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The UAE’s decision to normalize relations with Israel drew welcome, angry or cautious reactions from Arab countries that Washington has sought to persuade to follow in Abu Dhabi’s footsteps.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is visiting the Middle East, including Sudan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. On Monday, Pompeo, from Israel, expressed optimism that other Arab countries would sign deals with Israel. Analysts expect Khartoum and Manama to take similar steps after the United Arab Emirates, which became the third Arab country to formally establish relations with the Jewish state. Saudi Arabia asserted that the Kingdom would not follow the UAE’s lead in normalizing relations with Israel in light of the failure to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians, and reiterated its adherence to the Arab peace plan, which stipulates that Israel withdraws from Arab countries occupied since 1967.
the two seas
Bahrain was the first Gulf country to hail the standardization agreement between the UAE and Israel. Contacts between the small Gulf state and the Hebrew state date back to the 1990s. Bahrain and Israel share the same hostility towards Iran, which Manama accuses of supporting the Shiite opposition and of seeking to provoke security disturbances in its territory. territory, which Tehran has repeatedly denied.
Bahrain has witnessed intermittent unrest since the crackdown on a protest movement in February 2011 amid the events of the Shiite-led “Arab Spring” to demand the creation of a constitutional monarchy in the kingdom ruled by a Sunni family. But the small Gulf kingdom is very close to Riyadh and it will be difficult to develop relations with the Hebrew state without Saudi consent.
On August 20, a Bahraini official confirmed Manama’s support for “Palestinian rights”, stressing at the same time that his country is a sovereign state and that its decisions are based on its “strategic and security interests”. “While Saudi Arabia cannot print its relations directly due to the stalemate in the peace process, Bahrain could become a Saudi-Israeli communication hub,” Andreas Craig, researcher at Kings College told AFP. on the Middle East.
Sudan
Khartoum sowed confusion over normalization with Israel, when former Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Haidar Badawi Al-Sadiq refused to deny that there was contact between his country and Israel. He promised 24 hours after his statement. On August 19, Sudanese Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din relieved the spokesperson from his post.
And last February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Uganda with the head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The Sudanese government has denied that there is any evidence that Netanyahu promised to “normalize relations” between the two countries. Sudan is suffering from a stifling economic crisis and hopes to remove it from the list of the United States which supports terrorism. An agreement to normalize relations with Israel can help.
“They want the US sanctions to be lifted and the UAE to have a big influence on them,” said Chenzia Bianco, researcher specializing in Middle East affairs at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
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 took place 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. Bianco says Sultan Haitham of Oman “is already acting cautiously due to potential economic concerns and will not risk a similar controversial decision at this time.”
Qatar
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 cut off 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. . Craig believes that “if Qatar cooperates with Israel to support the Palestinian cause … it will not normalize relations as long as the peace process is blocked.”
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.”
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