While Europe increasingly sides with the Palestinians (Sweden recently recognized “Palestine” – a country that doesn’t actually exist) and for the most part tolerates an ongoing Muslim immigrant pogrom on the remaining remnant of Europe’s Jewry, the wind is blowing in a different direction in Africa.

Gabriel Schienmann writes in the National Interest:

... like Israel, like France, and like much of the civilized world, Mali is engaged in an existential struggle against radical Islam. In IBK's own words, "my country was saved from the terrorist barbarism by (the French military operation) Serval…It was imperative that I be here for Mali's honor, for its dignity…Do you understand my emotions, it is impossible for me to not be here." Two years after stopping the advance of Islamic militants in northern Mali, thousands of French soldiers remain in Mali and other Sahel countries in an extended counterterrorism operation.

Mali isn't the only African country to have signaled a public shift on Israel. In 2011, Senegal and Gambia severed diplomatic relations with Iran. Late last year, Rwanda and Nigeria cast the decisive abstentions at the UN Security Council, rejecting a Palestinian statehood bid. Like Mali, Nigeria is also fighting a medieval Islamist insurgency, Boko Haram, which is committing massacres on the scale of Srebrenica. President Goodluck Jonathan has visited Israel several times, thanking Israel for sending anti-terror experts to Nigeria last year. Israeli arms sales to Africa have doubled in recent years. As radical groups across the Sahel exploit the breakdown in regional order caused by the Arab revolts, African leaders increasingly see Israel as an asset, not a liability, in the fight against jihadism.

Perhaps the IBK-Bibi show of unity will lead to a diplomatic breakthrough between Israel and some of the five remaining sub-Saharan holdoutsMali, Mauritania, Guinea, Niger and Chad. Released from Qaddafi's anti-Israel hold and threatened by the Libyan fallout, the security environment of Sahel countries has deteriorated dramatically in recent years. At a moment when European countries are increasingly critical of Israeli counterterrorism policies, African countries are increasingly cognizant of and even thankful for Israeli counterterrorism capabilities.

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman