Between expansion, confronting isolation, and seeking to gain allies, the Israeli occupation policy towards the African continent falls. For decades, Israel has focused on penetrating Senegal and established diplomatic relations with it, but those relations remained affected by the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and have oscillated between presence, estrangement, and coldness.
In 1960, the two sides agreed to establish official relations between them, and the first Senegalese President, Leopold Sedar Senghor, visited Tel Aviv in 1971, but the bond of friendship was severed in 1973 in solidarity with the Arabs after their war that year with Israel.
After the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979 and the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the wave of Arab normalization, Dakar restored its relations with Israel in 1995.
In 2016, Israel withdrew its ambassador, Paul Hirschson, from Senegal after the latter submitted draft resolution No. 2334 to the UN Security Council, which condemns settlements in the Palestinian territories. The draft resolution was voted in favor of by 14 countries, and the United States abstained from voting on it.
But after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s African tour to the Nile Basin countries in 2016, his participation in the 51st Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit in 2017 in Liberia, and his meeting with then Senegalese President Macky Sall, relations were resumed again.
In an unprecedented move, Sall sent his Foreign Minister Sidiki Kaba to visit Israel in March 2018 to strengthen relations between the two parties. During the visit, he visited occupied Jerusalem, which was denounced by the Palestinian Authority and led to protests in various Senegalese cities.
Sidiki’s visit was the first by a high-ranking official since Senghor’s visit to Tel Aviv in 1971.
Israeli interest
Within the occupation strategy that raised the slogan “Israel is returning to Africa” and relies on security and economic cooperation, the Israeli interest in Senegal comes due to its centrality in the Islamic world and its effectiveness in West Africa, as Dakar has chaired the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People at the United Nations since 1975, and is the acting chair of the Jerusalem Committee in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
When Dakar decided in 2004 to turn to agriculture and issue the Agricultural Reclamation Law to achieve self-sufficiency in the food sector, Israel found the right opportunity to penetrate the Senegalese system, so it provided assistance in the field of irrigation, water, and dam construction.
To compete with Iran, which in 2008 provided logistical support to Senegal in the field of rural development, including more than a thousand tractors, Israeli Minister of Agriculture Shalom Simhon visited Dakar in 2010, announcing his readiness to provide experiences and expertise, saying, “We do not visit Africa to take its resources, but to give it the technology that will help it develop.”
Simhon added that Israel could help Senegal reduce its dependence on food imports, which account for 80% of the country’s needs.
Between 2011 and 2015, the Israeli government provided financial support of around 30 million euros to Senegal through agricultural investment programmes.
Trade exchange
Despite the mutual visits between officials, the volume of trade exchange did not exceed 5 million dollars in 2015, which reflects the lack of depth of the relationship and its remaining within the circle of political openness and diplomatic courtesies.
The state of trade exchange with Senegal does not seem to be any better than elsewhere in Africa as a whole. According to official reports, the volume of Israeli exports in 2017 reached $100 billion, and the percentage directed to Africa was less than $1 billion.
In 2023, the Senegalese government participated in the AgriTech Summit in Tel Aviv, where the two sides are linked by areas of cooperation related to cybersecurity and communications technology.
Israel seeks to penetrate West Africa, as the region includes 350 million people, and has countries whose majority are Muslim. Opening up to it constitutes a victory for Israeli foreign policy, which has severed relations with Niger since 2002, as well as Mali in 1973.
For Israel, Dakar is one of the main gateways to penetrate West Africa due to its stability and good relations with regional and international parties.
France paper
The Jewish lobby in charge of Africa within the Knesset has exploited France’s relations with West Africa, especially Senegal, to strengthen relations and presence in various fields. In May 2022, the “Israel and the Return to Africa Summit” was held in Paris, and the French Foreign Ministry asked African diplomats accredited to it, as well as the educated elite, to attend that event.
During the summit, the Israeli ambassador to Senegal, accredited to Chad, Cape Verde and Guinea, said that Israel should be like the countries and organizations that have become active and influential in West Africa, as it has the ability to offer a lot to its friends, such as agriculture and information technology.
At the same conference, the head of the African Department at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Sharon Barley, hinted that Israel is the official channel for benefiting from the authorities in Washington, and considered France to be the reliable mediator who can bring the viewpoints between Israel and the countries of West Africa closer.
Despite France’s declared support for Israel, it did not convince its African friends to vote in favor of Israeli policy within the United Nations, nor did it guarantee it entry into the African Union with observer status, which the Palestinian Authority enjoys.
Since 2021, Paris has ceased to be the most important influencer in West Africa, as the region has witnessed military coups that have changed the old pattern of diplomacy and no longer give priority to the decisions of the Elysee.
New authority in Dakar
Since 2016, Senegal has been witnessing a political movement led by movements that believe in liberation and call for economic independence and building relations with France and the West that take into account local interests and independence in sovereign decisions.
After years of tug-of-war, the leader of the Pastef party, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, and his companion, the President of the Republic, Bassiro Diomaye Faye, succeeded in reaching power.
In an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Professor of International Relations Mohamed Ould Abdallah said that the Senegalese government is currently still in the process of transferring power from the generation subservient to France and mortgaged to the West, and is working on economic issues and the remnants of corruption left by the previous regime, and is not devoted to diplomatic and foreign relations files.
Ould Abdullah believes that the current authority in Dakar may reconsider the form of diplomacy and foreign relations that were influenced by some countries with great influence in the region, and whose influence has declined, such as the case of France with its former colonies.
Gaza war and its impact
After the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa 2023, the issue of Israeli-African relations resurfaced, but the massacre of the Baptist Hospital carried out by the Israeli Air Force in Gaza City on October 17, 2023, constituted a major shift in African positions, as South Africa did not just sever its relations with Israel, but went beyond that by filing a lawsuit before the Hague Court against the crimes of the Israeli occupation army, and asked 33 African countries that are members of the court to sign the lawsuit, and Senegal was one of the countries supporting that step.
The African Union’s positions were all consistent regarding the Israeli violations against the Palestinians, as the Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, said at the peace summit held in Cairo in October 2023 that it was time to form a global front to stop the violence in the Gaza Strip and to stop being content with condemnation and enter the stage of action.
Based on its responsibility as chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Palestinian People, Dakar quickly joined the list condemning the crimes of the occupation in the Gaza Strip, and organized the Fourth Conference of West African States in Support of the Palestinian Cause on July 14, 2024.
The conference, which was held under the slogan “Palestine is a trust for a nation that we will not leave alone,” was attended by Hamas leader Osama Hamdan, along with its representative in Mauritania, Mohamed Sobhi Abu Saqr, and a number of figures from the west of the continent.
During the 15th OIC Summit, Bassiro Faye said that his country’s support for Palestine cannot be retracted.
After large demonstrations in a number of Senegalese cities calling for severing relations with Israel, Sonko joined the demonstrations organized by prominent scholars and called for isolating Israel from the international community.
Many observers, such as human rights activist Sheikh Fall and Senegalese journalist Ayoub Afai, believe that the new government in Dakar should have frozen its relations with the Zionist entity, as Chad and some other countries have done. This will increase its harmony with Algeria, which has recently begun pumping a lot of investments into Senegal.
For his part, Professor of International Relations Ould Abdallah believes that relations between Israel and Dakar are at stake because the Pastef party, led by Sonko, which currently shapes the country’s policy, does not accept subordination in positions, and is based on the doctrine of liberation and hostility to colonial power, and it is not unlikely that it will follow the ranks of those boycotting Israel.
