The Jihad against Israel, Africa, and the African Diaspora

Why Israel's enemies see Africa and African Americans as one and the same

Representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) meet with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat (center) in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 21, 1979. Archives/AFP via Getty Images

My son, Joshua, is the Executive Director of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI), an education and advocacy organization I founded in 2013. From the beginning, IBSI has always viewed Black Americans as people of African descent who are impacted by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in very similar ways to Africans on the continent. Joshua and I are currently in meetings with our Israeli and African colleagues, planning an Africa-Israel conference in Jerusalem this fall. We told our colleagues that IBSI would be bringing a delegation of 20-30 Black American leaders to attend the conference as the issues that will be discussed are crucial for us as well. One of our Israeli colleagues agreed and said, “Very often, Israelis see Black Americans as Africans in the diaspora.”

With the opposite, devious intention, this is also how Israel’s enemies see Africans and African Americans. The reasons are both spiritual (see: Africa’s Prophetic Call to Zion) and geopolitical (see: Creating the Islamic Caliphate…beginning with Israel & Africa). From the Iranian regime to the Palestinian leaders to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel’s enemies have sought to use people of African descent as weapons of propaganda and violence against the Jewish State — all while facilitating the genocide of African Christians and religious minorities on the continent.

Last November, Africa-Israel Weekly (AIW) published a piece entitled The Iranian Regime's increased focus on Black Americans. From the introduction:

Throughout the years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has…focused on the Black American community as a tool of unrest and instability against the United States, historically Israel’s No. 1 ally.

To understand how…Iran would specifically target Black Americans (and Africans) in their quest to destroy Israel and the US, one would need to understand the purpose of the KGB-created PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization).

The piece goes on to explain how PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat took every opportunity to be photographed while embracing everyone from Nelson Mandela to Jesse Jackson to Louis Farrakhan, all to illustrate one deceptive point: The Arab Palestinian jihad against Israel is parallel to the Black/African struggle for justice. Again, this is a carefully crafted, Soviet-inspired lie. The historic Black struggle for justice and equal treatment under the law has absolutely nothing in common with the Arab Palestinian-Nazi goal to destroy Israel and the Jewish people.

The AIW piece also quotes Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, a member of Iran's Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution (January 2020):

We have to make our presence felt in the conflict in America that involve blacks and people of color. There is fertile ground for this. With regard to the American people, let me tell you this: If their media fabric and oppressing structures loosen a little bit – America is the kind of country that will disintegrate quickly.

Observe how the Iranian leader is not focused on working with the Black community but on using the Black community to destroy it and America. In May 2020, Iranian academic and political analyst Mohammad Marandi stated:

In many of America's deprived cities and areas - they call them 'slums' - the schools are really bad and are not safe. Students simply move on to the next grade. Their reading and writing skills are at the level of second or third grade in Iran. They really cannot read properly. So they are poor and deprived. They cannot enroll in a university. They did not attend a proper school. The TV constantly tells them that they are violent smugglers…and so forth. Well, this is the result. All they have left is sports...

In 2015, the Iranian regime, notorious for its innumerable human rights abuses, hosted a conference on police brutality against Black Americans, inviting a large group of Black families to attend. The Ayatollah, who regularly imprisons, tortures, and executes political dissidents, unashamedly expresses his support for Black Lives Matter on social media.

While the Iranian and other Islamist regimes spend countless hours analyzing and plotting against poor and vulnerable Black communities in America, they also lead a genocide of African Christians, proving once again that Israel’s enemies are Africa’s (and the African diaspora’s) enemies. The Hamas massacre and abduction of Israelis on October 7, 2023, mirrors the Boko Haram massacre and abduction of Nigerian Christians every week. From Jihad Rising in Africa While the West Averts its Eyes:

In Nigeria, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Niger, Somalia, Mozambique and Libya, among others, Islamic militants massacre civilians, the vast majority of whom are Christians, leading to widespread terror, insecurity and displacement.

More than 16.2 million Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa have been driven from their homes by jihadi violence and conflict, reports the human rights organization Open Doors. Such violence includes murder, physical injury, rape, abduction, theft of property and destruction of homes and farmland.

This excerpt is from a recent Ynet News article entitled Expanding their footprint, Houthis are building a terror empire in Africa with Iran's help:

Danny Citrinowicz, a fellow at the INSS Iran Program and former head of the Iran desk in Israel’s military intelligence research division, says the Houthis are now Iran’s African proxy. He believes the group’s goal is to build an operational base in Africa and recruit local actors.

“The strategic focus is the Horn of Africa,” Citrinowicz said, “but the Houthis have also threatened Israel from the Cape of Good Hope (southern Africa) and shown interest in North Africa. Their connection to Africa is far more organic than Iran’s, so they’re the tip of the spear.”

While Iran and its Islamist partners are seeking to violently transform Africa into an Islamic caliphate, it is also recruiting young Africans to become Shia Islamic clerics who spread their jihadist ideology. Once again, Iran’s African approach has a Black American counterpart. From IBSI’s interview of Iranian-American journalist Karmel Melamed:

One of the most well-known of the U.S.-born, Black Iranian trained clergy is Imam Usama Abdulghani, a Shiite Islamic cleric based in Dearborn[, Michigan] who always praises the Iranian regime, its Supreme Leader, the regime’s brutal terrorist Soleimani and the regime’s founder [Ayatollah] Khomeini while denouncing Israel. He often repeats many of the hate messages about Israel that the regime in Iran spews. Adulghani even praised the…Hamas October 7^th attacks on Israelis as well. MEMRI has often showcased his sermons of hate which prominently feature framed photos of the Iranian regime’s founder Khomeini or the Supreme Leader Khamenei by his side while he speaks. Based on his sermons of hate for Jews and Israel and praise of the Ayatollahs in Iran, one can easily deduce that he was trained in Iran and is perhaps now being directly or indirectly funded by them today to spew their…ideology.

For decades, Israel’s Islamist enemies have exploited Black Americans and Africans for their cause. From Yasser Arafat in the late 1960s to the current regimes in Iran and Qatar, jihadists have seen the African diaspora as essential to their goal to destroy Israel, America, and the free world. Now more than ever, it is crucial for African pastors and leaders to recognize not just the plans and strategies of the enemy but the authority they’ve been given by God to be a righteous and prophetic voice. Just as the Queen of Sheba stood in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people, so are Africans on the continent and in the diaspora to do the same. Africa’s future peace and prosperity depend on it.