[News] Israel’s expanding shadow in Africa’s Great Game

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Israel’s expanding shadow in Africa’s Great Game

As Africa re-emerges as a battleground for global influence, Israel's 
deepening infiltration into the continent reveals an agenda aligned with 
western hegemony, exploitation, and the erosion of traditional 
pro-Palestinian solidarity.

Mawadda Iskandar <https://thecradle.co/authors/mawadda-iskandar>

JUN 6, 2025 
-https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-expanding-shadow-in-africas-great-game

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Africa is once again being carved up – not by maps and treaties, but 
through surveillance networks, military pacts, and covert alliances. At 
the heart of this renewed scramble lies the Israeli occupation state, 
which has methodically inserted itself into the continent’s political, 
security, and economic veins.

Behind the rhetoric of development and partnership, Tel Aviv’s African 
campaign is an extension of its settler-colonial project: to dismantle 
historic solidarities with Palestine, secure strategic footholds in a 
resource-rich continent, and weaponize African states in service of 
western and Zionist agendas.

Although Israeli–African relations have never commanded urgent 
attention, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood brought them back into sharp focus. 
The resistance operation, which redrew regional alliances and exposed 
long-standing complicity, also spotlighted the occupation entity’s 
entrenchment in Africa.

That same year, South Africa filed a historic case 
<https://thecradle.co/articles-id/18338> against Israel at the 
International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of committing genocide 
in Gaza. The move not only underscored Pretoria’s commitment to the 
Palestinian cause, but also reaffirmed a continental legacy of 
resistance to settler-colonialism – now reawakened in the face of Tel 
Aviv’s expanding footprint.

For decades, Africa has been more than a peripheral interest for Tel 
Aviv. Behind the veneer of aid and agriculture in a continent home to 
1.4 billion people and spanning more than 30 million square kilometers 
lies a concerted campaign of external political penetration and covert 
operations.

Yet Africa is not a monolith. The continent's patchwork of regimes, 
priorities, and foreign alignments has meant Israeli incursions 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/7/23/israels-scramble-for-africa-selling-water-weapons-and-lies> 
have taken various forms, adjusted to the internal-external equations of 
each state, and often accelerated by external power struggles.

*A calculated return*

Following the 1948 Nakba, when Israel unilaterally declared itself a 
state, Africa was still gripped by colonialism. Early ties with the 
occupation state were limited to Ethiopia and Liberia. But the seismic 
shifts in the post-colonial order saw Tel Aviv recalibrate, seizing the 
opportunity to project power through aid, training, and security 
partnerships. This peaked in the mid-1960s – only to collapse after the 
1973 October War and subsequent pan-African support for the Arab cause, 
reducing Israeli recognition to just three African states: Malawi, 
Lesotho, and Swaziland.

Despite that diplomatic collapse, Tel Aviv never fully withdrew. 
Instead, it adapted – funneling arms to separatist movements in places 
like South Sudan, offering intelligence services, and embedding itself 
in the military structures of states like Zaire, Angola, and Ethiopia.

By the 1980s, aided by the Camp David and Oslo Accords and the political 
fragmentation of the Arab world, Israel rebuilt its African presence. It 
moved discreetly, capitalizing on crises, debt, and diplomatic voids to 
rebrand itself not as a pariah, but as a partner in a by-then crowded 
landscape of international powers.

*Diplomatic architecture of influence *

Today, Tel Aviv maintains full diplomatic relations 
<https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/israeli-cooperation-with-africa> 
with some 44 out of 54 African countries and operates embassies in at 
least 11 of them, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Angola, and 
South Africa – with non-resident ambassadors in the remaining 33 states. 
While it continues to seek normalization with additional countries, the 
occupation state’s diplomatic footprint across Africa illustrates the 
strategic value it assigns to the continent.

Rwanda, Togo, and South Sudan have emerged as prime laboratories for 
Israeli experiments in influence and penetration. In West and Central 
Africa, Tel Aviv leverages military and intelligence alliances in 
Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, Angola, and the Ivory Coast.

Equally notable is the steady normalization with Muslim-majority African 
states. The resumption of relations with Chad, normalization with Sudan 
and Morocco, and overtures to others aim to rupture the pro-Palestinian 
front within African institutions. The bid to regain “observer state” 
status at the African Union – lost in 2002 – encapsulates this push, but 
to date has been fiercely resisted by Algeria and South Africa.

*Security and surveillance as Trojan horses*

Over the past two decades, Israel has actively embedded itself in 
Africa's security matrix. Under the guise of “counterterrorism,” it has 
installed espionage and surveillance 
<https://orientxxi.info/magazine/israel-s-spyware-diplomacy-in-africa%2C5859?utm_source=chatgpt.com> 
regimes from Kenya to Nigeria. Institutions like MASHAV 
<https://mashav.mfa.gov.il/taxonomy/term/20#:~:text=Agricultural%20Training%20Programs%20in%20Kenya,%2C%20and%20post%2Dharvest%20management.>, 
ostensibly promoting development, serve dual purposes: extending soft 
power while embedding Israeli frameworks of control.

The Galilee Institute, for instance, recruits African officials into 
programs that blend management training with intelligence paradigms, 
creating elite networks groomed to favor the Israeli worldview.

Israel's cyber firms, especially NSO Group, have exported invasive 
spyware like Pegasus 
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/28/nso-pegasus-africa-morocco-rwanda/> 
to repressive governments to track dissidents and activists. 
Post-Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, these operations have intensified, with 
reports of intelligence centers tracking Palestinian diaspora and Axis 
of Resistance movements across Africa.

*Economic gateways to strategic dominance*

Israeli economic activity in Africa is not mere trade. It is a strategic 
tool of control. In East Africa, Tel Aviv dominates the infrastructure, 
agriculture, and health sectors. In West Africa, its companies penetrate 
irrigation, mining, and logistics.

This economic expansion serves multiple objectives. It allows Israel to 
erode its international isolation by fabricating legitimacy through 
African alliances. It strengthens the occupation state's security by 
facilitating Jewish immigration from Africa and helping monitor 
resistance factions operating in the region.

Geostrategically, it ensures Israeli access to strategic maritime 
corridors, especially the Bab al-Mandab Strait 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/yemeni-missiles-force-us-navy-to-turn-back-from-bab-al-mandab-strait>, 
the Horn of Africa, and eastern Africa, which borders the Red Sea and 
Indian Ocean. Finally, it facilitates the exploitation of Africa's 
abundant natural resources – including diamonds 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170802-israels-dirty-trade-in-africa-diamonds-weapons-and-settlements/>, 
uranium, and agricultural land – while simultaneously disrupting 
historic Arab–African solidarity, particularly in the Nile Basin region.

*Africa's new scramble: Old powers, new agendas*

While Tel Aviv fortifies its grip, it faces fierce competition. Africa’s 
Horn remains the continent’s geopolitical pressure point. It is the 
entry to the Red Sea, the lifeline of Persian Gulf states, and a conduit 
for 40 percent of global oil trade.

Russia is expanding its influence from Ethiopia to Sudan. In Eritrea, it 
invests in joint military capacities and naval access. In Somalia and 
South Sudan, it leverages resource extraction and political vacuums. 
Moscow's – and even Tehran's – growing support in Sudan 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/sudan-iran-and-russias-new-red-sea-frontline> 
and Eritrea <https://thecradle.co/articles-id/31083> is anchored in 
Khartoum and Asmara's ruptures with Washington.

China has entrenched itself through trade, which reached $167.8 billion 
in the first half of 2024, as well as infrastructure projects and a 
naval base in Djibouti. In Ethiopia, it funds energy mega-projects like 
the Grand Renaissance Dam. Beijing's quiet diplomacy combines mineral 
exploitation in Eritrea with oil ventures in South Sudan.

Persian Gulf states, led by the UAE 
<https://thecradle.co/articles-id/31040>, weaponize port investments and 
farmland acquisitions in Nigeria and Liberia under the banner of food 
security. Post-Abraham Accords, Emirati–Israeli coordination has 
intensified, particularly in the Horn, where both seek to contain 
Iranian and Turkish 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/recognizing-somaliland-a-geopolitical-game-changer-for-west-asia> 
influence.

Turkiye, for its part, has established a firm foothold in Somalia 
through military training bases and port development, and continues to 
leverage soft power tools such as humanitarian aid, Muslim solidarity, 
and construction contracts to expand its presence across East and West 
Africa.

Iran, though less visibly, has steadily built security and economic 
links from Eritrea <https://thecradle.co/articles-id/31083> to the 
Sahel. Its outreach to Algeria and Tunisia signals a strategic pivot in 
North Africa, aligned with its broader Axis of Resistance agenda.

*Africa’s balancing act in a multipolar world*

Africa today resembles a chessboard on which foreign powers 
<https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-uncertain-future-in-the-wake-of-great-power-conflict> 
seek checkmate. Tel Aviv's multifaceted penetration – diplomatic, 
military, economic – is not isolated. It intersects with, and is often 
buoyed by, Persian Gulf, western, and even Chinese interests.

But this presence remains fragile, dependent on pliant regimes and 
normalization trajectories. African states, for their part, are not 
passive. They are recalibrating 
<https://thecradle.co/articles-id/24180>, balancing between old 
allegiances and new opportunities, aware that in a rapidly reconfiguring 
world order, their sovereignty is the ultimate prize.

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