Setback to Netanyahu Outreach: Israel-Africa Summit Postponed

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s signature foreign policy initiative aimed at reversing a creeping diplomatic isolation into a network of international relationships that is unprecedented in the nation’s history and a bold self-lauding foreign policy answer to those who charge he harms Israel’s image abroad hit a major bump in the road when the president of Togo “postponed” the planned Israel-Africa Summit. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the first-ever event was meant to bring together 54 African countries to the Togolese capital of Lome on October 23-27. Instead, it has been pushed back “to a date to be agreed [upon].” While no specific reason for the cancellation was given (although some diplomatic sources attributed the move to unrest in Togo), the decision comes amid rumors that some nations–including South Africa and Morocco–were considering boycotting the summit in response to Palestinian and Arab pressure. It marks a blow to Netanyahu’s efforts to forge closer ties with countries that have traditionally refrained from engaging with the Jewish state or have been altogether hostile to it. The Israeli premier recently visited Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Singapore, among others, and is currently on a week-long trip to Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. Netanyahu’s diplomatic outreach to Africa has been one of his primary foreign policy objectives–under the banner of “Israel is coming back to Africa and Africa is coming back to Israel”–and has offered countries on the continent development aid and stressed the potential for economic and anti-terrorism cooperation at least in part for support from African nations to break the longstanding anti-Israel majority in the United Nations. Despite the setback, the Israeli Foreign Ministry vowed that “Israel will continue its growing efforts in Africa as it has done in recent years.”