Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known popularly as “Lula,” 77, recently won Brazil’s closely watched presidential election over President Jair Bolsonaro, 67, a right-wing populist and deeply polarizing figure in Latin America’s largest country.
As the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East advances an aggressive anti-Israel agenda bordering on anti-Semitism, Chile is facing constant attacks on its democracy and its heritage of inclusiveness.
Why is Israel returning to Africa? For Netanyahu, one reason dominates all others. “The automatic majority against Israel at the UN is composed—first and foremost—of African countries,” he told a gathering of Israel’s ambassadors to Africa in February of last year. “Whether in the end or at the outset, our goal is to change their voting patterns.”
Benjamin Netanyahu's historic visit to Africa this week is the first by an Israeli prime minister in close to 50 years. While the occasion is to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Entebbe raid in which he lost a brother and Israel's military prowess dazzled the world, Israel has considerably more to celebrate in Africa today. Little of this is publicly known, as it is a fraught story of people-to-people affinities ill-served by frequent government-to-government misalliance.