Sudan has normalized relations with Israel and Khartoum is to blame – Middle East Monitor

When the president of the United States, Donald Trump Announced on October 24, that Sudan had agreed to normalize ties with Israel, surprised few observers in the region. In February, Sudan’s Transitional Leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, met secretly with Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the Ugandan President’s home in Entebbe. That was the first step in normalization, no matter how much it was denied at the time.

At that meeting, Netanyahu wanted one thing and he got it; Sudan’s agreement to open its airspace for use by commercial flights from Israel to South America. That move helped airlines cut costs and flight time from Tel Aviv to most destinations across the continent. Khartoum received nothing in return. Instead, you are asked to give even more.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got the message that Sudan was almost ready to give in to normalization if Washington provided the right incentive. That turned out to be a removal from the U.S. list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism (SST). This is an American foreign policy tool for carrot and stick diplomacy. It brings together different United States sanctions laws designed to put pressure on foreign governments if the United States is not happy with them for any reason. Created in the late 1970s, the SST became synonymous with war. Countries like Syria, Iran, and Cuba have been for decades.

Once a country appears on the list, the stick automatically becomes the target of all kinds of US sanctions, in particular economic boycotts and assets freezes. The United States has been doing this for decades with utter disregard for international law. The delisting of any country, the carrot, is a process that requires it to yield to US demands, even when they serve little or no US national interest. The case of Sudan is a very clear example.

Pompey visited Khartoum in August, where he met Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and raised the possibility of being removed from the list in exchange for establishing ties with Israel. It was rejected at first, as Hamdok tried to distance himself from the idea. In the face of local and regional negativity and media frenzy, said that normalization with Israel will need a “deep debate” in Sudan. That debate didn’t happen, but normalization is now a reality.

LEE: The threat to peace has forced Sudan to normalize with Israel

However, Hamdok does not have the last word in his country’s foreign relations, despite being the prime minister. The power-sharing structure between the military and civilians that assumed after the overthrow of President Omar Al-Bashir depends on such decisions in the generals. Therefore, it was General Al-Burhan who decided that normalization with Israel was right for Sudan.

When the Trump-Netanyahu-Hamdok phone call announced the Oval Office normalization agreement, an enthusiastic Sudanese Prime Minister tweeted and expressed hope that Khartoum would be “delisted”. However, the process is not yet complete and awaits congressional approval, which could come at a price.

Like Bahrain before it, Sudan was announced as the latest Arab country to join the “Abrahamic Accords”, as the normalizations are called. Nothing was negotiated, almost as if Sudan was a minor and the United Arab Emirates is its guardian who knows what is best for the country and its people.

US to remove Sudan from terrorism blacklist if it normalizes ties with Israel: cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

For all sorts of practical reasons, Sudan should have let the negotiations with the United States and Israel run their course before taking that step. The UAE could have signed up to “peace” with Israel to show off and send a message to Iran, but Sudan needed more than bragging rights.

In fact, he has already promised to pay $ 335 million for make up for victims and their families of the attacks against the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, for which responsibility was attributed to Al-Qaeda. Some might think that this is a separate issue and Sudan is responsible. It may well be, but solving outstanding issues in international relations requires a holistic approach and negotiations tend to be comprehensive to ensure that all files are closed. This is particularly true when, as in the case of Sudan, not a single Sudanese national was implicated in the attacks and Khartoum’s sole function was to host Osama bin Laden at the time.

If that somehow makes Sudan complicit in the attacks and therefore forced to pay compensation, then it is worth remembering that Bin Laden was backed by the CIA when he was fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Unlike Washington, we have not forgotten. And despite all the charges, the United States did not ask Interpol to issue a “red notice” for Bin Laden until 1998.

Al-Burhan’s close ties with Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt and Mohammed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates certainly played a decisive role in Sudan’s normalization deal, if not by example, at least with promising funding. Cairo wanted to demonstrate its decades-long normalization with Israel, while Abu Dhabi wanted more supporters in the effort.

READ: Normalization with Israel will trigger an arms race in the Middle East

The Sudanese authorities should have demanded, at a minimum, a fair price for such a sale. Instead, they are repeating what former President Jaafar Nimiery did in the 1980s, when he allowed Ethiopian Falashas to be smuggled into Israel through Khartoum in exchange for cash. “Operation MosesAs the smuggling of thousands of Ethiopian Jews was called, it was also a plan devised and supported by Washington as a favor to Israel in which the United States had no real national interest at all.

Sudan’s economy is in dire straits, and the Covid-19 pandemic and recent floods have made things worse. The country suffers from high unemployment, widespread poverty, and economic mismanagement. Removing it from the notorious OSH roster is crucial if international financial institutions controlled in all but the name of the US are to be accessed. Skillful negotiators might have turned Sudan’s difficulties into strengths, but the Khartoum board did not. wanted to know.

Since 1967, Khartoum has symbolized Palestinian and Arab resistance against Israel’s occupation. It was then that the Arab heads of state concluded their summit in the city by declaring the Three No’s: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. Sudan was weak then and probably is now, but that does not justify what has been done. Has exchanged what is dear Noit is for a big “Yes” for absolutely nothing in return, and the misinformed Khartoum junta is to blame for such a strategic mistake.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.