Israel-Myanmar Relations and the Rohingya Mass Killings

Myanmar is one of the first countries with which Israel established diplomatic relations in Asia. This chapter examines these bilateral relations with an emphasis on the military ties between the two countries. It begins with an overview of the formative years of the relations and their legacy and investigates their development since the 1990s. It then turns to explore the Rohingya mass killings and crisis since 2017 as a test case for Israel’s Myanmar policy. By relying on realpolitik, historical, and ideological approaches, it examines the sale of Israeli weaponry and surveillance systems under these circumstances and the domestic and international implications thereof for Israel. The chapter suggests that although China serves as Myanmar’s main supplier of weaponry, Israel has offered it legitimacy as a country associated with the Western world and considers itself a custodian of the memory of the Holocaust.