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On Friday, September 11, 2020, Bahrain became the second country to announce an agreement to normalize relations with Israel in less than a month, after the UAE and Hebrew state agreement was reached in mid-August.
The rapprochement with Israel has been welcomed by some Arab countries, but others have rejected the idea or have treated it with great caution.
During a Middle East tour at the end of August that included Israel, Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed optimism that more countries Arabs would normalize their relations with Israel.
Manama and Khartoum are likely to follow the example of the UAE, which has become the third Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
Although Saudi Arabia did not condemn the deal, it refused to normalize relations until Israel signed an internationally recognized peace deal with the Palestinians, who saw the UAE-Israel deal as a “betrayal” of their cause. Which Arab countries could move towards the normalization of their relations with Israel?
the Sultanate of Oman
The Sultanate was the second Gulf state to welcome the UAE’s announcement to normalize relations with Israel on August 13. Four days later, Muscat affirmed its commitment to the “right” of the Palestinian people “to establish their independent state, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.
Although the Sultanate has not established formal relations with Israel, in October 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had surprise talks with the late Sultan Qaboos in Muscat. The visit came 24 years after then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin visited.
In January 1996, the Sultanate signed an agreement with Israel to open offices for mutual trade representation, and the Sultanate decided to close the office in 2000 with the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada.
Chenzia Bianco, a researcher specializing in Middle Eastern affairs at the Institute of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the Omani Sultan “is already acting cautiously due to potential economic problems and will not risk a similar controversial move for the moment”.
Diameter
Unlike its regional allies Iran and Turkey, Qatar has made no reaction to the UAE’s normalization of relations with Israel. Relations between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been severed since 2017.
Qatar was the first Gulf country in which Israel opened a representative office in 1996, before it closed in 2000. Doha does not hide its contacts with Israel.
The small Gulf state also enjoys influence in the Gaza Strip, where last year, in cooperation with the United Nations and Egypt, it contributed to a calm between Israel and the Hamas movement that controls the strip. .
Kuwait
Kuwait, another US ally, makes no known contact with Israel and continues to reject normalization in support of the Palestinian cause. There has been no official comment from Kuwait on the deal between the UAE and the Hebrew state, but it has opened a political discussion about it.
Political groups and civil society organizations denounced the deal, while others defended it.
However, the normalization of relations with Israel seems exaggerated, according to Bianco, who points out that the Kuwaiti National Assembly has used “hostility towards Israel to gain its position as the voice of the people.”
Sudan
After the dissemination of information that Sudan was preparing to normalize its relations with Israel, Khartoum excluded during Pompeo’s visit at the end of August recognition of Israel before holding elections in 2022.
The Sudanese government spokesman quoted Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok who said in response to “the US demand to normalize relations with Israel”, “The transitional government has no mandate to decide on normalization with Israel “.
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