Content area
Full Text
Israel and South Africa: The Unnatural Alliance
By James Adams. London: Quartet Books Ltd., 1984. 218 pp. $18.95 (cloth).
James Adams's important book, first published in Great Britain in 1984, uncovers a close, multifaceted strategic relationship that has been consciously nurtured in secret.
It should be said that Adams's conservative political sympathies are squarely with Israel. He even tries hard to be "objective" regarding the South African regime. Nevertheless, The Unnatural Alliance is a rich mine of information about the history, details, and effects of the ties that bind Israel and South Africa. Adams delves into critical Israeli military and security support for, along with commercial trade with, the Pretoria government.
Israel became an independent state in 1948, the same year the Afrikaner-based Nationalist Party institutionalized the system of apartheid in South Africa. Notwithstanding the fascist origins of the Nationalist Party and its Greyshirts, diplomatic and economic relations between the new state of Israel and South Africa were close from the outset. Nationalist Party chief Dr. Malan, a notorious anti-Semite, was the first foreign head of state to visit Israel. The Malan government allowed the South...