Bahrainis decry betrayal as king does deal with Israel

Tamara Nassar Power Suits 11 September 2020

Man sits behind a desk, two men stand behind him

President Donald Trump, surrounded by members of his administration, announces the agreement to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, in the Oval Office in Washington, on 11 September.

Polaris

In a move that surprised no one, Bahrain and Israel agreed on Friday to establish full diplomatic ties, formalizing more than two decades of clandestine relations.

President Donald Trump announced the US-brokered agreement in a joint statement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain’s king Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The statement was also published in Arabic by Bahrain’s foreign ministry:
The three leaders spoke on the phone following the announcement.

Bahrain and Israel “will exchange embassies and ambassadors, begin direct flights between their countries and launch cooperation initiatives,” Trump announced at an Oval Office press conference.

Areas of cooperation will include health, business, technology, education, security and agriculture, Trump said.

During the leaders’ call, Bahrain’s king reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the moribund two-state solution, according to Bahrain’s official news agency.

Declaring support for a two-state solution they are doing nothing to advance is a standard tactic by Arab and European governments to deflect from their complicity and inaction as Israel continues to violently colonize Palestinian land.

Supporting the nonexistent “peace process” is also used as an excuse for public and private dealings with Israel.

Bahrain is following in the footsteps of its regional ally the United Arab Emirates, which also agreed to full normalization of relations with Israel less than a month ago.

Both countries will sign the agreements with Israel in a White House ceremony on 15 September.

Both normalization agreements are being described as treaties of “peace,” despite neither countries having actually engaged in war with Israel.

“It’s just a very historic day, a very important day and so interesting that it’s on 9/11. It’s such a great time,” Trump told reporters.

“These treaties are the result of tireless work behind the scenes over many years,” Netanyahu said in a video address on Friday.

A grinning Netanyahu also celebrated the fact that Israel was gaining “peace for peace” – a term long used by Netanyahu in opposition to the formula “land for peace” that was for decades meant to be the basis of negotiations.

“Peace for peace” means, in effect, that Israel is getting full, normal relations in exchange for nothing.

Unlike the United Arab Emirates – which tried to spin its agreement to normalize relations as an exchange for Israel suspending plans to annex large swaths of the occupied West Bank – Bahrain does not pretend it has achieved anything for Palestinians.

Bahrain’s foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Alzayani will lead his country’s delegation to Washington on Tuesday to sign what Trump called the “Declaration of Peace.”

Hend Al Otaiba, spokesperson for the UAE foreign ministry, confirmed that her country’s foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan – brother of the country’s crown prince – will lead the Emirati delegation.

Al Otaiba welcomed Bahrain’s decision.

Netanyahu said he would lead the Israeli delegation.

Behind the scenes

A Bahraini official called Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz a few hours after the announcement of the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel on 13 August.

“We want to be the next Arab state to normalize relations with Israel,” the unnamed senior Bahraini official told Trump’s advisers, Israeli publication Walla reported.

Talks ensued between US and Bahraini officials, and Kushner’s delegation visited Manama after their trip to Israel and the United Arab Emirates in late August and early September.

Kushner carried with him a Torah scroll which he presented to the Bahrainis as a gift for the monarch.

It was important for them to secure the deal before the 15 September White House ceremony to encourage others in the region to move towards normalization.

The deal was sealed when Saudi Arabia “gave the green light” to Bahrain, Walla reported.

History of covert relations

Bahrain’s rush to be next to betray Palestine is hardly surprising.

The tiny island state’s ties with Israel and US lobby groups have been strengthening in recent years.

It was in Manama that the Trump administration’s so-called “Peace to Prosperity” conference was hosted in June 2019, where the economic component of the US Middle East “peace” plan was announced.

Palestinians were starkly absent from the festivities.

But Israeli journalists were welcomed to Bahrain’s capital and even conducted interviews with its foreign minister at the time, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, who is now an adviser to the king.

Al Khalifa was the most brazenly pro-Israel Gulf official even before any Gulf state established formal relations with Israel.

He had previously approached Israel’s former foreign minister Tzipi Livni at the February 2017 Munich Security Conference to relay a message on behalf of Bahrain’s king that he had decided to move towards normalization with Israel and wanted her to inform Netanyahu.

Livni and Al Khalifa even posed for a picture together on another occasion:

Livni has been repeatedly pursued internationally by prosecutors for questioning over her role in war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

Al Khalifa regularly cheers for Israel’s attacks on countries in the region, defends Netanyahu and downplays Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

His warming up to the Israel lobby goes back at least a decade.

Top Israel lobbyist William Daroff posted a picture of himself and Al Khalifa, which he said was taken at the house of prominent American rabbi Levi Shemtov in 2010.

Daroff is the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which brings together the leaders of some of the most influential anti-Palestinian groups.

Israel has previously sold Bahrain sophisticated spy software which was reportedly used to spy on human rights activists.

A delegation from the American Jewish Committee, a major Israel lobby group, visited Bahrain last year and met with top officials.

Months earlier, the group presented Bahrain with an award for being “opening and welcoming” towards it. Al Khalifa even received the award on his country’s behalf.

In 2017, Bahrain’s king denounced the Arab boycott of Israel and declared that citizens of his Gulf nation would now be allowed to visit Israel.

A Bahraini delegation from the “interfaith” organization This is Bahrain even traveled to Israel in 2017 claiming that “the king sent us.”

In occupied East Jerusalem, the delegation was met with outright rejection from Palestinians who viewed it as normalization with Israel.

This is Bahrain has significant ties with Zionist individuals and groups.

Bahraini social media users took to Twitter on Friday to protest their government’s normalization with Israel using hashtags “Bahrainis against normalization” and “Normalization is a betrayal.”

The Bahraini Society Against Normalization with the Zionist Enemy rejected the agreement in a Tweet on Friday.
“How do you look at the hands that shake yours and not see blood on each palm?” it read.

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Comments

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john m costello replied on

I've been trying to communicate to my local media that these pacts are between elites all the way around and are a betrayal of the subjects of these princedoms as well as Palestinians but there's no reporting to back that view up. And here again, my hopes soared like an eagle when I read this article's heading.
But lo and behold nothing about popular sentiment in these member states of Kushner's coalition of the willing to trade brotherhood for power, security and $

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Dave Rubin replied on

KING ABDULLAH & THE SECRET AGREEMENT WITH ISRAEL
King Abdullah of Jordan made a secret deal with Moshe Dayan and others in Ben Gurion's inner circle, lubricated by bribes, and colluded with Israel in order to ensure that the independent Palestinian state envisaged by the United Nations would NEVER come into being. Instead, with Israeli assent and encouragement, Abdullah seized Arab Palestine in defiance of his fellow Arab rulers, and ruled it as the West Bank.
The Arabs are again screwing the Palestinian people, with their deals with Israel

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Frank Dallas replied on

Lucre. There is no principle at work here. It is nothing but a cynical conjunction in money-making. Trump represents the rich of the US (those from the bottom end who put him in power have been reared on the media distortions which convince them their interests are served half-wit billionaires with fascistic impulses), Netanyahu the rich of Israel and all those who understand the enforced poverty of many Palestinians is the basis of their comfort, and Al Khalifa a tiny, prosperous elite which rules through absolutism. No one should be in nay doubt what it being prepared here. Blair spoke about it recently and glibly: the future of the Middle East lies in rapprochement between Israel and the Arab States; a Palestinian State is now off the agenda. Thus, the ever-delayed two-States solution which the excuse for Europe and the US to do nothing, is now being shoved aside to be replaced by the notion of never-never land. Palestinians will never, never have a State. What then shall their fate be? Unlike the blacks of South Africa who were essential to the SA economy, the Palestinians are expendable. They provide a convenient pool of cheap labour denied basic employment rights; but they are not crucial to the existence of the Israeli economy. The world is planning their disappearance, whether slowly or quickly. Quite how this will come to pass is impossible to predict but that it is Israel's wish, backed by the most powerful people on earth is beyond question. What faces us, therefore, is the choice of submission or rebellion. It is the common folk of the world who share the interests of the Palestinians. We must rise up against the rich, the vile masters of mankind. This is an agreement of the rich, as was the shabby deal with the UAE. The rich at work in all their unprincipled ugliness. Democracy, equality, peace, human rights must prevail against the despicable manipulations of the lords of lucre.

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Richard Cook replied on

Lying at every turn, Israel has brutally blocked democracy in Palestine, undermined democracy in Britain, bought off democracy in the US & across Europe and defeated democracy in the Arab world. When are we going to wake up to the plain fact: Israel is a global threat.

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john m costello replied on

"Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere". I'm sorry to continually subject my brilliant and courageous freedom fighter co-posters to the obvious but platitudes are that because they are commonly perceived, which is a good thing. Support for the oppression of Palestinians is exactly what our policy has been for most of our lifetimes and it is easily and completely provable. That is exactly EI's, perhaps more so than any other resource, point of attack against the occupation/apartheid Zionist regime. What doesn't seem to matter though, to US citizens, is that our foreign policy and founding ideals don't at all jibe. MLK may have died exactly because he was capable of bringing that contradiction to the fore. I know it sounds like neophyte platitude but exactly where does one propose beginning a broad-based movement for real change, that doesn't point to accessibly obvious contradictions to commonly perceived notions? Fifth columns like Qanon seem to fill the voids left by purist intellectuals who seem to compete to uncover for the world the next, completely new and most prescient perspective on our poor common sense.

Tamara Nassar

Tamara Nassar is an assistant editor at The Electronic Intifada.