What Netanyahu’s Meeting With al-Burhan Reveals About Israel’s New Africa Policy?

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to Uganda and met Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s transitional Sovereignty Council. The pair’s meeting in Entebbe was a striking development following a long pause in official ties between the two countries. Although there had been previous attempts to establish ties between the two capitals during Omar al-Bashir’s rule in the 2010s, this latest meeting highlights the shifting course of Israel’s Africa policy, and particularly its relations with Sudan.

According to the agenda of this unofficial meeting, it is reported that Israel has promised to work towards convincing President Donald Trump to remove Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and in turn Sudan agreed to allow flights to and from Israel to use Sudanese airspace. However, it is unlikely that this reconciliation effort would be restricted to such a limited scope. Instead, there is a deeper dimension in bilateral expectations. Considering the timing of this meeting, both countries are on the brink of significant changes: While Sudan is seeking opportunities to break its isolation and integrate politically and economically with the West after the toppling of al-Bashir, Israel will push to increase the legitimacy of the ‘Deal of the Century’ regionally, even though it knows that the Palestinians will not accept such a scandalous agreement. Indeed, statements in support of the Israeli-Sudanese reconciliation efforts immediately appeared in Saudi-linked media outlets. Furthermore, it is claimed that the UAE organised Netanyahu’s meeting with al-Burhan and both Saudi Arabia and Egypt were informed. This new period in bilateral relations can be conceptualized under the term ‘reciprocal legitimization’, based on the previously mentioned mutual attitude of legitimizing regional agendas.

In the history of Israel-Sudan relations, Israel has adopted a ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ approach for years and supported the groups opposed to the influence of the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s in Sudan. Israel’s national intelligence agency (MOSSAD) infiltrated Sudan in the 1970s in order to arm the rebel forces from South Sudanese tribes and this military support is maintained after the independence of South Sudan in 2011. Israel also carried out several operations to move Ethiopian Jews into the country in 1977, 1980 and 1984. When the recently deposed President Omar al-Bashir distanced himself from Iran and provided his support to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen Civil War, Israel began to acquire a clandestine influence. This influence has ultimately turned into flirtations between the two countries, as al-Bashir sought to acquit himself from his war crimes in Darfur. To that end, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen met with his Sudanese counterpart General Salah Gosh during the Munich Security Conference last year, in a meeting arranged by Egyptian intermediaries with the support of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Despite the fluctuating relations between Israel and Sudan, such a framework of diplomacy can also set a new precedent in the African continent. For instance, in the case of Chad, when President Idriss Deby visited Israel in November 2018, Netanyahu then paid a return visit two months later and bilateral ties were officially restored after almost 50 years. Since the second half of the 2010s, Israel has also increased its interactions with Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, together with several other countries across the African continent, even restoring official relations with some of them.

To what extent can this process be regarded as a shift in Israel’s Africa agenda? Historically, Israel started making efforts to break its regional isolation by developing the ‘Periphery Doctrine’ as a strategy in the 1960s. It formed close relations with Ethiopia while several other countries on the continent (Ghana, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria) became significant partners for Israel. Despite that, the Arab-Israeli War in 1973 and the following global oil crisis resulted in a series of African states cutting their official ties with Israel because of the resolution pressed by Arabs recommending countries of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to sever ties with Israel, together with the promises of cheap oil and financial support by the Arab states. Although relations with African states improved in the 1980s, and official ties were gradually re-established or developed in the 1990s, Israel has become more selective (even pragmatic) and less idealistic in these terms. Of course, Israel’s disappointment with the lack of support from these African countries in the United Nations (UN) voting sessions, as well as Iranian and Saudi influence over them, has also led to this outcome.

Today, Israel appears to be in a far more advantageous position: Along with the increasing incapacity of the UN to respond to the problems of the Palestinian issue, the rapprochement between the Gulf States and Israel has also become a factor encouraging Israel to implement a more confident foreign policy in Africa, particularly in the east of the continent. Amidst the deepening aversion towards Iranian influence in the MENA region, Israel and the Gulf States, including Egypt, could well act together to repel Tehran’s influence.

Having said that, this does not necessarily mean that Israel will soon be gaining new allies in Africa, or that there will be a radical change in the African states’ attitude towards Israel. Israel will still need time to make things work smoothly. Yet, this will erode the trans-regional network capacity of the Palestinian cause which runs the risk of being cornered in the regional context.