Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

The African Union, Israel and the Futility of Appeasement
Marwan Bishara
08 Sep 2021
🖨️ Print Article
The African Union, Israel and the Futility of Appeasement
The African Union, Israel and the Futility of Appeasement

The AU should be leading the fight against racism, not cozying up to racist regimes.

For decades, African countries have supported the Palestinian liberation struggle against Israel, seeing in it parallels with their own anti-colonial movements. Likewise, the African Union has not hesitated to criticise Israeli international law violations and occupation of Palestinian lands.

Most recently, Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat condemned Israel’s war on Gaza and its violent attacks against Palestinians in Jerusalem. So why on earth did the commission grant Israel the privilege of an observer status at the AU just two months later?

It is not like Israel has had a change of heart in its treatment of Palestinians. If anything, Israeli leaders have doubled down on what international human rights organisations have called war crimes and have persisted in their colonial policies, despite African condemnation.

As South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has argued, Israel is erecting an apartheid system in Palestine akin to apartheid South Africa as colonisation, in the form of illegal, exclusively Jewish settlements, goes on unabated.

Some South African and Israeli observers have deemed Israel’s racist regime â€śfar worse” than South Africa’s pre-1994, given the large-scale ethnic cleansing that has taken place in Palestine.

All of this begs the question: Why would Mahamat, a seasoned politician, allow such a questionable and grave decision to be made without consultation with the member states?

This is especially disturbing considering that an absolute majority of African states have only recently renewed their trust in Mahamat’s leadership, re-electing him for another four-year term!

Already, some major countries from Algeria to South Africa have flatly rejected Israel’s admission to the Union, in any form, as incompatible with the values and principles of the AU charter, demanding an explanation and outright reversal.

Now, I realise that a number of African and Arab leaders have appeased Israel as a way to reach out to the United States. They reckon that Israel has major sway in Washington and may be of help to influence the decisions of the world’s superpower in their favour.

Indeed, such pragmatism – read opportunism – may have worked for the likes of Sudan in getting U.S. sanctions lifted after it began normalising relations with Israel.

In other words, U.S. leaders have encouraged such malpractice, no less the present administration, which claims to put human rights at the centre of its foreign policy.

Mahamat’s own impoverished and embattled home country, Chad, has stepped up its relations with Israel over the past four years for military and strategic gain.

But how does that relate to the African Union Commission? And why should the Palestinians always pay the price?

After all, the Ethiopia-based AU Commission is not a state; it is a continental organisation that represents all 55 member states, most of whom have suffered terribly at the hands of the same type of repressive colonialism that is besieging Palestine.

Africa’s inter and intra-state politics are too complicated to address in one article, but there is certainly a unique shared history and a certain commonality among African states that cannot be forgotten or ignored.

Not long ago, Israel was directly implicated in supporting Western colonial enterprises in Africa. And it armed and trained some of the worst African regimes during the Cold War.

Even when Western nations distanced themselves from apartheid South Africa, Israel remained the racist regime’s best friend, praising apartheid and cooperating with Pretoria in nuclear weapons development.

Worse still, it never apologised for it. Ever.

And while Israel did try to improve relations with African countries by providing various types of aid and technical assistance over the past two decades, it has also armed some of the continent’s unsavoury regimes.

Still, there is nothing that Israel can offer Africa that it cannot purchase on the world market or obtain from the various world powers vying for influence on the continent.

In other words, pragmatism does not justify appeasing racism.

It is not a coincidence that the late Nelson Mandela, who led reconciliation in South Africa, never reconciled with apartheid Israel and persisted in his support for the Palestinian struggle while vehemently opposing anti-Semitism.

I remember his words all too clearly when I attended the Durban World Conference Against Racism 20 years ago where my book, Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid, was launched.

Mandela urged the thousands of attendees to fight against the “racism contagion”, which he described as a “disease” not unique to any people or continent, but an ailment of the human mind and soul.

Indeed, racism knows no nationality or religion.

But Israel, with the help of the U.S. and other Western countries, sought to undermine the conference, fearing a condemnation of Zionism and Israeli racism and demands of Western repatriations for African nations.

A week later, al-Qaeda’s despicable 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington unleashed a global barrage of racism against Muslims and Arabs, including Palestinians. And it has not stopped since, even though Muslims have been the foremost victims of terrorism.

Today, as Africans continue to suffer from discrimination and prejudice, Africa must be at the forefront in the fight against racism in all its forms, including religious bigotry, national chauvinism and settler colonialism.

The African Union Commission has a moral and political responsibility to lead such a fight against racism, not undermine it through cynical appeasement and empty declarations. Granting an apartheid regime the privilege to “observe” the African Union legitimises it and empowers Israeli leaders to carry on with their colonial enterprise in Palestine.

This article originally appeared in Aljazeera.com.

Marwan Bishara is an author who writes extensively on global politics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on US foreign policy, the Middle East and international strategic affairs. He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris.

 

African Union
Israel
Israeli Apartheid

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
On the Right to Exist: Rosh Hashana Represents a Choice for Jews of Conscience, a New Year for Zionism, or a Commitment To a New Era of Jewish Values
24 September 2025
This Rosh Hashana falls during an ongoing genocide, creating a profound moral crisis for Jewish people.
The Cradle News Desk
Italy Paralyzed as Anti-Genocide Protesters Take the Streets
24 September 2025
Walkouts in over 60 cities disrupted trains, ports, and schools to protest Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
BettBeat
Capitalism Hijacked the World to Keep Contributing to Genocide—BRICS Proves It
17 September 2025
We are like addicts who scream "no" while stabbing the needle into our arms.
Middle East Eye Staff
New York state sends police chiefs to Israel for 'counterterrorism' training
17 September 2025
This is the second training visit for US officers that has been hosted by an Israeli government agency during Israel's war on Gaza.
Sarah B.
Gaza to Donbass: How Israel and Ukraine Built a Fascist, Transnational War Machine
10 September 2025
From Bandera to Ben-Gurion, an axis of ethno-supremacy is rising, fueled by U.S. backing. Same guns. Same flags. Same ideology.
Mohamad Elmasry
Israel's attack on Qatar should be a wake-up call for the Arab world
10 September 2025
The strike on Doha shows that Arab regimes' silence and passivity in the face of Israeli violence will only invite further aggression.
Mohammed El-Kurd
Guilty by Affiliation
13 August 2025
The Israeli murder of heroic Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif was bookended by accusations that he was part of Hamas.
Youssef Fares
Survivors of Aid Massacres: Israel Is Eroding Gaza’s Social Fabric
13 August 2025
As the world condemns indiscriminate bombing, Israel continues to commit genocide by social erosion.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Zionist Shakedown
06 August 2025
Israel is a genocidaire apartheid state silencing critics around the world through threats, intimidation, lawfare, and accusations of antisemit
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
There is no starvation
06 August 2025
Firstly, the world’s most moral snipers would never target Practice on razor wire-trapped, hungry hunters and

More Stories


  • X
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Fighting Trump and the Black Collaborators Too
    24 Sep 2025
    Fighting Trump’s racist attacks is obviously a necessity but that fight must include opposing the Black misleadership class and their collaboration.
  • Hugo Chávez FrĂ­as
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Statement at the 61st UN General Assembly, President H.E. Hugo Chávez Frías, 2006
    24 Sep 2025
    “ U.S. imperialism…is making desperate efforts to consolidate its hegemonic system of domination. We cannot allow this to happen.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Gaza Is Not Rwanda: Its Suffering Should Not Perpetuate that of Congolese
    24 Sep 2025
    Likening the suffering of Gazans to that of Rwandan Tutsis perpetuates the narrative that has dominated the African Great Lakes Region for 30 years, allegedly justifying the sacrifice
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    On the Right to Exist: Rosh Hashana Represents a Choice for Jews of Conscience, a New Year for Zionism, or a Commitment To a New Era of Jewish Values
    24 Sep 2025
    This Rosh Hashana falls during an ongoing genocide, creating a profound moral crisis for Jewish people. The holiday demands a rejection of the state committing these acts in the name of Jewish safety.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    (Don’t) “Say his name!”
    24 Sep 2025
    "(Don’t) 'Say his name!'" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us