WASHINGTON: Bahrain on Friday agreed to normalize relations with Israel, becoming the latest Arab nation to do so as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Donald Trump and his administration to further ease the relative isolation of the Jewish state in The middle east and find common ground with nations that share America’s wariness of Iran.
Trump announced the agreement on the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, following a phone call he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrainit is King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The three leaders also issued a short joint statement marking the second Arab normalization agreement of its kind with Israel in the past two months.
The announcement came less than a week before Trump organizes a ceremony at the White House to mark the establishment of full relations between Israel and the United States. United Arab Emirates– something Trump and his Middle East team negotiated in August. BahrainThe foreign minister will attend that event and sign a separate agreement with Netanyahu.
“There is no more powerful response to the hate that 9/11 generated than this agreement,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Friday’s deal is another diplomatic victory for Trump less than two months before the presidential election and an opportunity to shore up support among pro-Israel evangelical Christians. In addition to the agreement with the United Arab Emirates, Trump last week announced agreements in principle for Kosovo to recognize Israel and for Serbia to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
But it is a setback for Palestinian leaders, who have urged Arab nations to withhold recognition until they have secured an independent state. The Palestinians have seen a steady erosion in Arab support, once unified, one of the few cards they still had as leverage against Israel, since Trump began pursuing a blatantly pro-Israel agenda.
“This is another stab in the back of the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian people and their rights,” said Wasel Abu Yousef, a senior Palestinian official. “It is a betrayal of Jerusalem and the Palestinians … We see absolutely no justification.” for this free normalization with Israel. ”
In their joint statement, Trump, Netanyahu and King Hamad called the agreement “a historic step forward to promote peace in the Middle East.”
“The opening of direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security and prosperity in the region,” they said.
Like the UAE agreement, the Bahrain-The agreement with Israel will normalize diplomatic, commercial, security and other relations between the two countries. Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia, it had already lifted the ban on Israeli flights using its airspace. Saudi Arabia’s acquiescence to the agreements has been seen as key to the agreements.
Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner said the deal is the second Israel has reached with an Arab country in 30 days after making peace with just two Arab nations _ Egypt and Jordan _ in 72 years of its independence.
“This is very fast,” Kushner told The Associated Press. “The region is responding very favorably to the agreement with the UAE and hopefully it is a sign that even more will come.”
Netanyahu thanked Trump. “It took us 26 years between the second peace agreement with an Arab country and the third, but only 29 days between the third and the fourth, and there will be more,” he said, referring to the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and the more recent agreements. Recent
BahrainThe Foreign Ministry welcomed the agreement and said Hamad had praised the United States’ efforts to establish security and stability in the Middle East, according to the official news agency. Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, a prominent adviser to the king in Bahrain and a longtime former foreign minister, wrote on Twitter that the agreement boosts the security and prosperity of the region.
“It sends a positive and encouraging message to the people of Israel that a just and complete peace with the Palestinian people is the best path and is in the true interest of their future and the future of the people of the region,” he wrote. .
In a nod to the Palestinians, the joint statement said the parties will continue their efforts “to achieve a just, comprehensive and lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to enable the Palestinian people to realize their full potential.”
The agreement makes Bahrain the fourth Arab country, after Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, to have full diplomatic relations with Israel. Other Arab nations believed to be on the verge of fully recognizing Israel include Oman and Sudan. The region’s power actor, Saudi Arabia, may also be close to a deal.
Like the UAE, Bahrain it has never fought a war against Israel and does not share a border with it. But BahrainLike most of the Arab world, it had long rejected diplomatic relations with Israel in the absence of a Palestinian peace agreement. And, although the agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates required Israel to halt contentious plans to annex the occupied West Bank lands sought by the Palestinians, the Bahrain The agreement does not include such concessions.
While the UAE’s population remains small and the federation does not have a tradition of standing up to the country’s autocracy, Bahrain represents a very different country.
Just off the coast of Saudi Arabia, the island of Bahrain It is among the smallest countries in the world, at only about 760 square kilometers (290 square miles). BahrainIts location on the Persian Gulf has long made it a commercial stopover and a naval defensive position. The island is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and a recently built British naval base.
Bahrain is well aware of the threats posed by Iran, an anxiety that comes from BahrainShiite majority population, despite being ruled since 1783 by the Sunni Al Khalifa family. Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had lobbied to take over the island after the British left, although the Bahrainis in 1970 overwhelmingly supported becoming an independent nation and the UN Security Council unanimously backed it.
Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, BahrainThe rulers have blamed Iran for arming the militants on the island. Iran denies the accusations. BahrainThe Shiite majority have accused the government of treating them as second-class citizens. Shiites joined pro-democracy activists in demanding more political freedoms in 2011, when the Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East. Saudi and Emirati troops eventually helped violently quell the demonstrations.
In recent years, Bahrain it has cracked down on all dissidents, jailed activists, and obstructed independent reporting on the island. While the Obama administration stopped the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain out of human rights concerns, the Trump administration dropped that.
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