PART 1 of 3: Israel-Trinidad and Tobago Mirrors and Parallels.

…the foundation for a deeper bilateral relationship between Israel and Trinidad and Tobago is not manufactured. It is organic, it is natural… it is inevitable.

…the foundation for a deeper bilateral relationship between Israel and Trinidad and Tobago is not manufactured. It is organic, it is natural… it is inevitable.

One of the most unique things about Israel is that, because of its peculiar history and the animosity it faced from its neighbors, it exists almost like an island and its people exhibit the characteristics of islanders. Separating Israel from the very real islands of Trinidad and Tobago are the Mediterranean Sea, the continent of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean; Israel and Trinidad and Tobago could not seem more distant, with few, if any, on-the-surface reasons for pursuing a close relationship outside of the diplomatic ties that the two countries share. But the two countries are deeply similar, and they are candidates to be best friends because the parallels between them are remarkable.

Israel’s population is just around 9 million, and Trinidad and Tobago’s is at 1.4 million; yet both countries are outsized in the regional geopolitics, commerce, finance, and culture of their geographic spheres. Since the Israeli response to the October 7 Hamas attacks, Israel has decisively demonstrated that it is the dominant power of the Middle East. Trinidad and Tobago has traditionally occupied the leadership role in the English-speaking Caribbean and remains the financial powerhouse of region. Both countries occupy strategic geographic positions: Israel at the crossroads of the Middle East, Africa, and Europe; Trinidad & Tobago, sitting at the southern tip of the Caribbean, adjacent to South America, is the gateway to the Americas.

Historically, the ties between the countries reach back to before the creation of an independent Trinidad and Tobago. Seeking Israeli support for Trinidadian independence, Trinidad and Tobago’s Premier and future Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams, made an official visit to Jerusalem in June 1962, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister, David ben Gurion, who freely gave Israel’s support to the request. On August 30th, 1962, the day before Trinidad and Tobago officially declared its independence from the United Kingdom, the country received the gift of a Jerusalem Bible from Prime Minister ben Gurion, officially welcoming the islands into the family of nations, and effectively making Israel the first country in the world to recognize Trinidad and Tobago as an independent nation. The next day, Trinidad and Tobago immediately established diplomatic relations with six countries, with one of those being the State of Israel.

The parallels are deeper than the historic ties. Both nations are deeply and complexly pluralistic. Israel navigates Jewish-Arab tensions alongside internal divisions between Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jews, secular and ultra-Orthodox communities; all of which plays out in the voting booths of Israel on election day as competing agendas, ideologies and hopes for the country come to a head in the ballot slips. Since independence, Trinidad and Tobago’s politics have been shaped by ethnic division rooted in and emanating from the colonial era; the two largest ethnic groups of African and Indian descendants have clashed culturally and competed for economic power, though outside of the election cycle, the country remains a place of relative racial harmony and where “every creed and race find an equal place.”

The Israeli and Trinidadian economies are uncomfortably dependent on respective single dominant revenue sources. For Trinidad and Tobago this reliance is heavily on oil and gas; Israel historically relied on agriculture and defense before tech, and even now the high-tech sector employs just 11% of the workforce, yet generates about 53% of national exports and 20% of GDP, which is a dangerously narrow base. Israel and Trinidad and Tobago both facea similar long-term pressure to diversify before their primary engine runs out.

Despite these pressures, Israel and Trinidad and Tobago remain genuine, vibrant democracies that unfortunately struggle with institutional integrity and coming to terms with the plural expressions of their respective citizenry. The stability of democratic institutions in Trinidad and Tobago is threatened by bureaucratic sluggishness, persistent nepotism and systemic corruption. Narrow margins in both the 2020 general elections and the closely fought 2023 local government elections reflect ongoing party polarization and ethnic rifts, with efforts for greater autonomy in Tobago stalling in the Trinidadian Parliament. Israeli society and the governmental system have been in a prolonged state of crisis since the judicial reform debate began in January 2023, and since Israel came into existence, it has been plagued with constant question of how to balance the democratic and Jewish nature of what the country is and what it should be. Israeli society has experienced divisions that have persisted even outside of times of conflict, with successive coalition governments falling apart based on ideological differences and competing agendas.

To the credit of the governments of both countries, they have each invested their education systems, and have produced highly educated citizens whose expertise is........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)