Israeli Arms Sales to Central America: An Overview

By Jane Hunter

On November 25 Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that "representatives of Israel" had funneled profits from arms sales to Iran to the contras in Central America through a Swiss bank account. His disclosure broadened and illuminated the scandal that arose earlier in the month when it was revealed that Israel and an ad hoc group operating out of the White House had been selling weapons to Iran.

When matched with President Reagan's longtime fixation on uprooting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, his administration's bafflingly contradictory behavior in dealing with Iran, a state it had often and vehemently pronounced "terrorist," suddenly became clearer. Apparently, in exchange for approving and assisting Israel in the arms sales it was intent on making to Iran, the President received Israeli cooperation in funding the contra mercenaries, whose avowed goal is to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.

In this scenario, the negotiations for US hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon, which both the Administration and Israel have used to justify the dealings with Iran, were of secondary importance, at best.

Israeli Denials

Israel heatedly denied having anything to do with passing funds to the contras, or any linkage with them. Yet in addition to evidence that Israel did shunt up to $30 million of its Iran arms profits to the contras, there is much to connect Israel with the Administration's efforts over the past few years to bypass Congressional restrictions on US aid to the contras.

Indeed, in retrospect it appears that Israel's willingness to cooperate with Administration goals in Central America contributed greatly to the conversion of an initially cool White House into an ardent supporter of Israel. A memorandum of understanding signed in 1981 committed Washington and Tel Aviv to cooperation in the "third world." That arrangement was suspended by the US in late 1981 after Israel annexed the Golan Heights. Although the US-Israeli agreement was not reinstated until November 1983, during the hiatus Israel began selling light arms of East bloc design to the CIA for the contras.

A National Security Agency document from 1983 records a US request for Israel to arm the contras, and in July 1983 an Administration official told the New York Times that Israeli willingness to cooperate in Central America had gone far to mend US-Israeli relations, which had deteriorated during and after Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

However, as Congress became disenchanted with the CIA-run contra program, the Administration wanted more from Israel: It wanted Israel to assume primary responsibility for the contras' logistics and training, and it wanted Israel to popularize the contra program with its supporters in Congress and in the US Jewish community. When then Prime Minister Shamir met with Reagan Administration officials in November 1983 to restructure the US-Israel "strategic alliance"—it was formally signed March 19, 1984—a joint political-military committee was established to coordinate, among other things, "third world" activities.

A Deal with Israel

At an April 1984 Washington meeting of the committee, a leak which could only have come from the Administration said that Washington would offer to fund Israeli development assistance programs in Africa in exchange for Israel taking over the contras. Israel wanted the US assistance money to offer African nations considering reestablishing diplomatic relations, since all but four African governments had cut their ties with Israel in the wake of its 1973 war. At that time Congress had just cut off funds to the contras. According to recent information, the Administration made at least two such attempts in 1984 to enlist Israel's aid with the contras.

Representing Israel at the 1984 meeting was David Kimche, who was recently identified as Israel's top contra specialist. Kimche was also a key Israeli player in the Iran segment of the current scandal. It was he who came to the White House in July 1985 to persuade the Administration to endorse Israel's ongoing weapons sales to Iran. At that time, however, quiet but urgent protests from some of Israel's Democratic supporters in Congress who were opposed to the President's contra policy convinced Israel not to become involved in such a sweeping contra program as that proposed by the Reagan Administration.

Instead, Israel increased its covert support of the contras, shipping arms through the Guatemalan and Salvadoran military and providing trainers for newly-recruited contra mercenaries in their camps in Honduras and Costa Rica. By early 1985 it was reported that Israel had increased arms shipments and had donated several million dollars to the contras. This donation might have been drawn directly from Israel's US aid, some of which was said to have been diverted to the contras.

When the Senate amended the 1986 foreign aid bill to prevent the Administration from funneling aid to the contras through Israel and other US aid recipients, the Administration insisted on rewriting that amendment (after the bill had gone to a conference committee) so that it merely forbade conditioning a recipient's aid on its willingness to donate to the contras.

Donations to Contras

With that restriction out of the way, retired General Richard Secord and National Security Council staff aide Lt. Col. Oliver North—both of whom had helped coordinate the Iran arms sales with Israel—began to collect kickbacks on their US aid from Israel and possibly Egypt for donation to the contras.

Secord and North were also involved in the contra supply network that was exposed when a plane full of weapons was shot down over Nicaragua on October 5. (At least one of the contra supply planes reportedly was purchased with $15 million in donations Secord extracted from Saudi individuals in appreciation for Administration support for the 1981 sale to Saudi Arabia of AWACS aircraft, against which Israel's lobby had put up a terrific fight.)

Although the Israelis have protested the allegations of Attorney General Meese and the President that they overcharged the Iranians and diverted the profits to the contras, a report given to the Los Angeles Times a week before news of the contra connection broke said that the Swiss bank account from which contributions to the contras were drawn had been set up by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and was under the control of Yaacov Nimrodi, the longtime Israeli arms dealer and former military attache in Tehran, whom Prime Minister Peres recommended for involvement with Washington in the Iran arms sale scheme.

It was reported that the money had been drawn out by Adolfo Calero, a member of the contras' ruling triumverate, and that a top aide to Calero, Julio Montealegre, had gone to Israel for two weeks at the end of January, 1986. The timing of Montealegre's trip is significant, coming right after the January 17th signing of an executive order waiving restrictions on the sale of US arms to Iran by President Reagan

Israeli Ties to Somoza

National Public Radio, which reported the contra aide's visit, also said the contras were trying to recover a boatload of weapons that the late Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle had bought from Israel, but that the Carter Administration had begged Israel not to deliver. The weapons were the last of many loads which Israel had shipped to Somoza during the year before the dictator's fall in July 1979, when Israel was the only nation willing to supply him with arms. The Israeli weapons helped prolong Somoza's tenure, at the end of which his military was killing 500 Nicaraguans a day.

The report of the contra claim on Israel, if true, establishes the contras as heirs of Somoza and highlights Israel's long Central American involvement, which began with Somoza's father, Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

In 1939, nine years before the creation of Israel, Somoza Garcia allowed Jewish leaders to buy Polish arms in his name for Haganah, the pre-state army in Palestine. Like his son after him, Somoza Garcia ruled Nicaragua as his own fiefdom and was notoriously acquisitive. In 1947 he accepted $200,000 and a large diamond to issue passports needed by Haganah purchasing agents for arms-buying in Europe. In 1979 Israel would argue that its debt to the first Somoza justified what amounted to helping his son bomb the civilian population of Nicaragua.

Israel forged another valuable Central American connection with Guatemala when that country's UN ambassador served on the UN Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. After visiting Palestine and meeting such figures as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, Ambassador Garcia Granados took the lead in pushing the partition plan under which Israel was created.

During the 1960s Israel expanded to Latin America the US-funded development assistance programs which had gained it considerable diplomatic influence in Africa. In Central America Israeli experts worked on projects in agriculture, housing, and such technical fields as banking. They also worked on "patriotic youth" training programs which brought them into contact with future military leaders. In the 1970s, as Israel's rapidly developing arms industry sought markets, these contacts would stand it in good stead.

By 1975 Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador had all become Israeli customers, with Honduras and El Salvador receiving from Tel Aviv the region's first jet combat aircraft.

The accession in 1977 of the Carter Administration, with its human rights policy stipulating the cutoff of US aid to notorious human rights abusers, provided an enormous opportunity for Israel to move into the gap. Now, just as Somoza of Nicaragua bought the gear for his war from Israel, so did Guatemala and El Salvador. Both were also military regimes fighting insurgencies, and both turned to Israel for weapons after they were cut off by Washington because of brutal methods they employed against their citizens.

In Guatemala, Israel also provided military, counterinsurgency, and intelligence advisers for what has been called a genocidal war against the largely Mayan Indian population of the country's northwestern highlands. The Israeli firm Tadiran installed two intelligence computers, one of which reportedly was used to select death squad victims and, by monitoring utility usage, pinpoint urban guerrilla safe houses. Israel is now advising the Guatemalan military, many of whom go on scholarships to Israel, on a forced resettlement scheme in the rural highlands. Tadiran has funded an electronics school for the army, and Israel has helped it set up a factory to manufacture ammunition and replacement parts for its Israeli rifles.

With US and European funding, Israel has begun advising the Salvadoran military on a similar "pacification" program to resettle in controlled hamlets the peasants the army has previously bombed out of guerrilla-controlled zones. Several years ago the Salvadoran military were using Israeli-supplied napalm for their attacks on the civilian population. In the late 1970s, Israeli advisers trained the Salvadoran secret police ANSESAL, many of whose operatives have since been linked to death squads. Israel has also installed a computer in El Salvador similar to that given Guatemala.

In Honduras, whose people, after Haiti's, are the poorest in this hemisphere, Israelis are working on a US Agency for International Development-sponsored irrigation program near the Nicaraguan border in territory used by the contras. At present an Israeli sales team headed by the Israeli ambassador to Honduras is trying to conclude the sale of at least a dozen Israeli-manufactured Kfir combat aircraft to replace the now-aging Mysteres it sold there a decade ago. The story of the negotiations, as they have spanned the eruption of the Iran-contra scandal, is instructive.

Originally the Reagan Administration had wanted to give the Hondurans American-manufactured F5-E's to secure their continued cooperation in providing bases for the contras. Washington was annoyed when Israel preempted them with a signed letter of intent from the Hondurans for the purchase of Kfir aircraft, but agreed to partially finance any Israeli sale and leave the final choice to the Hondurans. Now the White House leans toward the Israeli sale—because the Administration believes it will be easier to get past Congress!

Jane Hunter is editor and publisher of Israeli Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 19580, Sacramento, CA 95819.