After UAE, Bahrain has also normalized its relations with Israel and is going to establish full diplomatic relations soon. According to Middle East experts, other Gulf countries could follow this path to normalizing relations with Israel as set out by Abu Dhabi and Manama.
The normalization agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, announced on August 13 by US President Donald Trump, has turned a new page in the Middle East in relation to the Jewish State.
The first signs of this rapprochement are still emerging with the repeal of the Emirati law concerning the boycott of Israel and the first commercial flight that linked the two countries at the end of August. And now Bahrain in turn has announced a historic agreement to normalize its relations with Israel.
Despite repeated calls and massive Iranian and Palestinian propaganda, the Arab public did not protest the Israel-UAE agreement. Rather they continue to protest Iranian hegemonic meddling in Iraqi and Lebanese affairs. By doing so, most definitely, the Arab populace has exhibited their willingness and determination in ensuring peace and stability rather than destructive ideological visions.
Dynamic analysis has taken place over the possible consequences of the Israel-UAE peace agreement. Some have rightly noted that while this is the third peace treaty Israel has signed with an Arab state, it is the first to contain the promise of a warm peace. This is in sharp contrast to Israel’s relations with prior accord partners Egypt and Jordan, which are limited to very narrow personal, diplomatic, and security relations. With Egypt, the peace treaty has rarely reached even that threshold.
Egypt former President Hosni Mubarak throughout his 30-years of rule had never made an official visit to the Jewish State, despite the fact that the distance between Israel and Egypt is just less than an hour’s flight. Similarly, Jordanian king Abdullah over his decade of rule has abstained from visiting Israel despite meeting several times with Palestinian head Mahmoud Abbas in nearby Ramallah as well as kingpins of the mega-terror outfit Hamas. Abdullah even has been patronizing Palestinian and Hamas terrorists at home and even has sheltered notorious terrorists such as Ahlam Tamimi.
Let me remind my readers, Israel has been at peace with Egypt for nearly a half-century. But, not even one Egyptian soccer teams have ever played against an Israeli team either in Israel or anywhere in the world. Delegation from any Egyptian universities have never visited its Israeli counterpart, nor any of the Egyptian cultural ensemble or group has ever visited the Jewish State.
Analysts have noted that Israel’s peace deal with UAE, unlike the treaties with Egypt and Jordan was signed under quite different conditions. There is a wide expectation that it will be followed by one or more similar pacts with other states, especially other Gulf State and Saudi Arabia.
One of the highlights of the Israel-UAE peace deal is El Al plane’s flying over the Saudi Arabian sky carrying a bevy of Israeli officials, entrepreneurs, and investors to the Emirates with the aim of establishing economic, technological and cultural cooperation between the Jewish State and the United Arab Emirates. Most importantly, there had not been even a single demonstration in Amman, Beirut, Tunis, Algiers, Rabat or even those Muslim nations such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where anti-Israel protests and demonization of the Jewish State are quite regular. On the other hand, as Bahrain has now declared its willingness of establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel with Saudi Arabia also signaling of a similar decision, some of the non-Arab Muslim nations have started reassessing their Israel policy and are even thinking of abandoning their decade-old blind support towards the Palestinians. One of the key reasons behind such a shift in policy is because those Muslim nations are fully aware of the Palestinian Authority is nothing but a platform of thieves, while their statehood is false. Although Palestinians have enjoyed support from the Sunni Muslim nations, it is well documented that Shiite Iran and its rogue Mullahs are the key patrons of the Palestinian terrorism. Iran actually has been using both PA and Hamas as its active arms with the ulterior agenda of maintaining Iranian influence in the Sunni Muslim world.
The most important question of the moment is – when Saudi Arabia will follow the UAE and Bahrain and recognize the State of Israel. In my personal opinion, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has excellent relations with the Trump administration may either follow UAE and Bahrain before the upcoming US presidential election, or he may wait a bit for the election result to go for this historic announcement.
While I wholeheartedly congratulate President Donald Trump and his administration for their grand success is normalizing relations between Israel and UAE as well as Israel and Bahrain, they should now put emphasis on taking similar steps in establishing relations between the Jewish State and some of the non-Arab Muslim nations – preferably Bangladesh or Indonesia or both.
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