{"id":3856,"date":"2023-11-08T20:08:04","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T20:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2023-11-08T20:09:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T20:09:55","slug":"positions-of-the-african-countries-towards-gaza-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/08\/positions-of-the-african-countries-towards-gaza-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Positions of the African Countries Towards Gaza War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed<\/strong>
\nIsrael has made deep inroads into a continent traditionally sympathetic to Palestine. But Israel\u2019s gains have limits too. As reports of Hamas fighters attacking on 7 October, southern Israel flooded phones and television sets around the world, Kenyan President William Ruto took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
\nKenya joins the rest of the world in solidarity with the State of Israel and unequivocally condemns terrorism and attacks on innocent civilians in the country, considering that \u2018there exists no justification whatsoever for terrorism, which constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security.\u201d
\nIt was an explicit endorsement of Israel\u2019s position and \u2013 some would argue \u2013 the response that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government has since unleashed on the Gaza Strip, with a bombing campaign that has killed more than 1,900 people.
\nAs the death toll from the war mounts, African governments are wading into heated debates surrounding the conflict \u2013 with the continent split, as different nations take opposing sides.
\nAuthorities in South Africa blamed the escalation on Israel\u2019s illegal occupation and desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as sacred Christian sites.
\nAlgeria declared \u201cfull solidarity with Palestine\u201d early in the war. The African Union Commission under Moussa Mahamat Faki, while expressing concern over the violence, has blamed the \u201cdenial of the fundamental rights of the Palestinians\u201d and called for a two-state solution.
\nBut Kenya, Zambia, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among other African nations that have aligned with Israel\u2019s position. Some of them changed positions after heightened atrocities of Israel against Gazan.
\nSo why is a continent that suffered the worst ravages of colonialism and racism for centuries and that has historically, for the most part, supported Palestine, split now?
\nThe short answer: Africa\u2019s divisions highlight each government\u2019s attempt to compartmentalise their interests, experts say, and underline some countries\u2019 strengthening ties with Israel. On the one hand, there are deep-rooted ties with the Palestinian movement; on the other, the offer of cutting-edge technology, military assistance and aid from Israel. Which wins out could determine how Africa tilts if this conflict drags on \u2013 and in the future.
\nAfrican countries shedding the pain of brutal colonial rule in the 1960s were cold to a newly formed Israel and were sympathetic to the struggle of Palestinians uprooted from their land and homes in 1948.
\nFollowing the October War of 1973, the continental bloc, then the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) severed ties with Israel.
\nZine Labidine Ghebouli, a researcher with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) traces some of Algeria\u2019s sentiments to the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence in Algiers and even further back to Algeria\u2019s history under French colonialism.
\n\u201cThe Algeria-Palestine relationship is very historic and emotional,\u201d Ghebouli told Al Jazeera, adding that Islam as a common religion solidifies those ties. \u201cWe were occupied by France, and this history of brutality is similar.
\nBut post-apartheid South Africa has perhaps been Palestine\u2019s most staunch supporter on the continent, with Nelson Mandela famously drawing parallels between the struggle of Black South Africans against white rule and of Palestinians against Israel\u2019s occupation. Many human rights groups have subsequently also made that comparison.
\nIn July 2022, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor called on the United Nations to declare Israel an \u201capartheid state\u201d. Amid Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine, as Western pressure grew on South Africa and other nations in Africa and Asia to condemn Moscow\u2019s actions, Pandor pushed back, asking why Western capitals weren\u2019t willing to apply the same principles of international law when it came to Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestinian lands.
\nLately, several African countries recalled their ambassadors from Israel: South Africa and Chad, the first to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed Israel has made deep inroads into a continent traditionally sympathetic to Palestine. But Israel\u2019s gains have limits too. As reports of Hamas fighters attacking on 7 October, southern Israel flooded phones and television sets around the world, Kenyan President William Ruto took to X, the social media platform formerly known …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3858,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions\/3858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}