DEMOCRACY NOW
Leaders at this year’s African Union summit have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza and called for its immediate end. Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola explains the long history of African solidarity with Palestine, continuing with today’s efforts to end the destruction of Gaza. African countries “see really an identical experience between Palestinian occupation and what they have endured under colonization,” says Nyabola. “It’s a question of history. It’s a question of solidarity. It’s a question of shared experiences of all of these systemic types of violence.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Leaders at this year’s African Union Summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza and called for its immediate end. The chair of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, on Saturday said Israel’s offensive was the, quote, “most flagrant” violation of international humanitarian law, and accused Israel of having, quote, “exterminated” Gaza’s residents. Meanwhile, Azali Assoumani, president of the Comoros and the outgoing chairperson of the African Union, praised the case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice, where the court ruled there’s a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. During last year’s AU Summit, an Israeli delegate was removed from the plenary hall amidst a disagreement over Israel’s observer status at the African Union.
For more, we’re joined by Nanjala Nyabola, a writer and political analyst from Kenya, joining us from London.
Thank you so much for being with us, Nanjala. If you can start off on Gaza, this meeting this past weekend in Ethiopia, where you even had Lula, the president of Brazil, coming to address the group and saying that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, whereupon Israel’s prime minister said that Lula is persona non grata in Israel? But talk about the significance of the meeting on Gaza, and then we’ll move on to other issues.
NANJALA NYABOLA: Sure. Thank you for having me, Amy.
I think it’s important to understand that the African Union, as a bloc, has been a consistent supporter of Palestinian rights since 1972, and arguably since 1948. Many of African nations see similarities between, and they see really an identical experience between, Palestinian occupation and what they have endured under colonization, and so there’s a lot of empathy there, and there’s a lot of resonance there.
It’s important, though, to distinguish the position of the African Union from the position of individual member states. So, while the union itself has been consistent and has always held the line that Palestinian independence was an integral part of the African Union’s foundational documents and foundational position in international relations, various African nations — because there is no impetus from the African Union for there to be always a single position within each country, various African nations do have different relationships with both Israel and Palestine. So, for example, while every single country in Africa except one recognizes the state of Palestine, the recognition of the state of Israel has varied. There was a time after that 1972 war where African nations wholesale declared that they would not recognize the state of Israel, but that has changed considerably.
Similarly, in relation to the African Union itself, Palestine has had — the Palestinian territories have had observer status at the African Union since 2013. And so, you mentioned how the Israeli representative to the African Union was asked to leave the meeting of the African Union in 2022. This is really because there’s been a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not the African Union, as a body, should recognize Israel as an observer. Observers do not get to vote, obviously, on various issues that are before the African Union, but they do get to participate in meetings, and they do get to contribute to conversations in some ways. And so it is an important thing to be an observer at the African Union, and Israel has made significant diplomat inroads in this regard. But the position of the African Union as a — which is the head of states — the meeting of the heads of states, is the most senior decision-making entity within the African Union, as opposed to the commission, which oversees the day-to-day running of the organization. The position of the African Union heads of states has always been that Israel did not have that observer status. And this was the back-and-forth that the commission had taken an action that the union itself had not endorsed. And this is why the Israeli representative was asked to leave.
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