An Assessment Of Tanzania’s Foreign Policy And Her Relations With Israel

ABSTRACT

This study assessed Tanzania‘s Foreign Policy and the factors that prompted the reorientation of Tanzania‘s relations with Israel. The study draws from the historically unstable relations between the two countries especially from 1967 to 1995 and stagnant relations between 1995 to 2014. However, as of May 2018, Tanzania established her embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, signifying a shift in the relations between the two countries. From this setting, the study had three specific objectives: determining the motives for reorientation of Tanzania-Israel relations; examining the expected outcomes; and identifying the challenges that may arise from the reoriented relations between the two countries.

The area of study was Dodoma city, where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation as well as the University of Dodoma are located. From these two institutions, various views from 30 respondents were obtained via a cross-sectional design in which data was collected only once but in-depth from the respondents. Additionally, a mixed analytical approach was utilized whereby the SPSS version 16.0 was used to quantitatively analyze numeric data while various themes were used to interpret the findings qualitatively. All the respondents (100%) concurred that ‗economic needs and incentives‘ were the major motive for reorientation of relations between Tanzania and Israel and that every other motive apart from the ‗military and security concerns‘ have economic attachments.

On the second objective, the social sectors like tourism, medical, agricultural and the educational sectors were expected to reap greater benefits from the reoriented Tanzania-Israel relations. Finally, the study pointed out the presence of unequal gains between the two countries and the shift in Tanzania‘s support to Palestine as challenges of the reoriented Tanzania-Israel relations. Among the recommendations put forward by the study was that Tanzania should not be carried away in her support for Palestine and the two-state solution simply because it is reaping benefits from its strengthened relations with Israel.