Yotam Gidron has done us all a huge service by putting Israel and Africa back on the agenda.
Sub-Saharan Africa allows Israel to triangulate its commercial, security and longer-term political interests; it can sell its specialized security technologies and consolidate links with evangelical churches that are linked to pro-Zionist churches in the United States.
African leaders are always on the lookout for more efficient technologies of repression, and insofar as the "war on terror" gave them a political cover story, Israel stepped in as a supplier unhindered by human rights legislation.
Israel's security strategy for Africa isn't an updated version of Cold War-style ideological alignment but rather a fusion of the principles of transactional politics--the transnational political marketplace--with specialist service provision drawn from its counter-terror assemblage.
This is where Israel steps in: in Washington's eyes, a country that recognizes Israel and cooperates with it cannot be a state sponsor of terror.
