As if on cue, the Anti-Defamation League of Israeli excesses apologist Abe Foxman is charging that verified reports of Israeli security assistance to the Honduras coup plotters led by Roberto Micheletti into power in Tegucigalpa smacks of "anti-Semitism." Foxman and his coterie are also charging that statements of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya that Israeli security advisers and mercenaries were involved in supporting the coup are stoking anti-Semitism in Honduras. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has also come in for criticism from the ADL zealots who charge that his statement that only Israel recognized the Honduran regime are untrue. In fact, Israel represents the Honduran junta diplomatically in Argentina, which severed relations with the junta.
The diplomatic quid pro quo on Argentine representation between the junta and Israel represents de facto recognition by the Jerusalem authorities of the junta in Tegucigalpa. Since the Republic of China on Taiwan has not extended diplomatic recognition to the junta, that means that Israel is the only nation in the world that has extended recognition to the Micheletti junta. However, for the ADL and its supporters, the truth never matters when it comes to Israel and its flagrant violations of international norms and law.
Documents from the CIA archives illustrate how many times in the past Israel backed regimes that had little, if any, international diplomatic support. Although Israel's nuclear and intelligence relations with the apartheid regime of South Africa are well known, the CIA files have yielded some other interesting facts about Israeli "rogue diplomacy."
A CIA Joint Publication Research Service, Foreign Broadcast Information Service document dated June 15, 1979, contains a briefing that states "an important person from the Israeli Secret Service Mossad recently went to Njamena [sic] [Chad], where he met with Goukouni Oueddei."
Oueddei became dictator of Chad in 1979 after his slow ascendancy to power following the 1975 assassination of Chadian President Francois Tombalbaye. Oueddei quickly became an ally of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. However, the CIA document indicates that Israel and Qaddafi were backing the same horse in Chad, Oueddei. Eventually, Oueddei was ousted by his pro-Western Defense Minister Hissene Habre. Oueddei fled to Tripoli, Libya and exile. The CIA document states that the Mossad official "promised that an important contingent of Israeli commandos would soon be sent to support the Goukouni-Hissene Habre clique in Chad." Habre, who was ousted in 1990 and fled into exile to Senegal, is currently on trial in Dakar for the murder of thousands of Chadians while he was dictator. Habre is known as the "African Pinochet," a reference to the murderous Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet who was installed with the help of Henry Kissinger and who was also supported by Israeli intelligence.
Another CIA Joint Publication Research Service, Foreign Broadcast Information Service document dated August 21, 1979, reveals the close links between Israel and Rhodesia, run by a white minority government, recognized by no other state other than apartheid South Africa. The document states "Israel has just established a veritable intelligence network in Salisbury under the direction of a former infantry colonel. This branch of Mossad was set up with the approval of Bishop Muzorewa who asked the Israeli agents to help him track down and eliminate his PF enemies. According to Rhodesian sources, it is possible that Salisbury could become Mossad's main station for the Indian Ocean and southern Africa."
Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who was very pro-Israel, was briefly the Prime Minister of the interim "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia," the nation that followed the "internal settlement" of 1978. The PF, or Patriotic Front, was led by Robert Mugabe, with whom the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia was still battling in a guerrilla war. In 1980, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia became Zimbabwe under the presidency of Mugabe.
Israel's support for the Micheletti regime in Honduras follows decades of Israeli support for some of the world's worst dictators and rogue regimes. Israel and its apologists abhor the facts, however, in the case of Honduras, Chad, and Rhodesia, they speak for themselves.
