Africa's Future is Tied to Effective Counterterrorism

Israel has proven an important ally in the fight

Earlier this week, the Times of Israel citing ILTV Israel News (Channel 12) reported that Iranian terrorist plots against Jews and Israelis in Africa had been thwarted.

Five people have been arrested in African countries over suspicions that they were planning on carrying out attacks against Israeli tourists or business people on behalf of Iran.

The five, who had been in Senegal, Tanzania, and Ghana, were recruited by Iran’s Quds Force expeditionary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

All five suspects were arrested before they could take any action.

It is speculated that Mossad, Israeli national intelligence, was involved in uncovering Iran’s plans. If this is true, it may also be true that the arrest of the five individuals in question was coordinated with the governments of Senegal, Tanzania, and Ghana. The good news is that counterterrorism foiled a conspiracy before anyone was injured or killed. The challenging news is that Africa has become the No. 1 region for terrorist activity.

According to the latest Terrorism Index…seven of the 10 highest risk countries are on the African continent.

Five countries received the lowest possible score of 0.00 out of 10.00 in the Index: Burkina Faso, Mali and Somalia in Africa, alongside Afghanistan and Syria. The rest of the top ten comprises, in descending order: Cameroon, Mozambique, Niger, DR Congo and Iraq. Nigeria is ranked in 11th position.

Over the course of 2020, four of the five countries to experience the biggest falls in their Index rating were in Africa. Burundi saw the greatest deterioration, falling 37 places to become the 27th-riskiest nation worldwide. Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania experienced similarly dramatic declines, falling to 30th and 32nd position respectively.

Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Senegal also saw their scores significantly worsen. The fact that just two African countries registered improvements in their risk rating, Rwanda and Central African Republic, gives particular cause for worry.

After the story of the foiled terrorist attacks broke, an Israeli friend and colleague who does Israel advocacy in West Africa contacted me. He told me that his associates in Ghana have, “noticed a rise in extremism especially in the north of the country,” and that, “they want different workshops on how to look for the signs of extremism and how to prevent it.” To that end, the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI) will host a webinar especially for government and non-governmental leaders in Africa entitled, Israeli Counterterrorism Helping Secure Africa’s Future. The keynote speaker is a retired Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Brigadier General and counterterrorism expert.

Since the 1950s under then Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, the Jewish State has been a partner with Africa. In my book, Zionism & the Black Church, I cite author and professor, Gil Troy in describing the golden age of Israel-Africa relations, the 1970s.

Many African leaders . . . appreciated Israel’s help in the 1960s and early 1970s - and resented that the Arabs had not offered compensation for the oil price jump (after the Arab oil embargo of 1973). Israelis, especially Labor Zionists like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, felt a sense of “historical mission” to fulfill Theodor Herzl’s dream of helping African countries. By the early 1970s, Israel had diplomatic ties with thirty-two African countries, more African embassies than any country other than the United States. Tanzania’s president Julius Nyerer called Meir, Israel’s prime minister from 1969 to 1974, “the mother of Africa.”

One of the many areas in which Israel has assisted Africa is national security. In 2015, during the rise of ISIS-inspired Boko Haram in Nigeria (which has sadly increased under the current president, Muhamadu Buhari) Nigeria reached out to Israel for help.

“Israel has been a crucial and loyal ally in our fight against Boko Haram. It is a sad reality that Israel has a great deal of experience confronting terrorism,” Mike Omeri, the chief coordinating spokesman of the National Information Center, based in Abuja said. “Our Israeli partners have used that experience, and the unique expertise gained over years of fighting terror within its own borders, to assist us.”

In 2013, after the deadly attack by Al Shabbab on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, the Kenyans reached out to their longtime friend, Israel. When Kenya was criticized by those who did not want to see Israel-Africa cooperation, then-Kenyan Foreign Minister, Amina Mohammed emphatically stated, “We are not going to apologize for being friends with Israel and other nations.”

This is a crucial moment for the African people. The increased peace and prosperity happening in countries like Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Botswana could be severely threatened if this trend of increased extremist violence on the Continent continues. This is yet another reason why Israel’s inclusion as an observer nation with the African Union is so important.

There was a time not too long ago in America when the Black political and academic community took more of a vested, public interest in Africa. In 1994, African-American leaders took then-President Bill Clinton to task for not intervening to stave off the genocide in Rwanda. Today, there is a genocide of Christians and Igbo Hebrews in Nigeria that goes virtually unaddressed. This is to say nothing of the millions of African slaves in Libya and Mauritania. It is noteworthy that, as Black American leaders have become more disengaged with Africa over the past 30 years, so anti-Zionism as a faux justice movement has accelerated in American society. The correlation is that a lack of true concern for the region (Africa-Israel) has given way to disinformation and propaganda about the region.

IBSI’s Israel advocacy is a throwback to a time when substantive Black American involvement with Africa was the rule and not the exception, and when that involvement also informed a strong Africa-Israel alliance. IBSI also believes that the timing for this new era in Black-Jewish/Africa-Israel synergy is critical and has global implications.

(To learn more about the Israeli Counterterrorism Helping Secure Africa’s Future webinar, please join IBSI’s emailing list.)