Nasser’s Legacy: Pushing Anti-Zionism in Africa

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michelle sieff  |  august 2008



Gamal Abdul Nasser: Pioneer of anti-Zionism on the African continent

ONE OF THE IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTS which underpins left-wing anti-Zionism depicts a unified Afro-Arab bloc in direct confrontation with the State of Israel. And while it is a construct, there have been times when it has appeared all too real. For example, in 1973, after the Yom Kippur war, the majority of African states sided with the Arab world and agreed to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. In 1973 and 1975, at meetings of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) and United Nations General Assembly respectively, African governments also supported Arab-instigated resolutions that demonized Zionism, equating it with colonialism and racism. More recently, the NGO Forum at the UN's infamous anti-racism conference in Durban in 2001 again conjured the specter of a unified bloc embracing Arabs and Africans, emanating, on this occasion, from civil society.

The narrative of an ahistoric, uniform, "Third World" anti-Zionism doesn't only undermine Israel's legitimacy. It also presents anti-Zionism as undefeatable. It elides the struggles that play out in creating shared conceptual meanings and coalitions around anti-Zionism. As a result, opportunities are missed to understand who is a racist enemy and who is vulnerable to persuasion, argument, and dialogue

A politics that defends Israel's legitimacy has to take into account the existence of various anti-Zionist discourses and movements and explore the connections between them. In this essay, I disrupt the narrative of a timeless Arab-African anti-Zionism by examining the origins and evolution of anti-Zionist discourses in post-colonial Africa. I show that anti-Zionist discourse in post-colonial Africa was not natural or inevitable. In what was clearly a political project, Arab nationalist leaders incorporated African nationalists into anti-Zionist discourses by skillfully framing Israel in ways that resonated with the cognitive frames used by these leaders to interpret the world.

The Early Years: Israel, Africa, and Nasser's Export of Anti-Zionism

Several scholars have documented and analyzed the friendly ties between Israel and Africa in the early years of decolonization. (1) Israel first became interested in cultivating ties with African countries in 1956, after it was excluded from the first Afro-Asian conference in Bandung, Indonesia. As sub-Saharan African countries achieved independence, beginning with Ghana in 1957, Israel perceived an opportunity to counter its diplomatic isolation in what was rapidly becoming known as the "Third World." In an effort to court allies, Israel quickly recognized these new governments, established diplomatic relations, and offered aid packages.

For several reasons, African leaders welcomed a close relationship with Israel. They were inspired by the Israeli model of state building and economic development and desperately needed economic aid. African states also viewed Israel as a small, struggling country that posed no threat of economic or political domination. Some countries even saw Israel and Africa as linked by a common bond of historical suffering. President Leopold Senghor of Senegal expressed this idea in an interview he gave in 1969:

"In any case, this is how we in Senegal have tried to enlighten public opinion without also fostering hate, because, beyond the conflict itself, there is the historic and prehistoric solidarity of long-suffering peoples, what I call the trilogy of suffering peoples-the Jews, the Arabs, and the Blacks."(2)

By the early 1960s, Israel had established friendly relations with most African states. By the end of 1962, Israel had twenty-two embassies in Africa. (3) In 1972, Israel had diplomatic ties with thirty-two African states. (4) Mauritania and Somalia were the only two states which did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Aside from the former colonial powers, Israel had the largest diplomatic network in Africa. Every country which established diplomatic relations benefited from an aid and technical assistance program administered by Mashav, Israel's Division for International Cooperation.(5)

    African states also viewed Israel as a small, struggling country that posed no threat of economic or political domination

The 1952 July Revolution in Egypt, and the ascent of Gamal Abdul Nasser two years later, had enormous consequences for both the Arab world and Africa, especially Africa's relationship to Israel. In his Philosophy of Revolution, written in 1954, Nasser reminded the Arab world of its obligations to Africa:

"If we consider next the second circle-the continent of Africa-I may say without exaggeration that we cannot, under any circumstances, however much we might desire it, remain aloof from the terrible and sanguinary conflict going on there today between five million whites and 200 million Africans. We cannot do so for an important and obvious reason: we are in Africa. The people of Africa will continue to look to us, who guard their northern gate, and who constitute their link with the outside world. We will never in any circumstances be able to relinquish our responsibility to support, with all our might, the spread of enlightenment and civilization in the remotest depths of the jungle."(6)

Initially, Nasser aspired to lead the struggle for African independence. When he became President in 1954, Egypt and Libya were the only countries in Africa to have achieved independence from colonial rule. (7) Though African nationalists welcomed the support, they did so with a certain amount of skepticism. First, they recognized that Nasser's rhetoric in the Philosophy of Revolution replicated European colonialist tropes. As one African scholar explained:

"The role that Nasser envisioned for Egypt in Africa smacks of a latter-day version of the white man's burden, complete with references to Egypt's 'manifest destiny' and 'civilizing mission' in the 'interior of the Dark Continent.'" (

Second, the populations of many parts of black Africa-the regions bordering the Sahara, East and Central Africa--also retained haunting memories of the Arab trans-Saharan slave trade in the pre-colonial era.(9)

Nasser turned Cairo into a refuge for African nationalist leaders. He permitted African nationalist movements to open offices in Cairo, so that they could disseminate nationalist newspapers and radio broadcasts. (10) In 1957, he established The African Association to conduct propaganda on their behalf throughout the world, especially in the Arab world. He also established The Voice of Free Africa, an entire station at the disposal of African nationalists, and allowed them to use Cairo radio in their propaganda war. By 1955, The Observer newspaper in London noted that Cairo radio was broadcasting in more African dialects than the BBC. (11)

As African states rapidly achieved independence and established relations with Israel, Nasser shifted his agenda in Africa towards his existential battle with Israel and Zionism. After the 1956 Suez War, millions in the Arab world lionized Nasser as the leader who confronted the "imperial ambitions" of Britain, France, and Israel, and he hoped to wield this newfound prestige to shift African attitudes towards Israel.

    African nationalists...recognized that Nasser's rhetoric replicated European colonialist tropes

To execute his war against Israel, Nasser promised to "chase out Israel from Africa." He pressured African governments to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. (12) He also tried to deploy Africa in a rhetorical campaign to undermine Israel's legitimacy by hijacking the emerging institutions of pan-African unity and introducing resolutions demonizing Israel.

However, by the time Nasser arrived on the political scene, pan-Africanism was already well established as a political movement led by the first president of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, who had good relations with Israel. (13) At early pan-African meetings hosted by Ghana in 1958 - the first Conference of Independent African States (CIAS) in April and the December meeting of the All-African People's Conference (AAPC) - Nkrumah rebuffed Nasser's efforts to introduce anti-Israel resolutions. In fact, in an enigmatic statement delivered at the AAPC meeting, Nkrumah warned of Egyptian expansionism in Africa. (14)

In order to co-opt African states into his discursive war against Zionism, Nasser began to strategically demonize Israel in ways that conformed with the cognitive frames that African nationalists used to make sense of the world. One of the most pervasive concepts that emerged in the era of Africa's decolonization was the idea of "neo-colonialism." At a meeting of the All-African People's Conference in March 1961, African leaders concluded that "neo-colonialism" was the "greatest threat" to African countries and defined it as "the survival of the colonial system in spite of formal recognition of political independence" and "an indirect and subtle form of domination by political, economic, social, military, or technical means." (15) Nkrumah's book Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, published in 1965, popularized the concept.

Nasser, by this time firmly ensconsed as a key ally of the Soviet Union, exploited African fears of "neo-colonialism" by framing Israel as a tool of the western powers intent on perpetuating their domination of Africa. The Egyptian monthly, Nahdatu Ifriqya, claimed that Israel is nothing but "the screen behind which imperialism tries to hide, in order to be able to return to Africa." (16) Official media outlets portrayed Israel's economic aid to Africa as an imperialist manipulation. In the words of the official Arab Observer:

"The money comes from the imperialist powers, which have been giving Israel financial assistance to the tune of four hundred million dollars annually...The imperialists, knowing very well that they are already branded in Africa and that they would be spotted at once if they dealt their cards openly, are hiding behind Israel which is ostensibly a small power and cannot afford to have imperialist designs." (17)

By 1961, Nasser's strategy began to produce results. At the Casablanca Conference in January 1961 - organized by Morocco and attended by the United Arab Republic (18), Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Libya, the Algerian provisional government, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) - a resolution was passed that denounced Israel "as an instrument in the service of imperialism and neo-colonialism not only in the Middle East but also in Africa and Asia." (19)

Though the UAR congratulated itself that after Casablanca, "Israel has become an African and not only an Arab question,"(20) in reality Nasser alienated most African states. The bulk of African states reacted negatively to the perceived radicalism of Casablanca and organized their own conference in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, in May 1961. In attendance were the twelve countries labeled the Brazzaville states (21), as well as Liberia, Nigeria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ethiopia, Libya, and Tunisia. One of the members of the group, President Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, declared that the Casablanca resolution was totally unjustified. (22) The Monrovia conference issued no denunciations of Israel and pulled a temporary brake on Nasser's strategy to exploit pan-Africanism in his campaign to demonize Israel.

    After the Six Day War in June 1967...Nasser intensified his campaign to deploy the OAU against Israel

The resistance of the Monrovia grouping was so intense that they made dropping the issue of Israel a condition of their rapprochement with the Casablanca states. When African leaders met in Addis Ababa in May 1963 to establish the Organization of African Unity (OAU), several African leaders made it clear to Nasser that any resolution condemning Israel would be defeated. (23)

From 1963-67, the black African states resisted Nasser's efforts to deploy the OAU in his battle against Israel. They consistently refused to allow Egypt to introduce the issue for debate. (24)

After the Six Day War in June 1967 - when Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria - Nasser intensified his campaign to deploy the OAU against Israel. By the time of Nasser's sudden death in 1970, discussions of the Middle East situation had become a regular feature of OAU Heads of State summit meetings. Still, black African states refused to challenge Israel's legitimacy; they only agreed to resolutions restating its support for UN Security Council Resolution 242 as the basis for a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict. (25)

After Nasser: The Apex of African Anti-Zionism

The death of Nasser coincided with the rise of a man who imagined himself as Nasser's "spiritual heir." (26) Colonel Mu'ammar Qadhafi, who overthrew the monarchy and seized power in Libya in 1969, also pressured African states to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. Between 1970 and 1973, Uganda, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Niger, and Mali severed their relations with Israel. Some scholars have attributed these decisions to Libyan influence. (27) As the tenth anniversary summit of the OAU approached, Qadhafi intensified his OAU campaign to demonize Israel. (28) A few weeks before the meeting, Qadhafi appealed to African leaders to boycott it unless the venue was changed from Addis Ababa to Egypt. Qadhafi fumed against Ethiopia's decision to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel.

But his strategy backfired. African leaders were roiled by Qadhafi's truculent attempt to dictate OAU policy. Not a single state heeded his call for a boycott of the summit, which met at the end of May 1973.

Because Qadhafi's miscalculation destroyed his claims to leadership of the OAU, President Houari Boumedienne of Algeria led the Middle East discussions. Boumedienne and the other Arab states introduced a resolution calling for a total diplomatic boycott of Israel.

Like Nasser at the 1961 Casablanca conference, Boumedienne presented the issue so that it resonated with African leaders. Rather than arguing that Israel and Israeli aid to Africa was a front for western imperialism in Africa, Boumedienne said that Israel's occupation of Egyptian - that is, African - land was itself a colonial aggression similar to that of Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa in the rest of the continent. In a passionate speech, he contended that the "problems of the Middle East were an integral part of the African struggle against colonialism and imperialism...Africa cannot adopt one attitude toward colonialism in Southern Africa and a completely different one toward Zionist colonialism in North Africa." (29)

    African leaders were roiled by Qadhafi's truculent attempt to dictate OAU policy

Though Boumedienne's interpretation collapsed certain critical differences, specifically the political context of war in which Israel had captured the territory, the African delegations were tremendously struck by Boumedienne's propaganda. (30) Though they refused to endorse a diplomatic boycott, primarily because of their indignation at Qadhafi's brinkmanship, they agreed to a blandly worded resolution, which could, at a later date, be used to push for a diplomatic boycott. (31)

The Yom Kippur war, which erupted on October 6, 1973, created a political context in which other African governments, already swayed by Boumedienne's arguments, could no longer hold out against further Arab pressure. After Israel crossed the Suez Canal into Africa, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was eventually to become legendary as the first Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish State, asked OAU members to condemn Israel. (32). By mid-November only four African states - Malawi, Swaziland, Lesotho, and Mauritius - still maintained diplomatic relations with Israel.

The extraordinary session of the OAU Council of Ministers in Addis Ababa from November 19-21 1973 justified the decision of African states to sever diplomatic ties. The language of the OAU Declaration on the Middle East was radically different from previous declarations. It went beyond Boumedienne's argument that Israel's occupation of the Sinai was an example of Zionist colonialism and instead defined the essence of Zionism as a historical atrocity no different from other atrocities, such as colonialism and apartheid. The Declaration stated:

"The struggle of the African countries and the action taken by the OAU reflect the profound aspirations of the peoples of the continent to justice, freedom and progress. Their aim is to free themselves from colonialism everywhere, to eliminate apartheid and Zionism..." (33)

After 1973, the OAU, led by the Arab states and the PLO, which was granted observer status, continued to pass resolutions demonizing Israel. In resolution after resolution, Zionism was denounced as a threat to world peace and equated with racism and imperialism. (34)

    ...Arab states framed Zionism in a manner which spoke to African historical experience and political concerns

During this period, the Arab states - with the support of the Soviet Union, which had itself turned anti-Zionism into a state doctrine which was then used to persecute its Jewish minority - took their campaign to demonize Israel to the United Nations. On 10 November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 3379 which defined Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination.

Again, the Arab states framed Zionism in a manner which spoke to African historical experience and political concerns. But even then, only twenty African states voted for the resolution - among them Uganda which, under the dictatorship of Idi Amin, aided Palestinian terrorists who hijacked an Air France plane in July 1976 by allowing them to land at Entebbe airport. The episode ended with a successful Israeli raid to release the hostages. Five states - the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Malawi, and Swaziland - opposed it. Twelve states abstained. (35) The African states that did not support it viewed the resolution as an attempt by Arab states to hijack the UN's anti-racism agenda for the purpose of demonizing Israel.(36)

From State to Civil Society

Though the 1978 signing of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel outraged the Arab world, it set the stage for the resumption of ties between Africa and Israel.

In Africa the Camp David Accords were received with enthusiasm, since it appeared that Egypt and Israel were poised to resolve the main issue which provided the rationale for the diplomatic boycott, namely Israel's occupation of the Sinai peninsula. (37)

But relations only began to improve after David Kimche was appointed director-general of Israel's foreign ministry in 1981. Kimche, regarded as one of Israel's foremost experts on the Third World, prioritized the improvement of Israel's relationship with Africa. (38)

In the 1980s Israel launched a vigorous diplomatic campaign in Africa, initially focusing on Africa's economically and politically powerful states. Israel achieved its first breakthrough in May 1982, when President Mobutu in Zaire announced his government's intention to restore diplomatic relations with Israel, arguing that Israel had withdrawn from the Sinai. In August 1982, President Doe of Liberia also restored relations, relying on the same rationale. (39)

While Israel was one among many states which maintained a relationship with apartheid South Africa, this was another obstacle in the revival of its diplomatic fortunes in Africa, in part because this relationship became a fixation of Soviet and Arab propaganda. (40) Only after the democratic transition in South Africa in the early 1990s was Israel able to fully restore its diplomatic relations in Africa. By the end of that decade, forty African governments had restored ties and several that had never had a formal relationship were added to the list. (41)

The resumption of diplomatic ties has been accompanied by another positive trend: the excising of anti-Zionist rhetoric from official multilateral proclamations. In 1991, the UN repealed the 1975 resolution that equated Zionism with racism. Since the replacement of the OAU with the African Union (AU) in 2001, the organization has not focused on the Middle East, and, when it has passed resolutions, it has not demonized Israel and has clearly supported a two-state solution. (42)

Despite the sanitization of official rhetoric, anti-Zionist discourse in Africa had a life of its own, primarily because scholars and intellectuals vigorously promoted it in the 1980s.

One scholar who has undoubtedly influenced legions of minds in Africa is Kenyan-born Ali Mazrui, an African Studies scholar who is now a professor at Binghamton University in New York.

Though Mazrui has made important contributions to the field of African Studies, in the 1980s, he began publishing articles and books in which he demonized Israel. In 1983, Mazrui published an article entitled "Zionism and Apartheid: Strange Bedfellows or Natural Allies," in which he argued that Israel and Apartheid South Africa were structurally similar states. According to his argument, both were formed because of separatist and religious ideologies; both exhibited siege mentalities and martyrdom complexes, both used brutal methods to create and maintain their states; and both relied on migrant labor and elaborate laws to maintain ethnic exclusivity. (43) In another article, published in 1996, Mazrui called Israel a "Jewish garrison state" and "the "most arrogant sovereign state on the world scene since Nazi Germany." (44)

Though Mazrui's version of anti-Zionist bombast was relatively inconsequential in the 1980s, in the late 1990s, when the Oslo peace process collapsed, Islamist groups in civil society intent on eradicating Israel easily exploited this kind of rhetoric to broaden support for their movement. Like the Arab nationalist leaders in the past, these groups used this discourse to frame Israel so that it resonated with the dominant cognitive frames of new constituencies they hoped to influence.

    ...n the late 1990s social movement "entrepreneurs" successfully broadened the anti-Zionist coalition to include left-wing and liberal constituencies

This pattern has been most obvious in South Africa. Though fringe anti-Zionist and Islamist groups like Qibla and the Islamic Unity Convention have been active in South Africa since the 1980s, in the late 1990s social movement "entrepreneurs" successfully broadened the anti-Zionist coalition to include left-wing and liberal constituencies. They accomplished this by portraying Israel as an apartheid state, a strategy that was likely to strike a chord among secular South Africans who were part of the anti-apartheid struggle. In particular, the Palestine Solidarity Committee was established in 1998 as a secular initiative "to lead an international anti-apartheid movement against apartheid Israel." According to its website, its members are trade union activists, cultural workers, sports figures, and former anti-apartheid activists. (45) In its Declaration, the group claims its objective is the establishment of a "secular, democratic state" in "historic Palestine," which is coded language for the destruction of Israel.

The Durban Conference of 2001 was a wake-up call to the fact anti-Zionist discourses were flourishing in civil society in South Africa and elsewhere. The NGO Declaration labeled Israel "a racist, apartheid state." Palestinian NGOs, along with South Africa's NGO coalition, worked together to finalize the language. (46)

The Durban conference was a sign that Islamist groups which aspire to eradicate Israel had succeeded in broadening their appeal to human rights groups, anti-globalization groups, union activists, and other left-wing and liberal constituencies. Over the past few years these anti-Zionist discourses have become more popular and are regularly invoked by prominent South Africans like Ronnie Kasrils, a government minister, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Darfur and the Fragility of Anti-Zionist Coalitions

Though anti-Zionist coalitions in African civil society are clearly on the rise, the horrifying tragedy in Darfur presents a unique opportunity to undermine them.

    Though anti-Zionist coalitions in African civil society are clearly on the rise, the horrifying tragedy in Darfur presents a unique opportunity to undermine them

First, the atrocities in Darfur lay to rest, once and for all, any myths of Arab-African unity. It is widely recognized that Arab states have done nothing to respond to the Darfur atrocities, in which thousands of Muslims have been killed. The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have consistently supported Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Secondly, and more importantly, the "rhetoric of reaction" which the Sudanese government, other Arab governments, and the Arab press have used to deflect attention from the real cause of the atrocities reveals the absurdity and pernicious nature of anti-Zionist discourses. These actors have consistently portrayed the Darfur conflict as a Zionist and Jewish conspiracy. They have claimed that the violence in Darfur is a Zionist plot to annex the region to become a part of Israel, to control Sudanese oil, minerals, and other natural resources, and so forth. (47) In response to the International Criminal Court's recent decision to seek an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, Bashir has implied that the move is another western and Zionist conspiracy. (48)

A wide swathe of civil society groups have come together in the Save Darfur Coalition in the US and elsewhere to demand a response to the tragedy. It is up to civil society groups in the coalition who reject anti-Zionism to reveal how groups who expound similar discourses - perhaps in other venues - are unintentionally aiding the Sudanese regime and its apologists in their efforts to escape accountability for their atrocities. By unmasking how these efforts to strategically frame and demonize Zionism serve the interests of one of the most repressive governments in the world today, it might be possible to begin fracturing the ties between progressive left-wing and liberal groups and anti-Zionist discourses, both in Africa and the West. end logo
1 For example, see Joel Peters, Israel and Africa: The Problematic Friendship (London: British Academic Press, 1992), Chapter 1. Also see many of the essays in Israel in the Third World, Eds. Michael Curtis and Susan Aurelia Gitelson (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1976). For further analysis of Israeli motives and policy in Ghana from 1957 to 1966, based on recently released Israeli archival sources, see Zach Levey, The Rise and Decline of a Special Relationship: Israel and Ghana 1957-1966, African Studies Review, vol. 46, No. 1, April 2003, pp. 155-177.

2 Quoted in Victor T. Le Vine and Timothy W. Luke, The Arab-African Connection: Political and Economic Realities (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1979), p. 120.

3 Peters, p. 2.

4 Peters, p. 2.

5 Peters, p. 4.

6 Gamal Abdul Nasser, Egypt's Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolution (Washington: Public Affairs, 1955), pp. 109-110.

7 The other independent black African states—Liberia, and Ethiopia—were never western colonies.

8 Adeoye Akinsanya, "The Afro-Arab Alliance: Dream or Reality," African Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 301, October, 1976, p. 512.

9 Benjamin Rivlin and Jacques Fomerand, "Changing Third World Perspectives and Policies Toward Israel," in Israel in the Third World, Eds. Michael Curtis and Susan Aurelia Gitelson (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1976), p. 330. They refer to an article by Aryeh Oded, "Slaves and Oil: The Arab Image in Black Africa," published in 1974.

10 For descriptions of Nasser's assistance to African liberation movements see Tareq Ismael, "The United Arab Republic in Africa," Canadian Journal of African Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, Autumn 1988 as well as the journalist Jacques Baulin, The Arab Role in Africa (London: Penguin, 1962).

11 Baulin, p. 48.

12 Quoted in Peters, p. 22.

13 For a history of pan-Africanism see Colin Legum, Pan-Africanism: A Short Political Guide (Westport: Glenwood Press, 1962).

14 Peters, p. 23, Akinsanya, p. 514.

15 See text of resolution in Legum, p. 254.

16 Quoted in Baulin, p. 107.

17 Quoted in Ali Mazrui, "Africa and the Egyptian's Four Circles," African Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 251, April 1964, p. 134.

18 In 1958 Egypt and Syria came together to form the United Arab Republic (UAR).

19 See text of resolution in Legum, p. 188.

20 Cited in Mazrui, p. 134.

21 The Brazzaville group was basically former French colonies who wished to retain close ties with France: Congo-Brazzaville, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Upper Volta, Niger, Dahomey, Chad, Gabon, Central African Republic, Cameroon, and Madagascar.

22 Peters, p. 24.

23 Peters, p. 25.

24 Peters, p. 26.

25 Peters, p. 29.

26 Francois Burgat, "Qadhafi's Unitary Doctrine: Theory and Practice," in The Green and the Black: Qadhafi's Policies in Africa, ed. Rene Lemarchand (Bloomington: Indiana U press, 1988), p. 21.

27 For example, Ronald Bruce St. John, "The Libyan Debacle in Sub-Saharan Africa: 1969-1987," in The Green and the Black: Qadhafi's Policies in Africa, ed. Rene Lemarchand (Bloomington: Indiana U press, 1988), p. 127. This interpretation is disputed by Ali Mazrui in "Black Africa and the Arabs," Foreign Affairs, vol. 53, No. 4, July 1975.

28 The information on the events at the 1973 OAU summit in the next several paragraphs is from Peters, pp. 34-39.

29 Quoted in Peters, p. 34.

30 Peters, p. 35.

31 Peters, p. 35.

32 Susan Aurelia Gitelson, "Israel's African Setback in Perspective," in Israel in the Third World, Eds. Michael Curtis and Susan Aurelia Gitelson (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1976), pp. 192-193.

33 Quoted in Peters, p. 38.

34 Peters, p. 164.

35 Peters, p. 76.

36 Peters, p. 77.

37 Peters, pp. 97-99.

38 Peters, p. 113.

39 See Peters, Chapter 6 for a description and analysis of Africa's resumption of diplomatic ties with Israel.

40 Naomi Chazan, "Israel and Africa: Challenges for a New Era," in Israel and Africa: Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future (NY: American Jewish Committee, 2006), p. 7.

41 Chazan, p. 10.

42 See for example the AU's Decision on the Middle East and Palestine, issued at its Seventh Ordinary Session, June 28-July 2, 2005, Sirte, Libya, EX.CL/Dec.192-235 (VII).

43 Ali Mazrui, "Zionism and Apartheid: Strange Bedfellows or Natural Allies?," Alternatives, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1983, pp. 73-97.

44 Ali Mazrui, "The Frankenstein State and Uneven Sovereignty," in The Multiverse of Democracy: Essays in Honor of Rajni Kothari, Eds. D.L. Sheth and Ashis Nandy (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 56-57.

45 See http://www.psc.za.org/index.htm.

46 See Gerald Steinberg, "The Centrality of NGOs in the Durban Strategy," Yale Israel Journal, July 11, 2006, pp. 3-4.

47 See "Darfur and the Middle East Media: The Anatomy of Another Conspiracy," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 422, February 14, 2008.

48 "Sudan President Defiant in Darfur," BBC News, July 23, 2008.