Ever since the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relations with Israel, there has been excited speculation about which Arab country would be next, and how long it would take. Would it be Oman, where Prime Minister Netanyahu visited at the invitation of the late Sultan Qaboos in October 2018? Could it be Chad, whose President Deby agreed in January 2019 to restore the diplomatic ties with Israel that it had broken in 1972, but has not yet committed itself to full normalization? Might it be Sudan, because last February the head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Entebbe, Uganda? And what about Bahrain?
And Bahrain it turned out to be. King Hamad of Bahrain is a Sunni ruler with a predominantly Shi’a population, of the kind described as “restive.” There have been street protests against his rule — a veritable uprising in 2011 was quelled with the help of the Saudis — and naturally he worries about Iranian meddling in his country. Unsurprisingly, he appreciates Israel for its ability to run circles around the Iranians, foiling plots large and small, and sharing intelligence information on the Islamic Republic with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. He’s especially glad, as almost all the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf are, that Israel keeps managing to cause delays in Iran’s nuclear program. First there was Stuxnet, the computer worm that Israeli cyberwarriors used in 2010 to cause 1,000 Iranian centrifuges to speed up so fast they destroyed themselves. Then there were the assassinations, by Israeli agents, one after the other, of four of Iran’s top nuclear scientists. And then there was the raid by Israeli agents, who in the dead of night, in the middle of Tehran, managed to locate a certain nondescript building where the guards had knocked off for the night, and the Israelis blow-torched their way in, and within six hours made off with almost the entire nuclear archive of Iran, 50,000 pages of documents and 134 computer discs full of information. Finally, there was the sabotage in 2020 of the new centrifuge factory built by the Iranians at Natanz. That attack alone has apparently set back Iran’s nuclear program by two years. No country has done more than Israel to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf — including Bahrain’s ruling family — know it.
Bahrain has also given telling signs that it is not antisemitic, having appointed as its ambassador to Washington Houda Nonoo, who served from 2008 to 2013. Nonoo is one of Bahrain’s 37 Jews, and her appointment was interpreted, correctly, as a kind of outreach to American Jews.
The latest on Bahrain’s move to join the UAE in normalizing relations with Israel is here.
Bahrain joined the United Arab Emirates in striking an agreement to normalize relations with Israel on Friday [September 11] a dramatic move aimed at easing tensions in the Middle East….
“This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East,” the United States, Bahrain and Israel said in a joint statement.
“Opening 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,” it said….
The easing of relations with Israel comes amid a backdrop of shared fears about the threat of Iran to the region….
Bahrain, a small island state, is a close ally of Saudi Arabia and the site of the US Navy’s regional headquarters. Riyadh in 2011 sent troops to Bahrain to help quell an uprising and, alongside Kuwait and the UAE, in 2018 offered Bahrain a $10 billion economic bailout….
Last week, Bahrain said it would allow flights between Israel and the UAE to use its airspace. This followed a Saudi decision to allow an Israeli commercial airliner to fly over it on the way to the UAE.
Netanyahu hailed Friday’s news in a video published on social media, saying Bahrain had joined “the circle of peace.”
Rage in Ramallah, of course. One can hardly wait for that spittle-flecked fury from Mahmoud Abbas, followed by the glum faces of Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat, expressing that slough of despond into which both have lately fallen. But what can any of them do? What can the Palestinian Arabs offer the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Sudan, Chad, or any of those other Arab states likely to follow suit? Nothing. But normalization of relations with Israel offers Arabs peace and prosperity — greater prosperity made possible because of peace — and cooperative ventures in technology, trade, tourism, of Israeli advances in medicine, agriculture, defense, cybersecurity, solar energy, shared with Arab researchers, invested in by Arab businessmen, while the entrepreneurial flair of both Israelis and Arabs …. Well, you know the rest.
The juggernaut started to roll with the UAE. It has picked up steam with Bahrain. And there’s no way for the Palestinian Arabs — recently rebuffed by the Arab League — now to stop it.