President William Ruto’s unequivocal condemnation of the Hamas attacks on Israel was a significant move against the background of Kenya’s well-earned reputation for a ‘wait-and-see’ foreign policy.
More aggressive policies on international affairs were actually seen during the reign of Dr Ruto’s predecessor, President Uhuru Kenyatta, when Kenya abandoned the usual reticence to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion, a stance continued by the current administration. A foreign policy based on what is morally right is very welcome.
Terrorism, which includes indiscriminate butchering of innocent civilians, must be condemned in all its forms. The Hamas attacks from Gaza on Israeli territory were totally unacceptable insofar as the vast majority of victims were unarmed men, women and children rather than enemy combatants.
As a nation that fully knows the pain of unprovoked terrorist attacks from al Qaeda, al Shabaab and other groups that may be linked to Hamas, Kenya has a duty to extend comfort and support to all others who have been similarly hit. On that score, I would applaud President Ruto.
But from another perspective, I would see the statement as shallow, misguided and overly biased. Supporting the people of Israel against brutal terrorist attacks cannot be done in isolation of the fact that the State of Israel was itself born of terrorism. If terrorism is the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighbourhoods and slaughter of men, women and children, Israel stands accused.
If the country was founded on forcible military occupation of Palestinian lands, mass displacement of entire populations and bigoted policies of religious and ethnic superiority as evil as apartheid, Israel stands guilty. Terrorism must, indeed, be condemned but the causes of what we define as such must first be examined.
As the adage goes, one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Our own Mau Mau fighters, who led the armed campaign against British occupation, were demonised by the colonial regime and its Church collaborators as terrorists.
Today, we laud them as heroes and freedom fighters. Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), which led the armed struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa was also condemned as a terrorist organisation. So were many other movements in the rest of Africa that campaigned against foreign occupation.
President Ruto is a fairly well-educated man and cannot be entirely blind to these obvious facts. It might be instructive that his statement came out on his own social media handle rather than as an official government statement. Perhaps if he had consulted and sought input from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he would have moderated his outrage and come out with a more thoughtful and balanced position.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The danger here is that the President pronounced official policy on personal emotions that might be more linked to Christian religious zealotry rather than careful examination of Kenyan interests. Kenya has long played a delicate balancing act in supporting Palestinian rights to self-determination within their own homeland while maintaining friendly ties with Israel and supporting its right to exist.
A careless post on X might change all that. More seriously, it exposes Kenya’s drift to one emerging as a keen American lackey. No wonder, Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based international news network, interpreted Dr Ruto’s statement in this way: “It was an explicit endorsement of Israel’s position and — some would argue — the response that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has since unleashed on the Gaza Strip, with a bombing campaign that has killed more than 1,900 people. And it was a social media post that underscored Israel’s growing influence in Africa.”
This is not something to be taken lightly in the context of the global power plays around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the terrorist targeting of countries seen to identify with the 'enemy'.
The statement also brought out the contradictions and hypocrisy evident in standpoints enunciated by the President. On the one hand, he is emerging as an African nationalist pushing against unfair global trade relations that benefit the wealthy Global North at the expense of the continent. He has also spoken out against the tendency of African leaders being ‘summoned’ and meekly obeying in big numbers calls to attend meetings in London, Washington, Beijing, Paris, Moscow and other major power capitals.
The globe-trotting President also seems to enthusiastically parrot the American line on many issues, and seems to be spend more time in foreign capitals than on fixing things at home.
For now, Kenya must move to make it clear that condemnation of Hamas terrorism does not equate to support for Israeli terrorism.
