Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni pose for a photograph before a news conference at the State
House in Entebbe, Uganda on February 3, 2020. PHOTO | REUTERS
Uganda is “studying” the possibility of opening an embassy in
Jerusalem, President Yoweri Museveni said on Monday, during a visit by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Such a move
would be seen internationally as a statement of support for Israel’s
claim for the city of Jerusalem to be its capital, a potential political
win for Netanyahu less than a month before a national election on March
2.
“If a friend says I want your embassy here rather
than there I don’t see why there would be...,” Museveni said before
trailing off and continuing: “we are really working, we’re studying
that.”
“You open an embassy in Jerusalem and I will
open an embassy in Kampala,” promised Netanyahu. “We hope to do this in
the near future.”
Palestinians claim East
Jerusalem—captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war—for their own
capital. But a peace plan presented last week by US President Donald
Trump envisaged a Palestinian capital outside Jerusalem’s municipal
limits.
The Palestinian leadership on Saturday rejected
the plan and cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including
those relating to security.
Uganda and Israel currently have no embassy in each other’s
country, though Museveni is a long-standing ally of Israel, which trains
some elements of the Ugandan security forces.
Israel’s embassy in Nairobi, in neighbouring Kenya, currently handles its relations with Uganda.
Uganda’s
Entebbe airport was the scene in 1976 of a dramatic rescue operation
conducted by Israeli commandos to save nearly 100 mostly Israeli
passengers on board an Air France airliner hijacked by Palestinian and
German militants.
Netanyahu, whose elder brother
Yonatan, a commander in the operation, was killed in the incident, said
he found every visit to Uganda “profoundly moving” for this reason.
Three passengers and all the hostage takers also died in the operation.
As
well as the embassy issue, Netanyahu said Israel and Uganda were
exploring the possibility of having direct flights and of closer
cooperation in cyber security.
“Israel is coming back to Africa and Africa is coming back to Israel in a big way,” he said.
Rights
groups, critical of Museveni’s record on human rights, are unlikely to
welcome the prospect of increased cooperation with Israel on cyber
security.
Security personnel in Uganda routinely break up opposition rallies with tear gas, beatings and detentions.
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