Bahrain has become the second Gulf nation to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, joining the United Arab Emirates in normalizing ties with the Jewish state and reshaping politics in the Middle East.
Bahraini officials said the agreement will help promote peace in the region, a position not shared by neighboring Iran. The Tehran government, which supports the majority of the island’s Shiite population, has warned that the deal will further destabilize the region.
“This is a historic breakthrough to promote peace in the Middle East,” said a joint statement Friday between the United States, Bahrain and Israel. “The opening of direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East.”
President Donald Trump praised Bahrain’s move, days before he was already scheduled to host the leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates in Washington for a signing ceremony at the White House. He said the leaders of the nations had shown “vision and courage” in reaching the deal and confirmed that Bahrain’s foreign minister would join the Sept. 15 event.
The move will reinforce Trump’s claims ahead of the November election to help bring peace to the Middle East and see success in efforts to extract US forces from the region. It will also be a positive development for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose support at the national level has been affected by corruption charges and his response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alarm in Iran
The events have been viewed with alarm by officials in Iran and the Palestinian territories. Palestinian officials were quick to denounce the agreement as a betrayal of their cause and a “torpedo” of an Arab-led peace initiative. The Palestinian government called its ambassador in Bahrain shortly after the announcement.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the deal.
“From now on, the rulers of Bahrain will be complicit in Israel’s assassinations as a source of constant threat to the region and the Islamic world,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its official Telegram channel. He warned against “any insecurity raised by Israel,” adding that it will hold Bahrain responsible for all consequences.
Ehud Yaari, a foreign fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Bahrain is very sensitive to Iran and has a clear interest in its Shiite population. “So you wonder if the Iranians are interested in responding by trying to provoke some internal problems in Bahrain,” he said.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has sought to build a unified coalition in the region against Tehran while pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that had minimal involvement from Palestinian leaders, who long ago said that Trump’s embrace Israel made the United States an unacceptable partner in negotiations.
Bahrain’s announcement of the measure, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, follows Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s arrival in Qatar earlier in the day to boost talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban.
“The sand was laden with blood and now we are going to see a lot of that sand laden with peace,” Trump said, referring to the Middle East.
Trump will host Netanyahu, Bahrain’s foreign minister and a representative from the United Arab Emirates next week for the signing ceremony. Friday’s announcement came with praise from Netanyahu and the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, for Trump’s “dedication to peace in the region” and the “pragmatic and unique approach he has taken to uniting nations. “.
In a statement issued by his office, Netanyahu said that “this is a new era of peace” that “will lead to very large investments in the Israeli economy.”
In a telephone interview with the Saudi-owned television channel Al Arabiya, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al-Zayani dismissed Iran’s criticism of the deal as “expected” and accused its neighbor across the Gulf of try to destabilize the region.
“Peace is a strategic option for the Muslim community,” he said, adding that Bahrain had chosen to make the deal based on its own “higher security interests” and that its support for the Palestinians and a two-state solution remained. “firm”. “
Speculation about whether Bahrain could be the next to establish ties with Israel had been building in recent weeks, with White House officials repeatedly pointing out that other countries could follow the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi signal
While Bahrain is a small island with the smallest economy among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, its decision to formalize relations with Israel is sure to spark a debate as to whether its neighbor and largest ally, Saudi Arabia, to whom is connected by a carriageway, you may have tacitly approved the deal.
Ayham Kamel, Middle East and North Africa director at Eurasia Group, which advises clients on political risk, said Bahrain’s decision “is implicitly a sign from Riyadh that it has bestowed its blessing on normalizing relations with Israel. . Saudi Arabia cannot and does not want to join the normalization without concessions to the Palestinians, but at the same time it seeks a new regional order ”.
The Trump administration has compared the accords with Israel to the historic Camp David accords in 1978, when Egypt formally recognized Israel, and Jordan’s decision to establish ties with the Jewish state during the Clinton administration in the 1990s.
In a nod to that past, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi welcomed the agreement and said on Twitter that he values ”this important step towards establishing stability and peace in the Middle East.”
.
