At the summit of the African Union, the controversy over the status of Israel revived

The annual African Union (AU) summit opened in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Saturday with a call by the Palestinian prime minister to withdraw the accreditation granted to Israel, sparking heated debate among the 55 member states organisation.

This controversial decision taken in July by the chairman of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, must be the subject of discussions on Sunday afternoon, at the end of this summit with a busy agenda, with in particular the shots State that shook the continent and the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the controversy did not wait for Sunday.

In a speech to dozens of African leaders gathered at the AU headquarters, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh demanded the withdrawal of the accreditation granted to the Jewish state.

“Israel should never be rewarded for its violations and for the apartheid regime it imposes on the Palestinian people,” he said, using a phrase from an Amnesty International report published this week.

“The situation of the Palestinian people has only become more precarious,” insisted the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, accredited to the AU since 2013.

For several months, this decision to accredit Israel has been strongly criticized by several member states, including South Africa and Algeria, who believe that it goes against the statements of the organization supporting the Palestinian Territories.

If the decision were to come to a vote on Sunday, many analysts believe it could mark a split unprecedented in the history of the AU, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

In his opening speech for the summit, Moussa Faki Mahamat defended his choice and called for “a serene debate”.

He assured that the AU’s commitment to the Palestinians’ “quest for independence” was “unchanging and can only continue to grow stronger”. But the accreditation of Israel can constitute, according to him, “an instrument at the service of peace”.

– War in Ethiopia –

The summit is being held in Addis Ababa, as northern Ethiopia has been embroiled in a 15-month conflict between pro-government forces and rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has left thousands dead and , according to the UN, led hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of starvation.

This war has considerably deteriorated the relations of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, with Western powers, who saw him as a reformer but today condemn the alleged mass killings and rapes committed by pro-government forces.

The AU is under pressure to bring the belligerents to a ceasefire. But the fact that its headquarters are in Ethiopia puts it in a particularly delicate position.

Mr. Faki notably waited until last August – nine months after the start of the fighting – to appoint former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as special envoy in charge of obtaining a ceasefire.

In a speech on Saturday, Abiy Ahmed thanked African leaders for their “support” in this “challenge (…) of an internal nature which fell within the maintenance of order”.

TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda accused Mr Abiy of asking African leaders to “turn a blind eye (…) or even worse, extol him for killing his people at will”. “Africa must say no to this carnage!” he wrote on Twitter.

Repeating his criticism of the international media coverage of Ethiopia and the continent, Abiy Ahmed also called for the creation of a “continental press organ of the African Union”.

– “Doom wave” of putschs –

The summit will also address the “disastrous wave”, in Mr. Faki’s words, of coups on the continent, the latest in Burkina Faso less than two weeks ago.

Four member states (Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Sudan) have been suspended from the AU since June due to unconstitutional changes of government.

But the AU has also been criticized for its lack of consistency, especially after failing to suspend Chad, where a military council took power after the death of President Idriss Deby Itno in April.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also gave an update by videoconference on the African response to the coronavirus pandemic, two years after the detection of the first case of Covid-19 on the continent, in Egypt.

As of January 26, only 11% of the more than one billion Africans had been fully immunized, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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