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.
Israel's decision to accept Jordan's demands for apology and compensation, so as to settle the diplomatic crisis between the two countries and secure the reopening of the Embassy in Amman, must be seen in the context of broader regional dynamics.
The recent thaw in Israeli-Saudi relations must be understood in the context of the lengthy Saudi Arabia-Iran cold war, and, more generally, the larger conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites.
Both the State of Israel and post-colonial Africa were culminations of long-held messianic dreams, the first held by a two-thousand-year Jewish diaspora, the second by nations or tribes that chaffed for centuries under colonial oppression in their own lands.
