Since the eruption of a horrifying civil war inside Sudan, in April of 2023, some 8 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes and around 18 million face acute food shortages. Yet, similar to the horrors ongoing in the Congo and Yemen, this crisis garners little to no attention in the corporate media. That may be due to the strong evidence of US and Israeli involvement with what is occurring inside Sudan today.
Despite the public rhetoric of Washington, seemingly being in support of safeguarding Sudanese civilians and a democratic future, with its strong condemnations of the ongoing widespread massacres and sexual abuse, the US government and its allies are largely the reason for the country’s civil war. When the de-facto Sudanese leader and head of its military, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, ordered airstrikes on positions associated with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), triggering the ongoing conflict in Sudan, the US threw its hands up in the air and Western media attempted to blame Russia’s Wagner group.
The RSF were originally set up under the banner of the infamous Janjaweed of deposed Sudanese dictator, Omar Bashir. It is important to note that although Bashir was overthrown during the 2019 revolution in Sudan, he was able to maintain his brutal rule for three decades prior, with the US government only choosing to give focus to “democracy” recently, but not for the sake of aiding democracy.
In order to understand just how disingenuous the US government has been in its approach to Sudan’s struggle for democratic civilian-rule, we need only look at how it handled the post-revolution power structure. Hemedti, the RSF leader, was originally empowered by Omar Bashir, and he was given a free hand to seize control of lucrative gold mines in Darfur, a move which quickly made him one of the wealthiest billionaires in the country. On top of this, the record of the RSF has always brutal and bloody, for its involvement in mass rape, displacement, torture, and slaughter of civilians. It was this same RSF militia force, under the command of Hemedti, that worked together with the Sudanese armed forces to remove President Bashir in a military coup.
The next step, following the ouster of Omar Bashir, was for Hemedti’s RSF and the Sudanese military to form what was known as the Transitional Military Council (TMC). The TMC was accused by the likes of Human Rights Watch of working to block international investigations into the RSF’s massacre of around 120 civilian protesters in 2019, it was also clear that the TMC needed to undergo an extensive process of reforms in order to garner public trust. US Gulf State allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had also pledged 3 billion dollars in aid to Sudan, following the revolution, which was not to be conditioned on reform and was a clear indication of what was later to come in terms of Saudi-Emirati influence in the country.
The Israel Connection
At a time when the Sudanese people needed international support the most, the US thought not of democracy, but of how they could use this moment to add Sudan to the list of Arab nations who would normalize ties with Tel Aviv. In 2020, the US Trump administration jumped to apply all possible pressure upon the TMC, in order to have them join the so-called “Abraham Accords“, succeeding in fulfilling this goal. In February of 2020, a secret meeting took place between the head of the Sudanese military, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Uganda.
While mainstream media outlets like The New York Times attempted to suggest that the US was helping Sudan transition to democracy and that the nation’s prospects were seeming hopeful prior to April 2023, the very opposite was true. The US, under the Trump administration, had bribed the TMC to accept normalization with Israel and not bothered to attach any demands for internal reform to its bribes. For instance, in return for normalizing with the Israelis, the US offered to remove Sudan from its State-sponsor of terrorism list, meaning that assets would be unfrozen and sanctions lifted. This, as then US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, signed an agreement to clear Sudan’s 1.2 billion dollars of debt owed to the World Bank.
Although the TMC would be replaced with the Transitional Sovereignty Council (STC), normalization efforts continued, even after another coup d’état in October 2021 that would change the configuration of power slightly. During this time, the UAE and Saudi Arabia would take a much greater role inside Sudan and would even use militants from Hemedti’s RSF to fight for them against Ansarallah (the Houthis) in Yemen.
Beginning in the late 1960’s, Israel had been training opposition groups and ferrying them weapons in southern Sudan, working on this mission to gain a strategic foothold in the horn of Africa for decades, until there was eventually reconciliation between South Sudan and Sudan. This is why it is no surprise that the Israeli Mossad has maintained ties with RSF leader Hemedti and is seeking to assert control in this region.
Yet this is only one of various reasons behind Israeli involvement in Sudan. One element of its presence in Sudan is the prevention of weapons smuggling through the country, which had historically been a route through which Palestinian armed groups in Gaza had received supplies in their fight against the Israeli military. There is also the historic angle, as the famous “three no’s” of the 1967 Arab summit were agreed upon in Khartoum: no to normalization, no to recognition, and no to negotiations with Israel.
Israel is, however, playing both sides of this conflict. The Israeli Foreign Ministry initially joined Egypt in backing Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, while the Mossad [Israeli intelligence agency] has supported Hemedti. There have even been debates between Israeli leaders as to which side they should choose, as the issue of control in Sudan is so vital. While Hemedti is a natural ally to the Israelis and has openly advocated normalization of ties since October of 2020, especially due to his opposition to the Islamic Movement in Sudan, in the event he loses the conflict Israel could potentially encounter a problem. This is why Tel Aviv has even offered to be the mediator and ostensibly broker peace between both sides — as it boasts close ties with both.
Israel, on top of committing its own Genocide in Gaza, has a long history of aiding war crimes throughout the world, providing precedence to its connections to the waring parties in Sudan. The Israeli Supreme Court has attempted in the past to cover up the historical record of its weapons transfers to Yugoslavia, during the Bosnian Genocide of the 1990’s, due to the truth damaging foreign relations. Israel also played a role in the Rwandan Genocide, propping up the Hutu regime in its slaughter of the Tutsi minority, despite the evidence that the Israelis had full knowledge of the massacres being committed dating back to the 1960’s.
For the US government, when it comes to its agenda in West Asia, it is clear that it values above all asserting Israeli regional hegemony, which is why both the Trump and Biden administrations have placed normalization deals as a top priority throughout the region. Combined with a desire for Israeli dominance, this has the potential for securing US-Israeli control over Sudan’s lucrative gold mines (in the hands of Hemedti) in addition to gaining a foothold in the Sahel, Red Sea and Suez Canal spheres of influence. The US-Israeli alliance is interested in resources, normalization, manpower for foreign wars, and geo-strategic supremacy in a key region of Africa/Middle-East. It is clear that supporting reform, civilian rule and democracy are not even an afterthought.
