing home the exiles of our people. In this regard, our ability to see passed our brothers’ skin color as well as our work at bringing them home is also apart of our own inner transformation. This transformation will ultimately lead to a reconfigured Israel that is the ultimate revelation of the Creator’s kingship in the world.

 

 

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From Wakanda to Israel: a Zionist Pan-Africanist’s takeaway from “Black Panther”

Marvel’s newest superhero flick, “Black Panther” is breaking box office records, and for good reason. The revolutionary production of this movie aside, the film is an archetypal goldmine (or should I say “Vibranium mine”), chock full of explicit and implicit messages and symbolism that speak to the historical and lived experiences of, not only African peoples, but all persecuted and/or post-colonial nations pursuing auto-emancipation.

As an Israeli of a Caribbean background, an unapologetic Zionist and Pan-Africanist, I couldn’t help but appreciate this meaningful cinematic expression of internal conflicts that appear to be unique and highly relevant to the Jewish and African Diasporic experiences. A unique likeness, that both Binyamin Ze’ev Herzl (the father of modern Zionism) and Edward Wilmot Blyden (the father of Pan-Africanism) identified as sources for mutual inspiration in what may be the first and best case of meaningful intersectionality, which lead to revolutionary social movements. There are many aspects of this film that warrant in depth analysis and articulation, but four main points (detailed below) stood out to me as particularly relating to the shared African and Jewish experience with colonialism and slavery (at the hands of both European supremacists and Arab supremacists).

Early map of Wakanda (in blue) from the Marvel Comics Atlas Volume 1

First things first, however, much respect to the creators of the Black Panther character and universe, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Two Jews who utilized their artistic talent to express a quintessentially Jewish response to a world full of pain, oppression, and tyranny; to highlight the clash between good and evil, and give us heroes to inspire us in our individual and collective struggles. In the era of the civil rights movement, when Africa and African life was popularly viewed as inferior, they dared create a fictional African country untainted by colonialism, rich in super-natural resources (Vibranium), and a technological/military/political powerhouse. A narrative, that in the age of sh*thole gate, BLM, and the Libyan slave trade couldn’t be more relevant. A story, Director Ryan Coogler, was able to adapt to cinema with ease.

Wakanda’s internal ideological debate: isolationism vs interventionism. Upon the main character T’Challa’s coronation as the Black Panther (the title and superpower endowedon Wakanda’s hereditary monarchs), T’Challa is faced with the dilemma of defining Wakanda’s relationship with the international community. He inherited a Wakanda that managed to become a technological powerhouse and socially stable/thriving state on account of its isolationist policies; yet segments of the leadership (including T’Challa himself) feel morally obligated to share their success/freedom with the rest of Africa and the world. Being a tiny country with a bustling economy and high tech resources, yet paranoid from existential threats, the parallels with the reborn Jewish state are obvious.

Killmonger vs T’Challa’s vision for Tikkun Olam (repairing the world). A product of the African Diasporic experience, T’Challa’s Oakland born and raised principal nemesis in the movie, Erik Killmonger, is a Pan-African reflection of the European colonialism that oppresses his community. Like the European supremacists, Killmonger sees all Africans as defined (and united) by their appearance. Blaming Wakanda for not saving his community, Killmonger wants to use Wakanda’s resources to colonize the world, but this time for the benefit of indigenous Africans and other traditionally oppressed peoples. Conversely, T’Challa is fundamentally committed to his tribe (to his nation-state), yet he has universal aspirations to help solve the ills of the humanity. Not by force, but through leading by example. Rome vs Jerusalem. Uniformity vs Unity.




The complimentary relationship between spirituality and technology. Wakandan society is a powerful expression of progress guided (not stunted) by tradition. The responsibility to one’s ancestral culture and the ability to change reality with spiritual experience and/or technological advancement is an inspiring vision for all post-colonial indigenous societies and is fundamental to Torah Judaism’s prescription for a healthy Hebrew nation. Both Africans and Jews (African Jews included) have been historically denied their right to practice their indigenous faith and culture, which throughout their respective histories in the diaspora were generally depicted as primitive and even barbaric.

Wakanda: the Pan-African Zion, aligns with Achad Ha’Am and Rav Kook‘s vision for a spiritual revival that both provides former exiles with a life of substantive meaning while propelling us forward.

The temptation of radicalism. As demonstrated by the reaction of many of the characters in the film, it’s hard not to sympathize with and/or be drawn to Killmonger’s emotional rhetoric. It’s always easier to paint our complex reality in black and white. To prescribe simple solutions to complex problems. On the level of first or formative principles (good and evil, right and wrong), simplification is vital, but when it’s dogmatically applied to all contexts void of nuance it becomes dangerous. T’Challa identifies the destructive ends this approach would produce, and like Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Malcolm X (post Nation of Islam), in the movie he seeks to bring about a revolution for his people in a way that emphasizes the value of all of humanity.

By the same token, there have been times when both the Pan-Africanist and Zionist movements have ethically faltered in pursuing their goals (a topic for another piece), but none of this changes the fact that if the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice (as MLK famously said), the story of kidnapped and exiled Africans and Jews (African Jews included) must not end in tragedy, but triumph. That each of us can be a superhero in realizing the dreams of our ancestors and right the wrongs of history. To be free peoples, in our indigenous homelands.

As Malcolm X once put it, “Pan Africanism will do for the people of African descent all over the world, the same that Zionism has done for Jews all over the world.” The Zionist movement has revolutionized Jewish existence. It successfully restored some of history’s first victims of European colonialism and enslavement (at the hands of the Romans) to sovereignty in their indigenous homeland, revived the dying language of a dying people, helped bring the British Empire to its knees, and returned millions of exiles to their ancestral lands. Most importantly it restored Jewish pride in Jewishness. That for the first time in 2000 years a generation of Hebrews will be raised to know they have a home, that they are active participants in the world. As the father of Pan-Africanism, Edward Wilmot Blyden insightfully highlighted in his essay, “The Jewish Question,” Zionism successfully awakened the Jewish people from indifference to their persecution to an active sense of national responsibility, and this was precisely the effect he sought for Pan-Africanism to have on the African Diaspora. Likewise, Wakanda, as depicted in the “Black Panther” film, embodies the vision of Blyden and his Pan-Africanist descendants; a symbol from which Africans throughout the world can derive pride and strength.

The moral and physical struggle between T’Challa and Killmonger certainly exemplifies many of the similarities between Zionism and Pan-Africanism as indigenous rights’ movements; as does this quote from Killmonger during the movie that immediately brought to my mind images from both Masada and Igbo Landing:

“Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, cause they knew death was better than bondage.”

Looking forward to Black Panther round two!

African American members of the “Black Panther Party” (coincidentally founded a few months after Stan Lee created the superhero) lining up to defend their community (top photo).
Hebrew soldiers of the IDF lining up to defend the Jewish State (bottom photo).

Published first in the Times of Israel.

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HEBREW WARRIOR General Joseph Achuzie of Biafra Dies at 89

The struggle for an Igbo led free Biafra was led in its early days by many dedicated leaders. One of these leaders the Biafran hero General Joseph Achuzie  has passed to the next world at the age of 89.

He was a courageous and fearless defender of justice and the persecuted. Achuzie was a hero who stood along with his fellow patriots to defend our people and homeland when the Nigerian government in collaboration with the British government dedicated themselves to the total annihilation of the Igbo and the other ethnic nationalities of Biafra, which led to the unconscionable annexation of our home land.

At that most critical moment in our history men and women like Achuzie rallied together and by sheer courage and bravery they fought back and prevented a preconceived total and systemic genocide of our people. A genocide aimed at wiping out the Israelite presence in West Africa. Of all those people who fought to stop the most outrageous and unspeakable evil committed against a people since history on the African continent General Achuzie stood out.

Biafrans of this generation and subsequent ones owe our survival to the courage and sacrifices of such men and women like Achuzie. If an independent Hebrew State of Biafra led by the Igbo people has any hope of transpiring it will need peope like Achuzie her were selfess and courageous and believed in the divine destiny of the Igbo people and their Israelite heritage stemming from the tribe of Gad.

Naa n’udo General, our hero, rest on in the noble company of our reposed ancestors.

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Light and Water Flow to Rural Africa Due to Israeli Tech

Israeli-led NGO applies Israeli solar technologies to bring clean water and electricity to rural African villages.

The scene was shocking: Villagers in Akuyam, Uganda, hadn’t eaten in three days when Sivan Ya’ari and her Innovation: Africa  staff met them in February 2017 on their way to check on the organization’s solar water-pumping and drip-irrigation projects in six nearby villages.

“The state of poverty we saw there was nothing like we’d ever seen before. During the week we were there, 37 people died. The drought and hunger is truly incomprehensible,” says Genna Brand, iA’s director of communications.

Ya’ari, the Israeli founder of the nine-year-old NGO, immediately added Akuyam to iA’s list of projects in the Karamoja region. She also mounted iA’s first-ever emergency feeding appeal – an exception to the organization’s mission of using Israeli technology to raise the long-term standard of living in African villages.

“We went back to Israel and raised $110,000 for a food relief mission and sent maize, beans and other food through an African supplier. It was very challenging logistically but we couldn’t turn a blind eye to what we saw,” Brand tells ISRAEL21c.

iA’s country manager in Uganda reported that both the emergency aid and the water-pumping project have led to healthier and happier Akuyam residents.

iA has so far installed solar technology in schools, orphanages and medical clinics in some 150 villages in Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia, DRC, Senegal and Cameroon, bringing clean water and electricity to more than 1 million people.

Ya’ari believes that using Israeli knowhow to harness energy from the abundant sun in Africa is the key to freeing rural villagers from poverty and food insecurity. Electricity allows them to pump water for drip irrigation, refrigerate lifesaving medications and vaccines, and light up classrooms.

Power Africa

Now iA is positioned to do even more, since Israel became an official partner in the USAID Power Africa initiative for sub-Saharan Africa, where two out of three residents lack access to electricity.




Ya’ari was on a panel with other solar-energy champions — including Yosef “Kaptain Sunshine” Abramowitz of Energiya Global and Power Africa Coordinator Andrew M. Herscowitz — at the December 4, 2017 ceremony in Jerusalem marking this opportunity for many Israeli companies to take part in electrifying Africa.

“When I am approached by private-sector companies showing me different products, I am always telling them ‘keep it simple.’ Because if it is not simple it will not be sustainable in the villages,” she said at the ceremony.

“Sometimes small-scale solutions are usually the best ones. So, keep it simple, keep it affordable, keep it sustainable. This is really the key.”

As ISRAEL21c reported in February 2014, Ya’ari first visited Africa while working for an international clothing company.

The conditions she saw prompted her to earn a master’s degree in international energy management and policy from Columbia University and then to intern at the United Nations Development Program.

In 2008, she established Innovation: Africa (originally called “Jewish Heart for Africa”) as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in New York, where it’s still headquartered. She moved back to Israel in 2009 and heads iA’s Herzliya Pituah office; there also are offices in Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania.

Altogether, iA has 16 staffers including managers native to the countries in which they work. Salaries are paid from grants separately from funds raised for iA’s projects.

Donations often come from bar/bat mitzvah children. One Israeli bar mitzvah celebrant contributed $18,000 to power a primary school in Uganda for 1,000 students. He and his mother flew there in October for the installation ceremony.

When iA finishes a project, that’s never the end of its involvement. Locals are trained to maintain the solar-energy systems, which also are monitored remotely from Israel.

iA helps each community create a micro-business to generate funds to replace lightbulbs and other ongoing costs. For example, women in some villages run cell-phone charging stations. The small fees are earmarked for purchasing light bulbs, batteries and other needed items.

iA was granted Special Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 2012, and the following year it won the Innovation Award at the UN Global South-South Development Expo in Nairobi.

Another million people

Brand says that 2017 was a productive year for iA as it expanded its operations from seven to eight countries.

iA partnered with UNICEF to pump water in Bertoua, the capital of the Eastern Region of Cameroon, provide solar energy to three medical clinics, and install a solar water-pumping system in one village. Among those benefiting from this project are 250,000 refugees from the Central African Republic.

Seven iA water-pumping projects in Karamoja, Uganda, as well as one in Congo and four in Senegal, were accomplished in partnership with the Christian Broadcasting Network and private donors.
Brand points out that Karamoja holds special significance for the Israelis. This region was where Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl proposed Great Britain might provide temporary refuge for Jews endangered in Russia in 1903. The plan was never realized, but today technological breakthroughs invented in the Jewish homeland envisioned by Herzl are saving lives in the very same region.

Looking to the future, Brand says iA intends to impact another six million people and install solar energy in another 1,000 villages.

“We have some very exciting things on the horizon. This year we faced many new challenges but like true Israelis we see a problem and figure out the quickest and most efficient and sustainable way to fix the problem.”

For more information, click here

Originally Published on Israel21C.

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Cape Verde, Togo, and the Continued Rectification of the Israel-Africa Relationship

Cape Verde, an island nation of half a million people off the coast of Western Africa who has traditionally voted against Israel at the UN announced a few days ago that they were “no longer going to vote against Israel at the UN.” Coupled with this, they announced separately that Jewish cemeteries and synagogues in the country would be considered national heritage sites and protected against any changes.

The intiative to push the Jewish aspect of Cape Verde’s history was spearheaded by the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project (CVJHP). The CVJHP  has been active since 2008 and together with donations from the King of Morocco, has identified and helped restore and protect Jewish sites throughout Cape Verde.

Cape Verde was the destination for thousands of hidden Jews, fleeing persecution in Portugal in the 1500’s. Many of the citizens of Cape Verde are actually aware of their hidden ancestry. Later the Jewish population increased due to immigration by Jews from Morocco and Gibraltar.

Cape Verde’s switch from antagonistic to Israel is part of a process that has seen many sub-Sahara African countries open their doors to Israel.  This movement has increased growth between the African continent and Israel in many sectors such as agritech, medtech, security, and more.

Last night’s visit and dinner hosted at the Prime Minister’s residence between the Togalese President and the Netanyahu’s is an example of the growing closeness between the Jewish State and Africa.

Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe, wrote in the guestbook:  “I dream of Israel’s return to Africa and Africa’s return to Israel.”

This return has been a product of not only politics, but an awareness that both the Jewish people and many countries in Africa have much in common.

I wrote the following last year:

The war against Judah morphed into a religious struggle as the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, a small Jewish sect and warped it, cutting it off from its root. The Jewish exile swung into full force and oppression as the Jews that had now been scattered became second class citizens under both Christian Europe and the Islamic Middle East.

Within a short time these two colonial forces borrowing religious motifs from the crushed Judean culture undertook a continuance of their expansion past Israel into the heartland of Africa itself. It is not surprising that expulsions and forced slavery ensued over the centuries in Africa much the same way it began in Israel since the latter was seemingly an extension of the former.

The clear connection between Israel’s suffering and African suffering at the hands of European Christians and Arab Muslims is made that much more powerful by the fact that Israel is actually part of the African continent.  The African plate’s Northernmost part ends in Northern Israel and runs along the Jordan River to the South.  Looking at Israel in this light makes the Judean expulsion the beginning of Africa’s colonial period.

The shift in mindset across Africa  towards Israel is a realization that the colonialism forced on the African continent was designed to not only exploit the natural resources of the colony, but to essentially subvert the indigenous culture that had grown within the continent itself.   Israel had not only suffered from the same sort of persecution, but remained away from the exploitation itself.

Israel’s return to Africa and many Africa’s embrace of Israel is the beginning of a rectification process that can and will reverse the millenia of colonization, exploitation, and neo-colonialism that has been carried out both in Africa and throughout the Middle East as well as the Indian sub-continent by Western imperialists and radical islamists.

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AFRICA RISING: Rwandan President Kagame Meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem

Rwandan President Paul Kagame arrived in Jerusalem, Israel today for a three day working visit.  The Rwandan President was greeted warmly both by President Rivlin and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

The Prime Minister said the following to Kagame:

“You are coming back here; this is not the first time. But I can say that in one of our earlier meetings, I voiced the hope that Israel could come back to Africa in a big way, and that Africa could come back to Israel in a big way. We discussed this for some time. And you said, well, I think I can help. And in fact, you did help. I would say you were the indispensable bridge on which we marched to make our return to Africa, step by step, with very sound advice, very, very wise counsel. And together we chartered this course, coming first to East Africa, where we visited among other things your beautiful country, which is making impressive progress under your leadership, and then other countries as well; and then West Africa; and we’ll be making a third trip very soon, in one year. But I have to say that it began with my conversations with President Paul Kagame. So I want to thank you, Paul, for helping Israel, helping Israel and Africa, helping Israel in general. Thank you Mr. President.”

Israel has been a big supporter of Rwanda for over a decade, supplying solar energy, agricultural know-how, and even helping to jumpstart the landlocked country’s own set of startup hubs. Rwanda in turn has been clear that it views Israel in an inspirational light and wants to see itself as the Israel of Africa.  Kagame has been credited in stopping the genocide Rwanda experienced in the early 1990’s and took over  a divided country only to unite and cause it to thrive in a near miraculous turnaround.

The Prime Minister himself touched on this as he spoke further with President Kagame to his side.

“President Rivlin has already mentioned the fact that both of our peoples have a tragic legacy. Ours in the Holocaust, yours in the great genocide that befell your people. I’m not sure how many of my Israeli compatriots know that President Kagame personally led the military effort that put a stop to this carnage after more than a million people were butchered, a million children, women, defenseless men. And, with your courage, you put an end to this and began rebuilding this torn nation. We can see the impressive gains that you are making. In fact, it is one of our deepest pleasures to be able to cooperate with you in rebuilding your state, rebuilding it in agriculture and water and so many other areas, and security as well.
 
“We have pledged, I think both our peoples, one simple pledge: ‘Never again.’ Never again – we, who witnessed the greatest holocaust in history, you who witnessed perhaps one of the most recent ones – never again. That’s another great bond between us. You have been a consistent friend to us. First in our bilateral relations. We don’t forget that your foreign minister visited us during our travails in Gaza. You sent her as a show of friendship and solidarity.” 

From 42Kura to Energyia Global, Rwanda is seen as one of the top destinations for Israeli technology as Kagame has opened up the country’s doors to Israeli tech and innovation.

Rwanda and much of East Africa have grown in trade relations with Israel.  The power of these partnerships are far bigger than just financial or even geo-political.  Africa and Israel are both former colonies.  Just like India, Israel and much of Africa were controlled by one or more European countries.

By partnering together decades after independence, they have been capable of reversing the European backed Islamic erasure of indigenous history in many of these areas.  Israel has become a symbol and a beacon for many of these former colonies who have risen and conquered the neo-colonialist attitudes of the once strong European continent.

 

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WORLD CHANGE: Why the Modi Visit to Israel is set to Radically Reshape the World

We are living in amazing times. History will show that this three-day visit by Neandra Modi to Israel was a moment in world history when two of the most ancient cultures decided to leave the prism of their past behind and work together in order to build a strategic partnership that would not only benefit one another, but the world.

Israel and India are thousands of years old.  Judaism and Hinduism are the two most ancient spiritual paths in the world. It is under this backdrop and the geopolitical turmoil in which we see the old power structure of the west and its colonial and neo-colonial influences collapse that these two countries have begun to rise.

Modi’s visit comes after more than a decade worth of growing ties between the two countries.  These political ties are built on the back of thousands of years of personal relationships between Jews and Hindus.  These relationships were built on respect of one another.  Jews have been living in India for more than 2000 years and during that time no tinge of anti-Semitism was expressed.

In a world that has seen the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the weakening of the post cold-war order these cultural ties have grown far more overt as more and more Israelis have spent time in India backpacking and taking a breather after the army.  Indians have taken the opportunity to visit the only Jewish State, to learn and admire another ancient culture.

Technology Partnership Built by the People

Israel, being the technology powerhouse it is has built many of its tech partnerships with other countries through government introduction.  With India it has been built by the people itself. Indian programmers have become the go to source for Israeli teams for the last decade.  Both groups have worked together on virtual teams and learned how to achieve success an ocean away.

It is no accident that as Prime Netanyahu said, “The two most spoken languages in Silicon Valley are Hebrew and Hindi.”

Strategic Importance

During Modi’s visit to Israel and after several closed-door sessions that lasted four hours each, the two countries elevated their relationship to a Strategic Partnership and signed seven MOU’s.  Beyond these developments as well as the announcement of a direct flight between Tel Aviv and Mombai/New Dehli, the partnership erases the false narrative of “Palestinian” indignity and rightful rebellion against the “Jewish Occupier.”

India has always been admired by third world countries in Africa and the Middle East as the leader against the International European colonial regime.  The Jewish State was seen as part of this unwanted colonial regime. With the growing ties and Modi’s about-face on Israel’s place within the broader neo-colonialist dynamic it is the Palestinians who have been exposed as the European tool to divide and conquer the Levant.  Afterall, the Palestinians are supported and funded by the EU.  It is also the Europeans who have bolstered Islamic regimes and totalitarian governments, which have burned a path through indigenous communities from Africa to the MIddle East, to the Indian Sub-Continent.

For Indians, who have known for decades if not more, that the mentality of Jihad is just another form of colonialist aspirations, the Modi visit is only natural in exposing the lie of Islamic indigineity in Africa, Israel, and India.

It is no accident that India and Israel’s embrace of one another has come after tens of Sub-Sahara African countries have turned to Israel as a partner and friend. India’s partnership is an erasure and exposure of European implanted lies within the context of their own need to exploit and expand using the land of ancient cultures in Africa, the Middle East, and India.  The Europeans did this by unleashing the Islamic hordes within the wider Arab world through turning one against another and finally setting them upon non-Islamic Africans, Jews, Druze, Arameans, Kurds, Indians, native Pashtun in Afghanistan, and more.

Modi’s visit is about the future and it is about rectifying a narrative that was injected by a self-serving Europe who sought to twist history for its own purposes.

In three days, India and Israel have found themselves again.  They have taken a path away from their former colonial masters who wanted only to divide the two in order to conquer. This partnership will be built on true friendship and goodwill.

To see a touch of just how genuine this is, Netanyahu and Modi met Moshe Holtzberg – an Israeli child who as a toddler survived the 2008 terror attack at a Jewish centre in Mumbai. Moshe, now 11, read out a welcome note for PM Modi, saying “Dear Mr Modi, I love you”.

Modi tweeted this moving image during the visit.

Friendships are built on the little things. It is those little things, from basic respect, mutual work relationships, and truly feeling another’s pain that India and Israel find themselves in a relationship that is both ancient and entirely innovative.  This is the partnership that the next phase of world development can and will be built on.

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Donald Trump, Israel, and the Potential for a Free Biafra

Most Africa observers believe Donald Trump will ignore the continent or at the most put the relationships Presidents Obama and Bush had built there on the back burner. While it’s true Trump does not see Africa as the central plank to his foreign policy, his black and white views of the world in regards to radical Islam may prove to be a perfect lens on how he will deal with the African continent.

Right now, the main way the USA fights radical Islam on the African continent is through Africom. Africom, is one of six of the US Defence Department’s “geographic combatant commands and is responsible to the Secretary of Defense for military relations with African nations.” Given the fact that Africom works with a number undesirable leaders, the main one being President Buhari of Nigeria, Trump may decide to tweak these relationships due to leaders like Buhari who are compromised by radical Islamic ties.

Israel as a Key Player

As Israel makes serious inroads into both West and East Africa in regards to trade and security, they are the ideal partner in building a force for tackling radical Islam.  Israel already has deep security relationships with Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan as well as Ghana and now Togo.  With these deepening ties, the Trump administration would be wise to connect Africom to Israel’s presence in these areas.

Biafra Will Be The Test for Trump

If Trump is serious about fighting radical Islam then the first thing he needs to do in Africa is to break direct relations with the Buhari government in Nigeria.  Buhari is a known smypathizer of radical Islam and supports the spread of Sharia Law south of the Sahara. Furthermore, Biafra, the region made up of a unique Judeo-Christian culture dominated by the Igbo tribe was forcibly fused together by the British with the Yaruba and the Muslim Hausa in the North to form Nigeria in 1914.

Map of Biafra

Biafra has been continuously oppressed by their Muslim rulers for not following Sharia.  Buhari utilized his friendship with Obama to gain powerful weapons and instead of using them to destroy ISIS affiliated groups he has turned his guns on the south through proxies like the Muslim Fulani herdsman.  Thousands of Igbo have been put into jail, including IPOB leader Nnmadi Kanu for treason.

Trump can roll back radical Islam by using Israeli networking, relationships, and weapons to help liberate Biafra from radical Islam and create the first Judeo-Christian republic in West Africa.

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REDEMPTION WATCH: Nnamdi Kanu, the Slave Trade, and Why Israel Still Mourns for the Temple

Every year we we find ourselves at this time again.  The darkest moments in Jewish history and really the collective Israelite history can be boiled down to the 9th of Av, the day of mourning of the destruction of the two temples that stood at the exact location of today’s Dome of the Rock.

Exile cannot be quantified and there is no other people in the world who have been exiled, enslaved, and brutally oppressed as much as Israel.  We have been scattered to the four corners of the world and only because the Almighty deemed it time to come home, did Jews begin to stream back to the Land of the Israel.  Liberation was achieved against the British and subsequent wars of defense and liberation of our homeland were also fought and won.  All of these events occurred against impossible odds.

Yet, despite Israel’s standing there is a vacancy in our nation and our hearts. The location of the Temple is the point where the world was created from.  It is the point where Abraham our Father binded Isaac.  Kabbalah teaches the temple mount is point that connects this world to the upper worlds.  The Almighty entrusted his Children with this spot.  We built two temples there and both times they were destroyed and we were exiled.  The first exile brought us to Babylon, Egypt, and Syria.  Some Israelites returned 70 years later to rebuild the Temple and establish sovereignty, but many stayed in exile and built communities across the Middle East and Africa.

When the Romans destroyed the second Temple, forcing us into exile again, many fled or were sold into slavery into Africa and many of us were brought to Rome and other parts of the Roman Empire in Europe.  

Our sages teach us the second Temple was destroyed due to intramural hate and only tremendous unity can rebuild it.

The prophet Ovadia clearly states that although the people of Israel were scattered they will return at the end of the days and mentions both the house of Yosef returning from France and the house of David from Spain.

We are clearly in the middle of this as we speak.  But there are other locations.  The prophet Isaiah mentions Cush. We have already witnessed our brothers and sisters return from Ethiopia, but what of the other Israelites found there? Millions fled or were sold into slavery to Africa after the destruction of both Temples. These Jews are only supposed to resurface at the end of days, after we the ones exiled into Rome trigger the awakening by returning first.

The Almighty has hidden from us our brothers’ location, but now it is clear at the end where they have been. The Jews who went into Egypt with Jeremiah and the Jews who were sold into slavery into Africa eventually found their way to the Gulf of Guinea mainly in Biafra. They eventually became known as the Igbo.  There they kept circumcision and the dietary laws as espoused in the Torah, but something happened.  First Islam came and began to forcibly convert the non-Jewish tribes to the North.  These tribes fought against the Jewish tribes living in Mali.  Many of these Jews fled south merging with the Igbo and other Israelite tribes already there and still others were lost and blended into non-Jewish African tribes. Yet, many stayed true to the Torah as much as possible.

When the Europeans arrived to missionize and enslave the inhabitants living on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea they found that the Igbo of Biafra and many other tribes in the coastal region kept certain laws from the Torah.  In their minds this would not do.  The solution was to enslave and deport, decimating what was there and nearly erasing the memory of what once was.

The Igbo and their related brethren were brought to America. So many Igbo were brought there that it is said that up to 60% of African Americans can trace at least one side of their family to being Igbo. This explains the affinity both  Jews of European descent African Americans had with one another during the Civil Rights era.  

What happened to the Igbo is not dissimilar to the Spanish and Portuguese Jewry who were either forcibly converted or chased into the New World where they started to forget who they were.

Now there is a great awakening and the movement to reverse the enslavement of our past is happening.  In Biafra, where the Igbo still reside, synagogues are being built, prayers are being said, and Torah is being learned.  There is a struggle to free the Igbo from the mental slavery of the past.  This struggle has taken many forms.  Politically it has inspired the free Biafra movement whose leader Nnamdi Kanu, rots in jail for no apparent reason than he acknowledged his Hebraic origin and sought to activate it in order to free his people.  

Unity will bring the Temple.  Understanding that we Israelites were exiled and enslaved and brought to far flung places. Exile has been brutal to us yet we are awakening and realizing all of us together can unify and return the Holy Temple to the Mount Moriah. All of us black, white, yellow, brown can one way or the other trace ourselves back to the Land from which we were taken.

The nations of the world have confused us and turned one side on the other, but we can if we want end the exile once and for all by creating a unity that will reverse our collective exile once and for all.

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Israel Defeating BDS Movement One Country At a Time

During a debate at the State Control Committee on Monday, a number of MK’s argued that Israel’s foreign policy and public diplomacy (Hasbara) require a more unified voice. This includes appointing a new minister to take over the Foreign Ministry position, which the Prime Minister currently holds.

MK Elharrar remarked, “During this time, when the State of Israel is dealing on a daily basis with an intensifying delegitimizaiton campaign, attacks by UNESCO on the historic link between the Jewish people and Jerusalem, one-sided resolutions against Israel in the UN`s Human Rights Council and even attacks on us in the World Health Organization, don`t you think we need to appoint a foreign minister who will act to improve Israel`s standing in the international community?”

Netanyahu countered by saying that the success of Israel’s public diplomacy is measured by its diplomatic ties, foreign trade and public opinion. “Today Israel is perceived more and more as an asset and an influencing element in the world because of our war on terror and our technological achievements… We have achieved free trade with China, a 30 percent increase in trade with India, an agreement with Japan on protecting rigs, military coordination with Russia, initial ties with a host of African countries, heads of state visiting Israel for the first time, the normalization of ties with Turkey, and every week I meet with four heads of state. Israel`s foreign policy is a great success. Despite some specific successes [of the delegitimization campaign against Israel], we have defeated the boycott movement in many arenas.”

It is true that the scope of Israel`s connections with countries around the world has never been broader, especially after Netanyahu’s recent visit to Africa after which several African countries strengthened their diplomatic and economic ties with Israel.

Netanyahu then went on to state that the obstacles to peace between Israel and Palestinians is the incitement of Abbas and the PA to murder Jews and the refusal of the PA to recognize the Jewish state.

The constant hostile resolutions against Israel during times of conflict and continuous movements to boycott Israeli products are a clear sign that Israel needs improvement in its public diplomacy. Netanyahu says Israel is “working to annul the automatic majority against us in international forums” by improving relations with African, Latin and Asian countries.

Others such as MK Zehava Galon of Meretz argue that “Israel will have to choose between its democratic values and international legitimacy.”