Cuba–Israel Relations

Cuba–Israel relations have moved between diplomatic engagement and pronounced political estrangement. Their history includes an early period of official ties and agricultural assistance, a deterioration in Cuban public policy after the Six-Day War, the 1973 diplomatic break, and later unofficial business and personal contacts that did not in themselves restore formal relations.[6][1] The relationship also intersected with Cuba’s ties to Palestinian organizations and Arab and non-aligned states, while Israeli and Cuban positions diverged at the United Nations on both Israel-related questions and resolutions calling for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba.[6][7]

Formal diplomacy is only one part of the story. Israeli experts and companies worked in Cuban agriculture, particularly citrus and irrigation, while Cuban Jews emigrated to Israel through arrangements that at times involved third-country diplomatic channels.[1][8] Delegations, tourists, religious figures, and cultural institutions also maintained contact after 1973.[9][10] Exploratory diplomatic conversations and trade visits were reported in the 2010s, but the sources document no completed restoration of diplomatic relations.[3][11]

Some milestones are stated differently across the sources. One account dates the establishment of diplomatic relations to 1954, while another describes an Israeli legation opened in 1959 and the arrival of a resident minister in 1960; these milestones need not refer to the same stage of representation.[2][12] Sources also differ in how they describe Cuba’s formal recognition of Israel, making it important to distinguish recognition from the presence or absence of diplomatic relations.[13][14]

Cuba’s early record on the question of a Jewish state was mixed. It voted against the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine, with one source identifying it as the only Latin American country to do so; the same account says Cuba recognized Israel on January 14, 1949.[14] A separate recognition table says Cuba later rescinded that recognition, while Encyclopedia.com describes Cuba as having maintained its recognition policy before the 1973 diplomatic break.[13][2]

The date of formal diplomatic relations is given as 1954 by Encyclopedia.com and by an account of the Cuban Jewish community. In that period, Israel’s ambassador in Mexico represented Israel in Cuba, and the countries also used honorary consuls and non-resident ambassadors.[2][15] Sender Kaplan, an editor of the Yiddish-language newspaper Havaner Leben and a prominent figure in Cuba’s Jewish community, was named honorary consul in 1951 and served in that role until 1960.[2][15]

Diplomatic representation developed further after the Cuban Revolution. The American Jewish Year Book records that Israel established a legation in Cuba in December 1959, that Israeli minister Jonathan Prato arrived in October 1960, and that Cuba appointed Ricardo Subirana Lobo as its minister to Israel by the end of that year.[12] Encyclopedia.com dates the opening of Israel’s permanent diplomatic mission in Havana to 1961 and describes Prato as its first resident ambassador.[2] These accounts distinguish the reported 1954 establishment of relations from the later opening and staffing of resident diplomatic offices.[12][2]

Trade and technical cooperation accompanied the diplomatic relationship. Trade agreements were signed in 1959, 1960, and 1962.[2] During the early 1960s, scientists and engineers, including specialists associated with the socialist movement Hashomer Hatzair, helped with Cuban agriculture, and Israeli private companies did business in the country.[1] In 1959, Cuba sent Captain José Ramón Fernández to Israel to negotiate the purchase of light weapons and artillery, but the negotiations produced no agreement.[6]

Agriculture became a more durable area of cooperation than the unsuccessful arms talks. Israel provided civilian assistance in citrus cultivation for more than ten years, and diplomatic relations remained normal until 1973.[6] A 1961 arrangement allowed Cuban Jews to emigrate to Israel in return for shipments of goats and eggs.[1] Accounts also describe Ricardo Subirana Lobo, also known as Richard Wolf, as an important personal link: a German Jew who had immigrated to Cuba before the First World War, he was appointed Cuba’s ambassador to Israel in 1961 and sent agricultural and technical experts from kibbutzim to Cuba at his own expense.[2]

The early post-revolutionary period is described as generally sympathetic toward Israel. Some Cuban leaders reportedly admired Israel’s pioneer spirit and regarded the kibbutz as a possible model, while Castro maintained good relations with Cuba’s Jewish community.[1][10] A community history recalls visible gestures of friendship, including the planting of the José Martí Forest in the Judean hills and the naming of a Havana school “Estado de Israel.”[15]

The Six-Day War in June 1967 marked a sharp change in Cuba’s public rhetoric toward Israel, but it did not immediately end diplomatic relations. On June 23, Cuban ambassador to the United Nations Ricardo Alarcón Quesada condemned Israel’s preemptive strike and opposed what he described as an apparent ambition to annex the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — along with the Golan Heights and Sinai.[1] In the same statement, he expressed opposition to prejudice and to political declarations advocating the destruction of a people or state, referring to both Palestinians and Jews.[1]

Cuba’s broader alignment also shifted. Encyclopedia.com describes Cuban foreign policy as becoming more like that of the Soviet Union and as seeking support among countries including Egypt and Algeria; it says Cuban press and radio increasingly reflected anti-Israel sentiment after the 1967 war.[2] Other accounts say Cuba supported the Arab viewpoint against Israel at the United Nations while resisting pressure to sever relations immediately after the war.[2][10] The accounts therefore describe a deteriorating political climate alongside continued official ties and practical exchanges.

Cuban contacts with Palestinian terrorist organizations grew during these years. The State Department chronology says Cuba welcomed the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization, made first contacts with Fatah in 1965–67, and sent military instructors and advisers to Palestinian bases in Jordan in 1968 to train Palestinian terrorists, described in the chronology as fedayeen.[6] A high-level Fatah–PLO delegation visited Cuba in 1970.[6] These connections formed part of the wider regional context preceding Cuba’s 1973 decision, although sources differ in how they explain the decision itself.

Cuba severed diplomatic relations with Israel in September 1973 at the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Algiers, shortly before the Yom Kippur War.[1][2] The historical account links the decision to Castro’s position within the Non-Aligned Movement and to criticism from Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, rather than to the war that followed.[1]

The accounts offer different descriptions of the political circumstances. The State Department chronology says Arab and non-aligned countries pressured Cuba to break relations and sponsor a United Nations resolution describing Zionism as a form of racial discrimination, but does not provide further detail about that pressure.[6] A historical account says Castro had resisted a break after 1967, then announced one after Qaddafi criticized Cuba’s place in the non-aligned movement because of its alignment with the Soviet Union.[1] It characterizes the decision as sudden and personal, and reports that Granma, the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper, described the announcement as receiving a standing ovation that “seemed to last forever.”[1]

The rupture was followed by closer Cuban engagement with Palestinian terrorist organizations and a strongly anti-Israel position in international forums.[3][2] Yasser Arafat visited Cuba in 1974 and later attended the Non-Aligned Conference in Havana in 1979.[6] A separate account says he received the Order of Playa Giron, identified there as Cuba’s highest decoration, during his 1974 visit.[1] Cuba also provided military support and personnel to Syria during 1973–75, and Cuban soldiers reportedly participated in tank battles on the Syrian side during the 1973 war.[6][1]

On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379, declaring Zionism to be “a form of racism and racial discrimination.” It passed by 72 votes to 35, with 32 abstentions and three countries not voting.[5] Sources in the bundle report that Cuba supported the resolution, and Encyclopedia.com says Cuba co-sponsored it.[3][9] However, the World Jewish Congress’s detailed account of the resolution does not identify Cuba’s individual 1975 vote, whereas its Cuba community page says Cuba later voted for it.[3][5] The vote and sponsorship should therefore be understood as claims reported by those sources, rather than as details independently established by every cited account.

Cuba remained opposed to the resolution’s repeal in 1991. On December 16 of that year, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 46/86, revoking the 1975 determination by 111 votes to 25; 13 states abstained and 17 did not vote.[5] The World Jewish Congress says Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam were the only Communist countries to oppose the repeal.[5] This reversal at the UN did not itself restore Cuba–Israel diplomatic relations.

The diplomatic rupture did not immediately end organized Jewish life or public expressions of connection with Israel in Cuba. The Union Sionista continued to function after relations were severed; Cuban authorities permitted large public Israeli Independence Day celebrations in 1974 and 1975, and the organization remained active for several years after the 1975 UN resolution before closing in 1978.[1] Its continuing activity is notable in contrast to the government’s increasingly hostile international posture toward Israel.

Emigration links also endured. The early-1960s arrangement involving departures to Israel in exchange for goats and eggs is one documented instance of Cuban Jews leaving with official approval.[1] In the early 1990s, Fidel Castro secretly permitted more than 400 Cuban Jews to emigrate to Israel in an operation reportedly codenamed “Operation Cigar.”[3] The World Jewish Congress presents this as a quiet act of permission during a period when formal diplomatic relations were absent.[3]

A separate report describes Canadian assistance to Cuban Jews seeking to immigrate to Israel. In 1999, applications were reportedly submitted to the Canadian embassy in Havana and routed through Israel’s embassy in Ottawa to Tel Aviv; Cuban exit visas were obtained using Canadian documents, and the report gives a figure of 360 visas.[8] A historical account likewise says that, during the period it covers, Israel’s interests in Havana were represented by the Canadian embassy and Cuban Jewish emigration applications to Israel were handled through its consular section.[1] These accounts describe a practical role for Canada in the absence of direct Israeli diplomatic representation.

A 2016 report estimated that approximately 1,500 Jews lived in Cuba, most in Havana, and counted five synagogues, three of them in the capital.[16] It said Cuba had no permanent official rabbi, that a visiting rabbi from Chile came monthly, and that the community ran activities including Sunday school and youth programs.[16] The same report described a delegation of ten Cuban Jewish mothers visiting Israel for the first time in May 2016 as part of a nine-day program involving 800 Jewish mothers from ten countries, organized by the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project and Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.[16]

A member of the Cuban Jewish community interviewed in that report said the community hoped for renewed diplomatic relations after the Cuba–United States rapprochement. She described the government as “unfortunately not especially pro-Israel,” while also saying that the Cuban people and government had excellent relations with the local Jewish community.[16] This was her assessment, not a general measure of official policy; it reflects the distinction between Cuba’s position toward Israel and the reported experience of the country’s Jewish community.

Practical contact resumed intermittently before any prospect of restored diplomacy. In 1988, an official Cuban economic delegation visited Israel to study irrigation methods that could help improve Cuban citrus production.[1][9] Israeli experts continued to provide technical assistance in irrigation, agriculture, and fishing, and Castro reportedly told visiting Venezuelan Jewish leaders, “Cuba has a lot to learn from Israel.”[1]

By June 1990, Cuba had opened unofficial communication with Israel through Mapam, a left-wing socialist party.[1] The account connects this opening to changes following the fall of Soviet Communism, Cuba’s concern about its own survival, and the fact that Arab countries were beginning to sign peace treaties with Israel. It also reports that unofficial commercial contacts between Israeli companies and the Cuban government continued and intensified despite official hostility.[1]

During 1992–99, Israeli firms provided Cuba with capital, technology, and markets in citrus cultivation and exports, while religious and political delegations were exchanged.[6] A Library of Congress country study, whose research was completed in April 2001, described Israel as an active Cuban trading partner and a major investor despite the absence of diplomatic relations at the time of its research.[7] Other accounts describe Israeli investment in the citrus industry as Cuba opened to foreign investment, as well as academic and artistic contacts.[9][2]

The countries’ disagreement over U.S. policy toward Cuba was especially visible at the United Nations. Israel opposed General Assembly resolutions calling for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. In 1992, Israel voted with the United States, alongside Romania, which the Library of Congress study says voted that way by mistake; in 1993 Israel was among four states voting against the resolution, and in 1994 it was one of only two.[7] In 1999, the resolution passed 155 to 2, with the United States and Israel opposing it.[7]

The same pattern continued in 2000 and 2001. In 2000, a Cuba-drafted, nonbinding General Assembly resolution urging an end to the embargo received 167 votes in favor, with the United States, Israel, and the Marshall Islands voting against it.[7] In 2001, the resolution again received 167 votes in favor and three against, with the same countries opposing it.[7] The votes underscored that the bilateral relationship was not a simple division between cooperation and hostility: economic and cultural dealings could coexist with sharply different positions in multilateral diplomacy.

Political exchanges in 1998–99 further illustrated the two-way tensions. In July 1998, an American Jewish Congress delegation led by Jack Rosen met Castro for a six-hour dinner and said it was prepared to consider calling for an end to the U.S. economic boycott of Cuba.[1] Delegates challenged Cuba over its vote against rescinding the UN “Zionism is Racism” resolution; Castro said he had not known how the Cuban delegation had voted.[1] The following year, Israel was the only country besides the United States to vote against a UN motion to end the embargo, which received 157 votes in favor according to the historical account.[1]

Cuba’s approach to recognition is described differently in the sources. The Jewish Virtual Library says Cuba recognized Israel in 1949 but later rescinded recognition and lists it among states that do not recognize Israel.[13][14] Encyclopedia.com, by contrast, says Cuba maintained recognition before the 1973 break and describes its government as not denying Israel’s legitimate existence, even while condemning Israeli policy and defending Palestinians.[2] The available material therefore supports a distinction between formal recognition, diplomatic relations, and political rhetoric, but does not resolve every disagreement over how Cuba’s status should be classified.

Cuba continued to emphasize Palestinian statehood in public diplomacy. At a UN-organized regional forum on the Middle East held in Havana in June 2001, Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque said a fair and lasting peace required an independent Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.[1] Castro then led a solidarity demonstration in Havana that the account estimates drew about 10,000 people. PLO official Farouk Kaddoumi described Cuba as “the Palestinian people’s best friend.”[1]

Contacts with Israel nevertheless continued in limited forms. In 1994, Israel’s chief Ashkenazic rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau, visited Cuba and was received by Castro.[9] A later account says that interpersonal connections persisted, including Israeli tourism to Cuba and visits to Israel by Cuban artists and intellectuals.[10] Israelis also did business in Cuba, with agricultural and construction ventures cited as examples, while Cuban Jews regularly came to Israel from 2003.[10]

Tourism was another point of contact. A 2016 report said interest among Israeli tourists in Cuba was growing and described travel routes through intermediate destinations, a range of hotels and guesthouses, and rental-car options.[17] It also noted obstacles for visitors, including a need for better domestic transport infrastructure and the fact that internet access was not available everywhere.[17] The report gave figures of 5,600 Israeli tourists in 2014 and approximately 9,000 in 2015; these are historical counts reported at the time, not current tourism statistics.[17]

The commercial relationship remained limited and informal. A 2016 report characterized Israeli business activity in Cuba as concentrated mainly in infrastructure, energy, and natural resources.[17] A 2017 Israeli trade delegation explored a wider set of possible opportunities, including biopharmaceuticals, tourism, agriculture, infrastructure, water and sewage treatment, energy, food production, real estate, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.[11] Fourteen Israelis visited Havana from December 5 to 7, 2017, touring the Mariel industrial free zone, factories, and a Holocaust memorial.[11] The report said the visit had not yet yielded specific business deals and identified Cuba’s lack of cash to purchase Israeli products and expertise as a major obstacle.[11]

The delegation was the first Israeli trade delegation to Cuba since the 1973 rupture, according to the report.[11] Its activity showed that commercial exploration was possible without formal diplomatic ties, but it did not establish a diplomatic thaw or demonstrate that the proposed projects proceeded.[11]

The possibility of restoring relations appeared in reports about contacts in 2015 and 2016. A 2017 report said Israel’s Foreign Ministry developed a plan in 2015, approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and requested Canada’s help in brokering discussions because the Canadian embassy represented Israeli interests in Cuba.[18] It reported that secret talks took place in Havana in mid-2016 and were positive, but were put on hold after Donald Trump’s election and a shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba.[18] These details were attributed to Channel 10 reporting and were not presented as an official announcement of a concluded agreement.[18]

The World Jewish Congress reports that Israel’s Minister of Culture and the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Latin America and Caribbean Division visited Cuba in 2016 in the context of discussions about restoring diplomatic relations.[3] The source does not say that ties were restored.[3] A separate December 2017 report said Israel had considered establishing relations and sent an emissary for meetings in Havana months after the United States renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba; it said the initiative was frozen following Trump’s election.[19] The reported exploratory contacts and the delegation’s visit therefore indicate attempts or discussion, not an achieved diplomatic settlement.[3][19]

Sources from the 2010s and 2020s describe no formal diplomatic relations. A Jewish Virtual Library overview says Cuba is the exception to Israel’s full diplomatic relations with countries of Central and South America and the Caribbean.[4] The World Jewish Congress page, accessed in 2026, reports that there was no Israeli embassy or consulate in Cuba and that talks about restoring ties had taken place.[3] These sources agree that exploratory contacts did not amount to a restoration, but the bundle does not establish the diplomatic position beyond what those sources report.

Cuba’s public support for Palestinians remained visible in the 2020s. On November 23, 2023, tens of thousands of people marched in Havana in a pro-Palestinian demonstration led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel.[20] Marchers carried Palestinian flags and banners and accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, including chanting “free, free Palestine, Israel is genocide.” These were allegations voiced by demonstrators, not a judicial finding.[20] The report described the event as the first such march in more than a decade and noted Cuba’s long-standing support for the Palestinian cause.[20]

The same report said Cuba had trained more than 200 Palestinian doctors and stated that Cuba did not have diplomatic relations with Israel.[20] This contemporary account reflects the persistence of a political relationship with the Palestinian cause alongside the continuing absence of formal ties with Israel.

In April 2025, The Jerusalem Post reported that Cuba had initiated proceedings to intervene in South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention.[21] The report listed Cuba among states that had initiated intervention proceedings under Articles 62 or 63; it did not say that the Court had granted Cuba’s request.[21] This development belongs to the broader record of Cuba’s diplomatic opposition to Israel, but the procedural step should not be conflated with a ruling by the Court.

The history of Cuba–Israel relations illustrates how diplomatic status, economic exchange, public rhetoric, and communal ties can develop along separate tracks. Before the 1973 break, the relationship included diplomatic representation, trade agreements, and sustained Israeli assistance in citrus cultivation; after the break, agricultural advice, investment, business, tourism, religious visits, and Jewish emigration links continued in varying forms.[1][7] These contacts did not erase the political rupture, but they show that the absence of formal relations did not mean the absence of all practical engagement.

The relationship also became a recurring point of tension in international institutions. Cuba supported the 1975 UN resolution that declared Zionism a form of racism, according to sources in the bundle, and opposed its repeal in 1991.[3][5] Israel, meanwhile, repeatedly voted against Cuba-drafted resolutions calling for an end to the U.S. embargo.[7][7] The two countries’ opposing UN positions thus extended beyond the bilateral dispute and reflected their different diplomatic priorities.

Cuban Jewish life formed a distinct human dimension of the relationship. The record includes early arrangements for emigration to Israel, public Independence Day celebrations after the diplomatic break, the reported Operation Cigar departures, and later assistance through Canada.[1][8] Community visits to Israel added another continuing connection.[3][16] These episodes demonstrate that Jewish communal connections and individual movement between Cuba and Israel persisted even when the governments were not formally connected.

Reported efforts to re-establish ties, including senior visits, secret talks, and a trade delegation, have not produced evidence in this bundle of restored diplomatic relations.[3][18] The sources instead portray an enduring contrast: official Cuban positions have strongly supported Palestinian causes and opposed Israel in several international settings, while practical and personal contacts have periodically expanded beyond that political divide.[3][20]

Several aspects of the relationship are politically contested or reported differently. The State Department chronology emphasizes pressure from Arab and non-aligned countries, while a historical account describes Castro’s response to Qaddafi’s criticism and his pursuit of leadership within the non-aligned movement.[6][1] The Times of Israel separately says the Yom Kippur War itself was not the cause of the break.[10] The sources do not supply enough detail to reduce these accounts to a single uncontested explanation.

The wording and significance of Resolution 3379 are also politically charged. The UN adopted it in 1975 and revoked it in 1991, but the sources differ in their treatment of Cuba’s individual 1975 vote: the World Jewish Congress community page and other accounts say Cuba supported it, whereas the organization’s detailed resolution history does not identify Cuba’s vote.[3][5] The article therefore reports the vote as attributed rather than treating that particular source’s silence as confirmation or contradiction.

Finally, diplomatic relations should not be conflated with recognition. Sources agree on a 1973 severance of diplomatic relations, but differ over whether Cuba later rescinded its recognition of Israel or maintained recognition while relations were broken.[13][2] The bundle does not settle that question; it does establish that later official relations were absent in the cited accounts, even as commercial and community contacts continued.[3][4]