The Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia was expelled from an African Union meeting after several African countries objected to his participation in a session on the Rwanda genocide.
Once again, an Israeli ambassador was removed from an African Union meeting. This time, the Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia, Avraham Neguise, was expelled from the Mandela Hall at the African Union headquarters on Monday, according to a news report by Al-Jazeera.
The ambassador was expelled after several African countries objected to his participation in an annual meeting about the genocide that took place in Rwanda.
The participation of the Israeli ambassador was unexpected, according to Al-Jazeera’s correspondent, who spoke to diplomatic sources at the meeting.
The sources said that delegations from several African countries objected to his presence, and the meeting was paused until his departure.
The African Union is reportedly conducting an investigation to determine who invited him.
Observer Status in the AU
In 2002, after the establishment of the African Union, observer status was granted to non-member countries from outside Africa, totaling 87 countries.
The privileges of observer status include attending African Union meetings and participating in certain discussions, but it does not grant the right to vote.
The first entity granted observer status was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1973, which enjoys strong support from most African countries.
In recent years, Israel has sought observer status at the African Union to counter Palestinian influence and managed to obtain observer status in 2021.
However, Israel was later expelled by a decision of African countries due to its violation of the African Union Charter’s conditions for observer membership, citing its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.
Previous Expulsions of Israeli Diplomats
This is not the first time an Israeli ambassador or diplomat has been removed from an AU meeting.
An Israeli delegation to the African Union summit in Addis Ababa was expelled from the opening ceremony in February 2023. At the time, the Israeli Ministry accused South Africa and Algeria of a serious diplomatic violation.
According to the Israeli news website Walla, which first reported the incident, security guards approached the Israeli delegation during the ceremony and demanded that they leave.
Israeli ministry spokesman Lior Hayat had said that “Israel takes seriously the incident in which Deputy Ambassador for Africa Sharon Bar-Li was removed from the African Union hall despite her status as an accredited observer with badges.”
Members of the AU, however, remained firm in their rejection of Israel’s presence, considering the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Though Israel was readmitted as an observer country to the pan-African bloc in 2021, in January 2022, Algerian diplomats introduced a motion to revoke Israel’s newly reinstated observer status.
(PC, AJA)
Africans has more to do collectively and on individual state level to put pressure on Isreal on one hand and help liberate the oppressed abandoned Palestinians on the other.
War criminals and their officials are not welcome on our soil until they renounce crime against humanity and get punished for their crimes unless the Palestinians pardon them for their crimes.
Utill then, crime minister and his officials get no red carpet reception here in Africa and its defies any logic that they get it elsewhere other than US and perhaps Hungary, Argentina and Germany.