Forever the Mistress?
The story of Sri Lankan-Israeli relations
Two national groups on a small piece of territory – each claiming they were there first. Not Israel-Palestine but Sri Lanka-Eelam, the island to the south of India. But since independence, what have Sri Lanka’s relations been with Israel?
Sri Lanka has hardly any Jewish heritage. Sri Lankan Christians believe that the coastal city of Galle is the biblical city of Tarshish, where Jonah tried to flee to avoid sailing to Nineveh. Some Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists, meanwhile, believe that the mythical King Ravana sent a relative named “Judah” to the Middle East. Some have compared the Sri Lankan Muslims to Jews; others the Sri Lankan Buddhists, while during colonial times Sir Alexander Johnston, an early British Chief Justice of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), suggested a Jewish settlement in the Diyatalawa hill station, leading to claims that Britain sought a Jewish homeland on the island. In 1943, a Manchester Guardian editorial supported sending Jewish refugees there.
This is some of the backdrop to the story of Israeli-Sri Lankan relations, told in a recent article, ‘Twisted turns: revisiting Israeli-Sri Lanka relations,’ by Punsara Amarisinghe, PhD candidate at the Institute of Law and Politics at Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, in Israel Affairs. He argues that, contrary to popular belief, “Sri Lanka-Israel relations enjoyed many successes.” Sri Lanka recognized Israel on 25 March 1949; formal diplomatic relations followed in September 1957. The previous year, though, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike became prime minister, and joined the non-aligned group of countries, which saw Israel as a British imperial creation. This extended into outright antisemitism. In 1958, the year before he was assassinated, he told parliament. “Having known the nature of Jews, I am aware of their next plan. When the Jews are offered a place to stay, they would finally end up being its overlords.” Like many other countries, though, Sri Lanka was happy to have Israel as a mistress. In 1958, for example, the Sri Lankan navy bought a warship from Israel.
In 1970, during her second term, Mrs Sirmavo Bandaranaike, who during her first term had become the world’s first female prime minister, promised in her election manifesto to break off relations with Israel until, in Amarisinghe’s words, “the conflict was resolved to the satisfaction of the Arabs.” This was done to win the support of Muslim voters; in July 1970, a few months after winning the elections, she followed through on her pledge, promising only to reverse it when Israel withdrew from territory it had won in 1967. Despite this, the PLO now began working with Tamil separatists, leading to Israeli complaints. Ignoring this pushback, Bandaranaike let the PLO open an office in Colombo, while their representative was invited to take part in the fifth summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in the Sri Lankan capital in 1976, marking the start of the Sri Lanka-Palestinian solidarity movement.
