Ambassador Gilad of Israel: Ghana Must Choose Principles, Not Sides - Seth K. Awuku

Your Excellency Ambassador Roey Gilad,

I read with interest your call for Ghana to join international pressure on Iran to halt what you describe as its destabilising activities in the Middle East.

I respectfully disagree, not because Iran should be immune from scrutiny, but because Ghana must not mistake another country’s security anxiety for our own foreign policy.

I have written to Israel before. In 2023, during the Israel, Hamas war, I published an open letter to your predecessor, Ambassador Shlomit Sufa. More recently, I argued that Ghana should choose diplomacy rather than alignment in the Israel, Iran confrontation. I have also appealed directly to Iran for restraint and dialogue.

My position is neither pro, Iran nor anti, Israel.

It is pro, principle.

*Ghana and Biblical Israel*

There is a reality no serious discussion of Ghana and Israel can ignore, Ghana loves Biblical Israel.

For millions of Ghanaians, Israel is not merely a state on a map. It is woven into our churches, hymns, prayers and religious imagination. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, David, Moses, the prophets, Jesus and the apostles are part of our spiritual vocabulary.

Religion here is like a mother’s milk, absorbed before political consciousness has begun.

But can reverence for Biblical Israel coexist with scrutiny of the modern State of Israel?

Of course it can. Indeed, it must.

Faith is not a foreign policy doctrine. Biblical attachment cannot mean political immunity.

President John Mahama offered a memorable test when he addressed the United Nations in September 2025, if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, “it must be a duck.”

At some point, euphemisms become a way of avoiding moral judgment.

If Iran attacks civilians, Ghana should condemn it. If Israel attacks civilians, Ghana should condemn that too. If Hamas commits atrocities, condemn Hamas. If any government violates international law, condemn that government.

The moral compass cannot have a Middle Eastern setting.

Ghana can honour Jerusalem without surrendering Accra’s judgment.

*The Politics of Labels*

International politics has always had a curious vocabulary.

When an adversary attacks, it is aggression. When we attack, it is self defence. When our enemy retaliates, it is terrorism. When our ally retaliates, it is deterrence.

The dictionary, it seems, can change with the flag.

Ronald Reagan once invoked the familiar observation that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Political language is often recruited to sanctify one side and condemn another.

Ghana should resist this temptation.

If Iran must respect international law, Israel must respect international law. If attacks on civilians are wrong when committed by one actor, they remain wrong when committed by another.

A principle that applies selectively is not a principle. It is a preference.

*The Greater Israel Question*

Ghana should also pay attention to the debate surrounding what has come to be called the “Greater Israel” vision.

To be precise, this is not a single, formally declared Israeli government doctrine with one universally accepted map. The term encompasses different religious, historical, territorial and political interpretations.

But dismissing the debate altogether would be equally unwise.

For Ghana, the question is ultimately one of security, if any state conceives its security through enduring dominance beyond its established borders, what happens to the sovereignty of its neighbours?

What happens when one country’s conception of security becomes another country’s permanent insecurity?

That is how regional insecurity becomes self perpetuating.

Security built upon the permanent insecurity of others is not really security. It is a postponement of the next war.

Israel has legitimate security concerns. So does Iran. So do the Arab states. Palestinians have legitimate claims to sovereignty and dignity. Civilians everywhere have the most basic claim of all, the right to live without fear.

*Restraint Is Not Weakness*

As I argued in my earlier open letter to Ambassador Sufa, the consequences of this confrontation extend well beyond the Middle East.

Restraint cannot be demanded from Iran while Israel is treated as though restraint were unnecessary.

Nor should Israel’s security concerns be dismissed. A state under threat has a right to defend its people. But there is a profound difference between the right to defend oneself and the proposition that anything done in the name of defence is therefore justified.

That distinction is where international law begins.

The prospect of an existential confrontation involving states with highly sophisticated military capabilities, and, in Israel’s case, a state widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, should concern every responsible government.

The objective must therefore be something more ambitious than defeating an adversary.

It must be preventing catastrophe.

Israel, Iran, the United States and other influential powers should exhaust every credible avenue for diplomacy.

Ghana should not cheer for one combatant to defeat another.

We should cheer for the guns to fall silent.

*Ghana Must Remain Ghana*

Ghana has something military powers often lack, the credibility of a country whose diplomacy is not built upon conquest.

Africa has repeatedly been asked to understand the strategic interests of powerful countries while our own interests are treated as secondary.

We are invited to choose sides in wars whose origins lie thousands of kilometres away. Then, when the consequences arrive, higher energy prices, disrupted trade, economic instability and insecurity, we discover that geography does not protect us from geopolitics.

Great powers have a remarkable talent for exporting their conflicts and importing our silence. Africa has paid this bill before. We should be reluctant to pay it again.

Ambassador Gilad, Ghana can condemn Iranian attacks. Ghana can demand that Iran respect international law. Ghana can recognise Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

But Ghana must retain the freedom to scrutinise Israeli conduct by the same standard.

The same applies to Hamas. The same applies to the United States. The same applies to every government and armed group.

Because principle is not a jersey.

We do not put it on when our preferred side is playing and take it off when our ally commits the foul.

Let Israel pursue Israel’s interests. Let Iran pursue Iran’s interests. Let America pursue America’s interests.

But let Ghana pursue Ghana’s interests, peace, sovereignty, international law, African dignity and the protection of human life.

Ghana does not need to become another voice in the chorus of confrontation.

It can be something rarer:

A voice of judgment.

A voice of restraint.

A voice for peace.

Diplomacy is not weakness. Restraint is not surrender. Peace is not appeasement.

Ghana must choose principles, not sides.

About the Author

Seth K. Awuku is a Ghanaian writer and legal scholar whose work examines international law, diplomacy, governance, African affairs, and questions of economic and political sovereignty. He is the Principal of Sovereign Advisory Ltd and writes regularly on contemporary Ghanaian and international affairs.