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Africa and the Middle East: Shifting Alliances and Strategic Partnerships

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Abstract

Chapter 15 traces the Cold War-era Afro-Arab cooperation as tied to the Arabs’ support for Africa’s struggles against racism and colonialism and the joint condemnation of Israel’s expansionist policies against the Palestine people at the United Nations. Turkey’s new Africa policy, however, has sought to strengthen its diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with the continent. Much of the trade of the Middle East (Iran, Turkey, and Israel) in sub-Saharan Africa is with South Africa. The authors therefore argue that trade is the starting point, and there are still many opportunities to strengthen relations further between the Middle East and African countries, such as linking infrastructure for trade corridors, but more needs to be done by both parties to tap into these opportunities.

Hamdy A. Hassan and Hala Thabet contributed equally to this work.

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Notes

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  38. 38.

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  43. 43.

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  48. 48.

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  49. 49.

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    See Richard Peet, Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank, and WTO, 2nd edition (London: Zed, 2009). OPEC was established in 1960 to coordinate the policies and prices of petroleum among member states, including Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Qatar, and to offset pressure from major Western oil companies. The 1973 oil crisis was sparked by OPEC’s refusal to ship oil to Western countries that had supported Israel in its Yom Kippur war.

  52. 52.

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Hassan, H.A., Thabet, H. (2018). Africa and the Middle East: Shifting Alliances and Strategic Partnerships. In: Nagar, D., Mutasa, C. (eds) Africa and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62590-4_15

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