Netanyahu’s Africa tour marks a new era in Israel-Africa relations

After twenty-two years from the journey of Yitzhak Shamir in Morocco, a leader of the Israeli government is back in Africa to strengthen diplomatic and trade relations with the continent. An official five-day visit, held in unprecedented security measures that brought Benjamin Netanyahu in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda.
The tour of the Israeli prime minister in the four East African key states has also taken a strong personal significance. Because it coincided with the fortieth anniversary of Operation Thunderbolt, code name, that the special military unit Sayeret Matkal gave to the raid that led to the release of 105 passengers of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris.

Victory at Entebbe

Two Palestinian and two Germans terrorists hijacked the aircraft, carrying 248 passengers and 12 crewmembers on June 27, 1976 after a technical stop in Athens.
After a first stop in Benghazi, Libya, the Airbus 300 crossed to Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers were joined by four other commandos’ terrorists, who benefited by the support of the Government of the bloody dictator Idi Amin Dada, who was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
At first, Amin had been supported by Israel, but its diplomatic relations with the Jewish state degenerated when Tel Aviv refused to Kampala government the sale of combat aircraft, which would be used to attack Tanzania.
At the end in the hands of the kidnappers were 105 Israeli citizens and Jews, together with the crew who were imprisoned in the old airport terminal. All the hostages were freed by the Israeli armed forces in the middle of the night between July 3 and July 4, in a raid led by the brother of the Israeli Prime Minister, the thirty-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, who was the only soldier to lose his life in ’action.
The Israeli leader has therefore wanted to honor the memory of Yoni, going to the site of the operation that covered with glory Israel Defense Forces, and cost the life of his older brother.

A long-time relation

Netanyahu’s visit was organized with the aim of inaugurating a new era that will allow Israel to provide its expertise to African countries, especially in the security field, in return for support, which could prove decisive in international bodies.
Especially in the UN Security Council where the Palestinians for some time trying, unsuccessfully, to obtain the necessary consents to go to a vote of the 15 members for the recognition of their state.
Before leaving for the African tour, Netanyahu had declared that his trip draws “upheavals” in the relationship between Israel and Africa, which dates back to the origins of the Jewish state, when some African nations were among the first in the world to recognize Israel by voting in favor of the Un partition Palestine plan.
Immediately after, Tel Aviv shook excellent working relationships with most of the African countries, which in the first half of the sixties brought Israel to open permanent diplomatic missions in 32 African countries.
Then, in the seventies, the Yom Kippur War and the rise of the opposition between the two blocks produced a sharp deterioration of relations between the two regional players.
Nevertheless, Tel Aviv maintained good cooperation, especially in military and nuclear, with South Africa’s apartheid regime, while Mandela and ANC clutching relations with Yasser Arafat and the PLO.
Later, in the late eighties, against the advice of several politicians, the Israeli government took a more critical stance towards the South African regime diminishing contacts with Pretoria.

A patient work of rapprochement

The tour just ended crowns a work of rapprochement, which began in the past years by the current defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who as foreign minister had visited the continent in the fall of 2009 and summer of 2014.
In turn, dozens of African dignitaries have visited Israel in recent years. The last in order of time, the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, who had gone to Tel Aviv in February, while the past month it was the turn of the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Solid foundations that last week allowed the Israeli government to approve the opening, in the four countries visited by Netanyahu, of the offices Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation.
A diplomat reunification also financially supported by the launch of an aid package of $ 13 million that will serve to strengthen economic ties and cooperation at all levels, between Israel and Africa.
@afrofocus