Zambia, Israel Ties Erasing Africa’s Liberationist History

Dr. Reneva Fourie

Relations between Israel and Zambia have become increasingly close in recent years, especially after the poor electoral performance of Zambia’s former liberation movement, UNIP. On 20 August, Israel formally reopened its embassy in Lusaka, more than fifty years after it had been shut. This act, set against the haunting backdrop of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, represents a profound moral failure and a direct assault on the principles of human dignity and international law. 

Israel’s diplomatic footprint in Africa is now deeper, broader, and more sophisticated than at any point in the past half-century. This is primarily due to a carefully calculated long-term strategy, driven by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close circle.

Israel intends to weaken Africa’s long-standing solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle and to isolate South Africa, which has stood almost alone in bringing Israel to account before the International Court of Justice.

The reopening of the embassy in Zambia must be viewed within the broader context of this agenda. Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has sought external investment and new allies, and Israel has exploited this context to insert itself deeper into Southern Africa. By gaining a foothold in Lusaka, Israel positions itself to undermine the consensus that has historically existed within SADC around justice for Palestine.

Israel’s renewed African drive has coincided with intensified pressure on South Africa. Leaked Israeli foreign ministry documents revealed that diplomats were instructed to mobilise United States lawmakers and civil society actors to force Pretoria to abandon its genocide case at the ICJ.

These cables made it clear that Israel is deliberately orchestrating a campaign to isolate South Africa and to ensure that other African states withhold support from its case. Even as evidence mounts of indiscriminate bombings, mass displacement, and starvation in Gaza, Israel is working to silence its critics rather than end its crimes.

The economic dimension of Israel’s African push has also been manipulative. Israeli companies, backed by their government, are aggressively entering sectors such as agrotech, fintech, cleantech, and cybersecurity. With Africa’s structural needs in food security, energy, and finance, these offers are enticing.

Yet they come at a moral price. Israel is offering technological fixes and development partnerships while simultaneously using these relationships to buy silence at the United Nations and the African Union.

 Security collaboration has been particularly alarming. Israel has sold surveillance technology, drones, and intelligence services to African states, many of which face fragile democratic institutions and internal conflicts.

By embedding itself in African security structures, Israel not only profits from instability but also gains partners less likely to challenge its brutal military occupation and its genocidal atrocities. These partnerships normalise Israel as a counter-terrorism ally while deflecting attention from the fact that it is the perpetrator of state terror against Palestinians.

The timing of the Zambian embassy opening is therefore repulsive. While the world watches tens of thousands of Palestinians being killed, homes obliterated, and entire families erased, Israel raises its flag in Lusaka and celebrates a new chapter in African relations.

This juxtaposition reveals the essence of Israel’s strategy. It kills in Gaza while smiling in Africa. It demolishes Palestinian life while selling irrigation technology and fintech platforms. It wages war while marketing itself as a development partner.

For South Africa, the embassy opening is not merely a Zambian affair. It is a direct challenge to its foreign policy. Pretoria has been the loudest and most consistent African voice calling Israel’s actions by their true names – apartheid and genocide.

By planting itself in Zambia, Israel seeks to blunt that voice. It is surrounding South Africa with a ring of transactional partnerships designed to strip it of continental allies. If South Africa becomes isolated, Israel will be freer to wage war in Palestine without fear of collective African opposition.

The tragedy is that Israel’s strategy is working. Several African states have restored ties or deepened engagement after being promised investment or even the possibility of Western sanctions relief. Abstentions at the UN have replaced historic majorities for Palestine.

At the AU, Israel continues to push for observer status despite Africa’s history of anti-colonial struggle. Every step reflects not a genuine reconciliation but a campaign to erase the political consequences of Gaza and the West Bank.

This moment demands an urgent response from South Africa. It cannot afford to rely solely on moral clarity. Pretoria must mobilise its own resources to show that solidarity with Palestine and African development are not mutually exclusive.

It must lead in building alternatives to Israeli technology through BRICS, the AU, and South-South partnerships. It must expand its trade, investment, and development footprint in the region so that neighbouring states see concrete benefits in standing with justice rather than aligning with Israel’s impunity.

Pretoria must also intensify people-to-people diplomacy across the continent. African liberation movements once stood together against apartheid South Africa. That spirit must be reignited to confront apartheid Israel.

South Africa should sponsor exchange programmes, cultural forums, and civil society platforms that tie African identity to resistance against colonial violence, making it politically costly for governments to embrace Israel.

Israel’s embassy in Lusaka is therefore not simply about bilateral ties with Zambia. It is about erasing Africa’s liberationist history and replacing it with transactional expediency. It is about ensuring that the ongoing genocide in Gaza can continue unchallenged. It is about isolating South Africa for daring to confront injustice at the ICJ.

History will not look kindly on those who chose silence or complicity in this moment. For Africa, a continent that defeated colonialism and apartheid, the choice is between the principles of human rights and international law, as championed by Pretoria, or succumbing to the cynical, genocidal realpolitik of a regime desperate for legitimacy. South Africa must remain steadfast and ensure that the rest of Africa does not become a haven for a pariah state.

* Dr Reneva Fourie is a policy analyst specialising in governance, development, and security.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.