In an effort to expand to confront encirclement and exist to compete with opponents, Israeli foreign policy has focused over the past two decades on the African continent and has concluded economic and security partnerships with many regimes to gain their votes and support within international bodies.
But the massacre of the Al-Amman Hospital, carried out by the Israeli Air Force in the Gaza Strip on October 17, 2023, constituted a turning point in African positions, as the front supporting the Palestinian cause increased at the expense of the Israeli entity.
The ongoing war on Gaza has cast a shadow over relations between Africa and Israel and increased the voices opposing its presence on the continent.
Relationships path
For many years, African-Israeli relations have been tied to the Palestinian issue, and African positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have revolved around Arab-Israeli relations.
Due to the similarity in the paths of national liberation from colonialism, African positions supported the Palestinian cause, but that support declined with the Camp David Accords in 1978, the Oslo Accords in 1994, and Arab-Israeli normalization.
Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman’s second visit to Africa in 2014 coincided with the establishment of the “African Lobby” within the Knesset to work on activating relations with African governments to win them over for votes within the international system.
When the US draft resolution on the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) was presented at the United Nations in 2018, only 8 countries from the African continent supported it, while the rest were absent and abstained from voting.
Under the slogan “Return to Africa”, Israel was able to normalize relations with 46 African countries, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intensified his visits to the continent, as he toured 4 countries in the Nile Basin region, including Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
He also attended the 2017 ECOWAS meeting in Liberia, and visited Chad in 2019 after relations were re-normalized.
Although the Israeli lobby’s moves were aimed at breaking the diplomatic isolation and penetrating the African depth, it failed to organize the African-Israeli summit that was scheduled to be held in 2017 in Togo.
Economic presence
Since the late 1950s, Israel has been active in Africa through trade and arms, and in 1996 it established the “Israeli-African Chamber of Commerce” with the aim of strengthening relations with sub-Saharan countries. It has signed many partnerships with African entities such as the Economic Community of West African States and a number of chambers of commerce and industry on the continent.
Israel seeks a diplomatic presence in Africa through arms sales and investment in security companies, as it ranks among the leading exporters of light weapons to the continent. In 2019, Israeli security exports amounted to nearly $7.5 billion, $400 million of which were directed to the African continent.
Israel is active in the Great Lakes countries to tighten control over water, as it has submitted detailed studies to build 3 dams in Zaire and Rwanda. In 2000, it implemented irrigation projects in 10 drought-affected provinces in Uganda, and its role in building the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is part of its efforts to reach the sources of the Nile.
It seeks to be present in the West African region by supporting projects in poor areas. Between 2011 and 2015, it provided 30 million euros to Senegal through the National Agricultural Investment Program (PNIE).
Despite Israel’s success in normalizing relations with many African countries, it failed to be accepted among the African Union members as an observer, as Palestine has. Its delegation was expelled from the 36th summit in Addis Ababa in 2023. The Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, said that “the summit decided to suspend granting Israel observer status until this is done through a special committee.”
Israel is working to increase its presence in the West African region, where it believes that the funds managed by Lebanese businessmen are affiliated with Hezbollah. It also fears Iran’s expansion in the region, which it has set as one of its targets in recent years, especially with the decline of French and American influence in the Sahel and Sahara region, and the emergence of new powers such as Russia, China and Turkey.
The repercussions of the Gaza war
The ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has drawn the attention of African leaders to the regional and international roles that African countries can play, as they constitute the second largest voting bloc in international forums, with 54 countries.
Supporting the Palestinian cause and standing with oppressed peoples is part of the collective values on which the African Union was founded, related to fighting colonialism and striving for liberation.
It seemed that Israel’s war on Gaza would have repercussions on the future of relations with Africa, as South Africa took the initiative to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. In the context of limiting Israeli influence in the region, South Africa called on 33 African countries that are members of The Hague to file a lawsuit against Israel before the International Court of Justice on December 29, 2023.
Israel was unable to win the votes of its African friends at the United Nations. When the Arab resolution on Israeli attacks was presented to the United Nations on October 27, 2023, 120 countries supported it, and no African government objected to it.
Even Ethiopia, which has historical ties to Israel, did not object to it, and in 2018 it refrained from moving its embassy to Jerusalem in line with African Union decisions. On June 10, 2024, the Security Council issued a resolution to stop the Israeli aggression on Gaza, and it was supported by 14 countries, including two African countries, Ghana and Mozambique.
In line with African anger over the genocide of the Palestinian people, Chad withdrew its chargé d’affaires from Israel in November 2023, the Tunisian parliament discussed a law criminalizing normalization with the “Zionist entity”, and the Algerian People’s Assembly passed a resolution allowing the president to enter the war in support of Palestine.
Several African countries witnessed popular demonstrations in front of foreign embassies demanding accountability for Israel. On August 31, Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko participated in a march in support of Palestine and called for the isolation of Israel.
The attacks carried out by the Houthis in the Red Sea are likely to limit the flow of trade between Israel and East Africa, which will negatively affect the volume of economic exchange with the continent, which reached two billion dollars in 2018.
