Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urged his ministers to visit African nations as part of a campaign to invade that continent and make the African bloc in the UN support Israel. “The automatic UN majority is based, first and foremost, on the African bloc. It is only a question of time before we break up this majority and move it from one side to the other; this is a very great change in the international status of Israel,” Netanyahu said. Addressing his ministers, he then declared, “Just as I told you to go to China, India and other countries, I am telling you to go to Africa. We will paint the map of the world blue and white, and in the end even the UN will reflect this changing reality.” The Israeli premier issued these remarks after he inaugurated an exhibition showcasing “Israel's support of science and technology in Africa” on the sidelines of the opening of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly last week. The inauguration was attended by 20 heads of state and officials from 15 Arab countries. Cairo had once been the mecca of the African national liberation movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Hardly a month went by without a visit, whether secret or public, by an African nationalist leader to meet Egyptian officials and obtain support. Egypt under President Gamal Abdel-Nasser had initiated a policy of solidarity with the peoples of Africa and Asia following the historic Bandung Conference in 1955 that brought together such eminent leaders as Sukarno, Nehru, Tito and Nasser. But Africa is no longer the strategic depth it had once been for the Arabs. This has encouraged Israel to penetrate the black continent using economic and other means. As a result, Africa, in general, which had once stood by the Arabs, supported Palestinian and Arab rights, and condemned Israelis, has begun to establish very close relations with Israel, even to the detriment of the Arabs and their national security. In July, Netanyahu was received as a distinguished guest in Africa. He toured four countries in the Upper Nile Basin: Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. It was the first visit of a senior Israeli official to Africa since the mid-1970s. In the course of this tour he held a summit in Uganda with leaders from seven African states. In addition to the heads-of-state of the four abovementioned countries, the summit was attended by the president of South Sudan, the president of Zambia and the foreign minister of Tanzania. The timing of that African tour was interesting. It coincided with the 40th anniversary of the death of the prime minister's brother, Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu, during the Entebbe hijack attack (in July 1976) that had been carried out by the Wadie Haddad branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). An Air France plane en route from Ramallah airport to Paris was commandeered in mid-flight and ordered to change course and land in Entebbe airport. Israel in collaboration with Kenya succeeded in rescuing the hostages and some of the hijackers were arrested. They would eventually be released in a major prisoner exchange deal in 1986. One Israel officer died during the rescue operation: Netanyahu's brother. The Israeli prime minister's four-country tour crowned the drive that Israel has been pursuing feverishly for decades in Africa, capitalising on the difficult and complex economic circumstances there. African nations have desperately needed technological assistance for agricultural development, forestry, land reclamation, building electricity grids and irrigation networks. In addition, many countries have been gripped by famine, desertification, epidemics, and widespread illiteracy and underdevelopment. Israel used such problems as its avenue to penetrate these countries with the excuse of offering a helping hand to their peoples. Israel feels that its international reputation is steadily deteriorating. That process began to grow following its invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and increasingly so with subsequent developments such as its blockade of Gaza in 2007, its repeated attacks against Gaza (Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09, the Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012, and the Operation Protective Edge in 2014) and its attack against the Freedom Flotilla in which nine Turkish citizens were killed. The African leaders whom Netanyahu met recently promised to reinstate Israel as an observer member of the African Union. Israel had been an observer member of the Organisation for African Unity until 2002. The Israeli return after that long hiatus is a product of the fading Arab role in Africa. Whereas Africa had once looked to the Arabs for support and solidarity, it is now opening itself to the Zionist influence that president Nasser had sought to block when he took part in founding the Organisation for Afro-Asian solidarity in 1957. Nor should we forget Algeria's actions after its independence and Libyan and Sudanese support for sustaining the boycott of Israel, even if the force of that faded following the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the Oslo Accords in 1993, all of which Israel exploited to strengthen it military, economic and technological relations with the countries of central Africa and the sources of the Nile. Israel currently has relations with 40 African states (it has 10 embassies in Africa and 15 African countries have embassies in Tel Aviv). This would have been unimaginable at the time of the Israeli aggression against Arab countries in 1967 and the October 1973 War when 30 African states had severed relations with Israel. Perhaps one of Netanyahu's purposes in visiting Africa was to present himself as someone who wanted to support the fight terrorism towards which end he tried to market Israel as a victim of “Palestinian terrorism”. “Africa has no better friend abroad than Israel, especially when it comes to practical matters such as security and development,” he said. Clearly, then, reasons related to security and intelligence, plus the desire to win African support in international forums, motivated that visit that had been carefully planned and staged. Israel wants to say that it is present in Africa and that its presence will come at the expense of the Arabs. While in Kenya this summer Netanyahu said, “Africa is a continent with 54 countries. The possibility of changing their position and their attitude towards Israel is a strategic change in Israel's international standing.” This change begins with the efforts mentioned by Kenyan President Kenyatta aimed at restoring Israel's observer status at the African Union, which “has very great significance for us”, Netanyahu said, adding that the African-Israeli rapprochement was already resonating on the continent, “but it will have a very big resonance in the future of Israel's international relations in our effort to make a very large number of countries support Israel.”
