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Netanyahu talks to leader of Muslim state, wraps up Africa trip
Israel’s Prime Minister is set to complete his five-day tour of Africa and return to Israel this morning.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Ethiopia, where he met the country’s leaders and addressed the parliament in Addis Ababa.
Netanyahu is the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit Ethiopia. Earlier this week, he was hosted in Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda.
Netanyahu also met with the Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who said: “The Eastern African corridor has the potential of huge cooperation with Israel, and we need to engage Israel.”
Desalegn also said he would lobby for the reinstatement of Israel’s observer status at the African Union, which was rescinded in 2002 under Libyan pressure. Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta made a similar pledge earlier this week.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu told reporters that during his visit to Africa, he had spoken to the leader of an African Muslim state with which Israel has no diplomatic relations. Although he declined to name the country, Netanyahu commented: “There are a lot of these contacts. He is not the only Muslim leader who contacted us in recent years… The world is changing.”
Also yesterday, Netanyahu addressed Ethiopia’s parliament, where he received a standing ovation. He told the legislators: “You resisted foreign rule and live as a free people in your ancestral homeland… The struggle for freedom unites our two nations.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu alongside Desalegn met with around 300 Israeli and Ethiopian businesspeople. Netanyahu told them, “Invest in Ethiopia, invest in Africa. And I say to our Ethiopian friends: Invest in Israeli know-how, invest in Israeli companies… This is a partnership made in heaven.”
Netanyahu’s trip is part of an effort to significantly boost Israeli relations with Africa, especially in the economic and security fields. Israel played a major role in helping newly independent African countries develop in the 1960s, but relations effectively ended in the 1970s when Arab states pressured them to cut ties with Israel.