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Israel-Zimbabwe relations are extraordinarily poor with the state-run publication, The Herald, questioning the legitimacy of Israel's existence. The Zimbabwean government is one of very few to recognize an independent Palestinian state and continues to advocate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[1]
The Mugabe government strongly supported the PLO under Yasser Arafat in the 1980s. Zimbabwe formally established relations with the PLO in March 1983. Ali Halimeh served as the PLO's ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1983 to the 1990s. Israeli relations with apartheid-era South Africa, built up in the 1970s by SA Prime Minister John Vorster, fueled Zimbabwe's verbal support for the PLO and comparisons of Zionism to apartheid.[1]
Abel Muzorewa, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, visited Israel on October 21, 1983. He urged Mugabe to establish diplomatic relations, saying his political policies hurt Zimbabwe's agriculture and technology industries. The Zimbabwean government arrested Muzorewa on charges of conspiring against Mugabe for the South African government on November 1. Two days later Mugabe warned Zimbabwean politicians Ndabaningi Sithole and Joshua Nkomo against 'conspiring' against the government. Muzorewa went on a hunger strike from November 3 to 11 to protest his incarceration.[2]
In March 2002 the Israeli government sold riot control vehicles to the Mugabe government, shortly before the nation's 2002 elections.[3]
In March 2003, President Robert Mugabe responded to critics' comparison of Mugabe to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler by saying, "This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold."[4]
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