For some decades, Israel and its Arab enemies have made black Africa a field of intense competition — more intense probably than the region deserves. The outline of the story is quickly told with a few figures. Before 1973, Israel had diplomatic relations with 33 of the 41 members of the Organization of African Unity (i.e., all except the members of the Arab League). Then, in a brief period around the 1973 war, all but four of the African governments broke off their relations with Israel. The years since have seen a mending of the broken relations, though in early 1988 the total number of states with official relations still numbered only seven.
By combing the African. Arab, and Israeli press, and by conducting interviews, Oded has written an exhaustive account of this topic, post-1973; indeed, he probably provides as much information as anyone wants on the subject.- He concludes that neither the Arabs nor the Israelis are likely to prevail entirely, for the African states benefit from the continued competition.
A final observation, about the title: the time has come to recognize that the Arab-Israeli problem no longer is the Middle East conflict; that status has been inherited by the Iraq-Iran war.
