ABSTRACT
Africa's relations with Israel have undergone important changes since Israel's bold initiative to gain a foothold in Africa in the late 1950s. The edifice of diplomatic relations which had developed in the 1960s collapsed in the wake of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when national, continental, and international considerations led to Africa's severance of diplomatic ties with Israel. Africa needs to weigh carefully the possibility of access to Israel's know-how in the field of arid zone agriculture at a time when the continent is afflicted with acute problems of famine and drought. The more than two and a half decades of Africa's relations with Israel have conclusively shown that Afro-Israeli links can hardly be divorced from the resolution of the Middle East impasse. There is a dire need for Africa's Middle East policy to be more in tune with the realities of the Middle Eastern system than at present.
