Israel Seeks To Join Palestine As Observer Member of African Union

Israeli officials are making moves to join the African Union (AU) as an observer to get its voice heard in Africa.

The nation had an observer status in the defunct Organisation of African Union (OAU) until it was dissolved in 2002 and replaced with African Union (AU).

According to a report by Jerusalem Post, Israeli authorities are looking to present the development to the president of Kenya, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, when he visits next week.

“Palestine,” by contrast, was granted this status in 2013. Israel according to the report believes the Palestinian Authority, President Mahmoud Abbas, using its observatory status has addressed the AU and this has led to some vicious anti-Israel resolutions being passed, with Israel not having the ability to get its voice heard.

The African Union represents 54 African states including Nigeria.

Israel has diplomatic relations with 41 African countries and embassies in 11 of them.

Israel is leveraging its relationship with “friendly” African states to push forward a proposal to again extend observer status in the African Union to Jerusalem.

A former Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, who visited Africa twice during his tenure – the last time being in 2014 – tried unsuccessfully to move the issue during that trip.

He described Africa at that time as “an important goal of Israeli foreign policy, and we will make a diplomatic effort to ensure that Israel will be accepted in the coming year as an observer in the African Union,”.

Likewise, the former Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a recent address to the annual meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem called for the need to work for a change in attitudes toward Israel in international forums, including the African Union.

“I think that we have to press this point. We shouldn’t be shy about it.We shouldn’t accept that there is this strange dichotomy and dissonance between the friendship and the alliances that are being built between Israel and the many countries and the way they vote about Israel in international forums,” he said.

“I think that’s true of the EU; it’s true of the Organization for African Unity; it’s true in Latin America,” he added.

“And I think we should press this point home because as interests shift, as Israel becomes such an important country internationally, it’s important that this will be reflected in international forums as well.”

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