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On Wednesday, December 23, 2020, an Israeli cabinet minister told Ynet TV that Israel is working to formalize relations with a fifth Muslim country during the term of US President Donald Trump, which ends next month.
This year, the White House negotiated a rapprochement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, which received an Israeli-American delegation on Tuesday to lay the foundations for new relations.
In response to a question about whether it is possible to join a fifth country on its knees before Trump leaves the White House on January 20,
“We are working in this direction,” Israeli Minister for Regional Cooperation Ophir Akunis told Ynet TV. “Another country will issue a US statement that will reveal the normalization of relations with Israel … and the basis for an agreement: a peace agreement,” he added.
The minister declined to specify the country, but said there were two strong candidates, one of them in the Gulf region. He indicated that the Sultanate of Oman may be one of them, adding that Saudi Arabia is not. He said the other candidate country, located further east, is “a Muslim country that is not small,” but it is not Pakistan.
And last week, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, said it would not recognize Israel until the demands for the establishment of a Palestinian state were met.
Malaysia also indicated that it followed a similar policy.
Deputy Foreign Minister Qamaruddin Jaafar told the upper house of parliament on Wednesday that “Malaysia’s firm stance on the Palestinian issue will not change.” He added that Kuala Lumpur will not interfere in the decisions of other countries regarding Israel.
In Dhaka, an official from the Foreign Ministry said that Bangladesh was not interested in establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. “Our position remains the same,” he added in a statement to Reuters.
The Sultanate of Oman had praised the diplomatic effort negotiated by the United States, but did not comment on the possibility of establishing relations with Israel.
The Palestinians, whose talks with Israel collapsed in 2014, fear that the normalization process will marginalize their cause and that the normalization of Arab countries’ relations with Israel will weaken a long-standing Arab position calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the approval of the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for normal relations with the Arab countries. .
