Politics indeed makes for strange bedfellows, as evidenced by a possible diplomatic breakthrough between Muslim-majority Somalia and Israel. This manifested in a recent abstention by Mogadishu on a resolution condemning Israel’s control of the Golan Heights brought forth at the UN’s Human Rights Council.
That said, Somalia did subsequently voted in favor of three other motions slamming the Jewish state and seemingly backtracked on the acceptance of its presence in the Golan.
Nevertheless, there was an anomaly, which went largely unnoticed and could portend things to come.
Indeed, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made making inroads into Africa, and especially Muslim-majority nations therein, a central goal of his foreign policy. This was exemplified by the reciprocal visits between the Israeli premier and the president of Chad, and there has been talk of Mali’s leader coming to Israel as well. There were even reports claiming Sudan was considering cementing officials relations with the Jewish state.
All of this, meanwhile, comes on the backdrop of Israel’s rapprochement with Sunni Arab nations primarily based on the shared interest of curbing Iran.
The Media Line discussed the changing geopolitical reality with Professor Uzi Rabi, Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.
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