Africa’s Religious Leaders Take Sides In Israel-Hamas War
NAIROBI, Kenya — The Rev. Zeinab Hussein caused an online fury when she took a strong position in support Israel just days after Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state.
The preacher, who presides over the Latter Glory Church in Nairobi, put up a Facebook post with the phrase “I stand with Israel” emblazoned across the Star of David. Under it, she quoted Psalm 122:6-8: “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, Prosperity within your palaces. For the sake of my brethren and companions, I will now say, Peace be within you.”
Zeinab was born to a native Kikuyu mother and a Kenyan Somali and grew up a Muslim attending an Islamic school. She later married a Muslim, but eventually converted to Christianity and is now a preacher.
READ: As Death Toll Climbs, The War Becomes Personal For Every Israeli
Reactions to the post were fast and furious. While many supported the pastor, some were dismissive of the post — claiming that Israelis were the aggressors in the current Middle East chaos because, they argued, it was Jews had stolen Arab lands.
It isn’t surprising that many Africans would oppose Israel. Across the continent, 45% of the population is Muslim, which accounts for a quarter of the world’s Islamic population. In Kenya, the predominant religion is Christianity, which is adhered to by an estimated 86% of the population. Islam is the second-largest religion, practised by 11% of Kenyans.
Over the past few days, the Israeli war has dominated conversations at restaurants and homes. Although this debate is going on practically everywhere in the world, for Kenyans it is a bit more personal since the country has been the target of militant Islamists. In addition, the East African nation was once proposed as a possible settlement for the then-stateless Jews.
Israeli soldiers retaling communities near the Gaza border encountered streets littered with the dead bodies of civilians, including women and children. The death toll among Israelis rose to 1,200. Palestinian officials have more than 1,100 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 5,000 wounded. Israeli rockets smashed into neighborhoods on a fifth day of combat on Wednesday, destroying homes and other infrastructure.
The contents of Zeinab’s Facebook post has been replicated across the African continent as political leaders, clergy and ordinary people air their views on the war.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, who chairs the Commission of the African Union, while calling for cessation of hostilities was quick to add, “Denial of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, particularly that of an independent and sovereign state, is the main cause of the permanent Israeli-Palestinian tension.”
He also expressed his “utmost concern” at the outbreak of the current hostilities, causing grave consequences for the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians in particular, and for peace in the region, in general.
Kenya’s President William Ruto (Photo via Paul Kagame/Flickr)
“The chairperson urgently appeals to both parties to put an end to military hostilities and to return, without conditions, to the negotiating table to implement the principle of two states living side by side, to safeguard the interests of the Palestinian people and the Israeli people,” he said.
But Kenya’s President William Ruto, seen by many to be the darling of the West in Africa, took a different position. He seemed to lay the blame of the war on Hamas, saying terrorism can never be justified.
“Kenya strongly maintains that there exists no justification whatsoever for terrorism, which constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security. All acts of terrorism and violent extremism are abhorrent, criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of the perpetrator, or their motivations,” Ruto said in a statement.
However, Ruto’s position is a result of the continuous terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of Kenyan lives. In 1998, simultaneous bomb attacks targeting American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in neighboring Tanzania killed 220 people and injured hundreds of others. At the time, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda network claimed responsibility.
In 2013, the Westgate Mall — an fancy shopping complex popular with Nairobi’s jet set, expatriates and visitors — was attacked by Islamic militants, killing 71 people, which included the four attackers. In 2019, a similar attack took place at the Dustid2 Hotel complex in Nairobi resulting in 22 deaths.
A Jewish Homeland in Kenya
For Kenyans, the events of the last week are of most importance considering that advocates of a Jewish homeland decided 112 years ago to authorize an expedition to today’s Kenya in response to a British proposal to establish a “Jewish territory.”
An article in the weekly ‘The East African’ said that a meeting in Switzerland, the Sixth Zionist Congress voted 295-178 on Aug. 26, 1903, to send this “investigatory commission” to Kenya, which was then then a colony of Great Britain.
Earlier that same year, Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain suggested to Zionist leader Theodor Herzl that the portion of the British East Africa Protectorate could be designated for Jewish settlement. Chamberlain, who had recently visited the area, said the plateau had “an excellent climate suitable for white people.”
Attendees of the Sixth Zionist Congress. (Wikipedia Commons photo)
Adam Rovner, a professor and author of “In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel,” speculated that a Jewish settlement may have been acceptable to the African inhabitants of the region. And it is likely, the U.S.-based scholar added, that many Jewish lives would have been saved if East Africa had offered a refuge from the Nazis.
The notion of a Jewish settlement in East Africa was ultimately voted down by the Zionist Congress that met in 1905. The majority viewed Palestine as the only suitable site for Jews to settle en masse.
What The Rest Of Africa Says
Egypt, an Arab-majority nation in North Africa with a contentious history with Israel, discussed plans on Wednesday with the United States to provide humanitarian aid through its border with Gaza — but rejected any move to set up safe corridors for fleeing refugees.
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula shares a border with the Gaza Strip and Israel.
An Egyptian security sources, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that Egypt had rejected the idea of safe corridors for civilians to protect "the right of Palestinians to hold on to their cause and their land.”
In Nigeria, meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf M. Tuggar issued a statement calling for a de-escalation of the crisis.
“The cycle of violence and retaliation that the current escalation has assumed, only serves to perpetuate an unending cycle of pain and suffering for the civilian population that bears the brunt of every conflict,” he said. “The Federal Government of Nigeria, therefore, calls on both sides to exercise restraint, prioritize the safety of civilians and give room for humanitarian considerations. “We are therefore calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue.”
In South Africa, a successor of Nobel Peace Laureate, the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, accused Israel of apartheid, the state-sanctioned segregation that was an official policy of the Boer administration that discriminated against people along racial lines.
Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town said for Christians, the Holy Land was the place where Jesus was born, nurtured, crucified and raised and that their hearts ache for the Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine, whose numbers include Anglicans.
“When Black South Africans who have lived under apartheid visit Israel, the parallels to apartheid are impossible to ignore. If we stand by and keep quiet, we will be complicit in the continuing oppression of the Palestinians,” he said. “If we are to celebrate peace for Palestinians and security for the Israelis in in our time, we need to pray and work for the land we call holy, for an end to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and for full recognition of the Palestinians’ inalienable right to self-determination.”
Tom Osanjo is a Nairobi-based correspondent for ReligionUnplugged.com. He is a former parliamentary reporter and has covered sports, politics and more for Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.