Analysis: Israel Police officers did not understand the extent to which Eritrean asylum-seekers in Israel despise the regime of President Isaias Afwerki back home, and were left unprepared for a wave of intense violence after officials asked to hold a regime-friendly festival in Tel Aviv
Itamar Eichner|12:45Ad
The relationship between Israel and the government of Eritrea, often referred to as the “Africa’s North Korea,” has been strained for a while now. Israel has not authorized the appointment of an ambassador to Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, and the Israeli embassy building has been left deserted since 2020. Eritrea consistently votes against Israel in international forums, including the United Nations, and was a vocal opponent against Israel’s reinstatement as an observer in the African Union.
With this information in mind, one might be tempted to ask why Israel did not disengage all official diplomatic relations with Eritrea. One of the most common explanations to this conundrum is Israel’s security interests in the Horn of Africa, a region that constitutes a strategic geographical location. If foreign sources are to be believed, Israel maintains intelligence bases and Navy submarines in and around that area.
The Israeli embassy in Asmara was left deserted in April of 2020. Fast forward seven months later, the Eritrean Army took up arms along with the Ethiopian Armed Forces in a war against the Tigray’s People Liberation Front. Together they were accused of committing war crimes against locals, and the United States responded by imposing sanctions on notable Eritrean officials, including their armed forces chief of staff.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have been conducting armed guerilla warfare for over three decades, and it’s only back in 1991 that Eritrea finally announced its independence, thus becoming a dictatorship. Most asylum seekers from Eritrea currently residing in Israel arrived between 2006 and 2011, with four-out-of-every-five of them men.
After spending many years in Israel, most of them speak Hebrew. During its zenith, the Eritrean wave of immigration brought about 50,000 individuals, with 17,000 of them still currently in the Holy Land. The vast majority of those still in Israel are fierce opponents of the theocratic regime they escaped from back home. During the last year, over 2,000 Eritreans have left Israel. Some went back home, while others joined their families in Canada, the United States and several other nations. On a monthly basis, around 300 to 500 Eritreans leave Israel willingly.