The new face of Pan-African Israel lobbying

ANT KATZ

A new Israel advocacy organisation, Africa for Israel Christian Coalition (AFICC), launched in Cape Town on 31 October and already they “have churches with a congregational size of around 600,000 that have officially affiliated, in SA alone, says the group’s founder and long-time Israel lobbyist Luba Mayekiso.

“And this number grows each week,” he says. They are cooperating with a multitude of advocacy groups including the Zionist Federation.

They have drawn up a constitution and mission statement which their Nigerian counterparts have signed on to. 

PIC RIGHT: Luba & Ncedi with legendary Zionist Christian leader Pastor John Hagee at the July Christians United for Israel Summit in Washington

“In Nigeria over 3,000 pastors in 22 States have started to mobilise themselves,” said Luba today, “and we have agreed that come hell or high water we will co-ordinate and cooperate on a Pan-African basis” as Christians lobbying for Israel.

A Nigerian delegation will come to SA for the Gauteng launch in early February.

Luba and his wife Ncedi are long-time Israel advocates and have worked consistently and tirelessly for the past two years lobbying for Israel in parliamentary circles.

As a guest discussion leader at a Zionist advocacy seminar in Johannesburg in January 2013, Luba made a strong impression by telling SA Jewish and Christian Zionists alike that unless one knocks on doors of power, it was impossible to keep up with Palestinian lobbyists.

PIC LEFT: Luba Mayekiso in
a file pic with Group 18 chair
Adrienne Judes distributing
blankets in winter 2012

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Luba also reported back to SA Zionists from the ANC’s Mangaung Conference in December which he had attended.

Luba told Jewish Report that he and Ncedi had always felt they would be more effective in lobbying for Israel in Parliament as unaffiliated and independent. “People cannot accept that a Christian will come to the support of Israel without being someone’s puppet,” he said this week.

But, says Luba, “as time went by we came to realise that numbers are the only thing that will talk to politicians, all they listen to is numbers.”

Pan-African and pro-Israel coalition

For this reason, he says, they decided to form a broad coalition of Pan-African Christian supporters of Israeli lobbyists on the continent.

Luba says that Christians want to speak out. He has found that “to a lot of Christians, they feel their silence (on Israel) is being misinterpreted.” He was part of the 100-odd delegates from across the continent who attended the recent African Leaders Summit in Jerusalem organised by the Institute for Christian Leadership Development.

PIC RIGHT: Logo
of the new AICC

Luba and Ncedi Mayekiso are making Israel lobbying into a family affair. Their daughter Cassandra took a gap year to work with Bridges For Peace in Israel this year and she is currently doing a six-week Advocacy Course with Stand with Us in Jerusalem before returning to SA.

“We have far-reaching political and socio-economic strategies involving  potentially tens of millions of  Christians in Africa as a force of active supporters of Israel,” Luba told Jewish Report today. “Already we have 600,000 Black, White and Coloured Christians standing with, and committed to, Israel. And numbers count!”

AFICC, says Luba, represents Africans standing in solidarity and does not confine in terms of race – “this is a battle for every Christian,” As a coalition, AFICC wishes “to bring under one umbrella all those people, churches and entities that fear G-d and believe in Scripture.”

Christian Solidarity in South, Southern and Sub-Saharan Africa

AICC already have relationships in Nigeria, Congo, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania who are “very eager for us to stand together and have requested our assistance in providing them with the correct modern narrative about Israel.”

They have linked up with UE partners Christians United for Israel’s Pastor Hagee and some of his senior team.

Having launched their Cape Town chapter to almost 200 church leaders, their next stops are Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and E/Cape. A national launch is planned for Johannesburg in April 2014. They are also liaising with various political parties including the ANC, Agang and ACDP keeping “the Israel issue topical at the moment,” says Luba.