South Africa and Algeria demanded that the accreditation be withdrawn. However, in 2021, Israel was granted observer status through a unilateral decision by the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, who was accused of not consulting member countries.Ī committee was set up to review the dispute. Palestine gained observer status at the AU in 2002, when Israel’s status was revoked. The Organisation of African Unity, which preceded the AU, formally denounced Israel in 1975 for its treatment of the Palestinians and called for members to support their struggle. It marked the beginning of a long and lucrative alliance that included extensive arms sales to the apartheid regime in Pretoria and lasted until the early 1990s-a relationship that is still resented by South Africa’s government today. This realignment came to a head after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel began to pursue closer diplomatic and defense ties with apartheid South Africa.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, many African governments began to sour on Israel-increasingly viewing it as a colonial occupying power-and gravitate toward oil-rich Arab states, leading to increasingly hard-nosed realism among Israeli leaders across the political spectrum. In the early years after the country was founded, Israeli leaders steeped in socialist Zionism, such as Golda Meir, cultivated close ties with newly independent African states while often condemning apartheid in South Africa.

Israel has a long and tumultuous diplomatic history in Africa. “It is sad to see that the African Union has been taken hostage by a small number of extremist countries such as Algeria and South Africa, driven by hatred and controlled by Iran,” Hayat added. “Israel views seriously the incident in which the deputy for Africa, Ambassador Sharon Bar-li, was removed from the African Union hall despite her status as an accredited observer with access badges,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lior Hayat is quoted by the Times of Israel as saying. Israel has blamed South Africa and Algeria for the incident. There was a discussion, and Sharon Bar-li, the Israeli foreign ministry’s deputy director-general for Africa, is then seen to leave alongside a security guard. There had been tensions brewing over how Israel was granted observer status to the AU despite a long-standing stance by African member states to support Palestine.Ī widely viewed video appears to show a security guard approaching the Israeli delegation during the opening ceremony in Addis Ababa. Israel’s senior delegate to the African Union summit in Ethiopia was unceremoniously removed Saturday, causing a diplomatic uproar. What Is the Future of Africa’s Ties With Israel?

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