Israel and Sudan Meet to Advance Peace

 Video Of The Week - Israel, Sudan Lay Foundation for ‘Historic’ Peace - https://tinyurl.com/mpaxfebn

 Israel’s foreign minister hammered out details with the leader of Sudan’s transitional government in Khartoum.

By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)

Israel will sign a peace agreement with Sudan later this year in Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced Thursday. He confirmed rumors he made a “historic diplomatic visit” to Khartoum earlier in the day. There, he met with General Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, leader of Sudan’s transitional government.

“Today’s visit to Sudan lays the foundation for a historic peace agreement with a strategic Arab and Muslim country,” said Cohen upon returning to Israel. “The peace agreement between Israel and Sudan will promote regional stability and contribute to the national security of the State of Israel.”

During the visit, the two officials discussed the necessary steps to sign a peace treaty in the near future, following the finalization of Sudan’s civilian government. Israel conveyed to Sudan its intent to aid in areas that include food security, water-resource management and agriculture.

Located on the Red Sea, Sudan is Africa’s third largest country, home to about 47 million. It opposed Israel for decades and fought alongside Arab countries during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 and Six-Day War in 1967. It has facilitated weapons transfers to Hamas and hosted the 1968 Arab League summit, which ratified the infamous “three no’s”: to peace with Israel, recognition of Israel and negotiations with Israel.

Now, Khartoum and Jerusalem appear to be building a new reality, “in which the ‘three no’s’ become the ‘three yeses,’” said Cohen. “Yes to negotiations between Israel and Sudan, yes to recognition of Israel and yes to peace between the states and between the peoples.”

Khartoum first agreed to normalize relations with Israel in October 2020 under the Trump administration, in exchange for Washington removing Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. In January 2021, it became the fourth country to sign onto the Abraham Accords.

The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco have also joined the accords, although the current development with Sudan is being billed as a peace agreement in the vein of those forged between Israel and Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994).

“Israel has been a significant partner for many years in the development processes in these countries and in dealing with the consequences of climate change and the economic challenges in Africa,” he said.

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Unprecedented Meeting With Arab States Re Iranian Threat

Video Of The Week -Israel’s Iron Beam Even Better Than Iron Dome - https://tinyurl.com/bpbhk43y

The Wall Street Journal reports that top military officials from Israel, Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as representatives from the U.S., Bahrain and UAE, discussed the shared Iranian threat

Israel took part in a secret, U.S.-initiated meeting of top military officials from throughout the Middle East in Egypt in March in order to discuss combatting the shared threat of Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The talks, held at Sharm El Sheikh, included senior military officers from Israel, Egypt, Jordan and two countries with whom Israel does not have relations: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain sent officers to the meeting as well, the report said, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of the U.S. Central Command, represented the United States, which convened the gathering.

The Wall Street Journal report said that this meeting was the first time that such a range of senior Arab and Israeli officers were gathered by the United States to talk about a shared threat.

According to the report, it was made possible by a series of regional shifts: fears of Iran shared by the states, strengthened ties under the Abraham Accords as well as Arab states’ desire to acquire Israeli arms and defense technology.

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The recent attacks by Iran and its proxies against Saudi infrastructure and other targets in the Middle East have prompted the coalition of Israel and a number of Arab countries in the region to develop a joint mechanism for detecting and intercepting missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. 

There has already been security coordination on this matter between the Israeli defense establishment and its peers in some of these countries. This cooperation includes operational coordination, the exchange of relevant intelligence about threats, visits by delegations and joint training between Israeli and foreign air forces.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz told lawmakers last week that what he dubbed the "Middle East Air Defense Alliance" is already operational. "Over the past year I have been leading an extensive program, together with my partners at the Pentagon and in the U.S. administration, that will strengthen the cooperation between Israel and countries in the region," he said, according to an official transcript. "This program is already operative and has already enabled the successful interception of Iranian attempts to attack Israel and other countries."

Part of the United States’ plan to strengthen Israeli military cooperation with other regional states includes air force cooperation "against Iranian attempts to harm countries in the region with rockets, cruise missiles, and drones,” Gantz said.

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Israel and Abraham Accords: A Tale of two Parallel Universes.

 Video Of The Week - Israeli-Arab Summit in the Negev - https://tinyurl.com/2xcn7kwt

For the full article by David M. Weinberg go to https://tinyurl.com/2p8bw8k8

Israel seems to exist in two parallel, contradictory worlds. One is a false, hackneyed, out-of-date, and threatening universe where recalcitrant and violent Palestinian leaders are venerated, and admirable Israeli leaders are criminalized. The other universe is real, promising, forward looking, and stabilizing, and is marked by a peace dynamic that runs from Jerusalem to Dubai, Manama, Rabat, Cairo and Amman; and from Jerusalem to the most important leaders in the world.  Consider the following very recent happenings.

GENEVA and NEW YORK: A new UN Human Rights Council (HRC) report this week accused Israel of apartheid, just in time for the annual debate on “Agenda Item 7,” the permanent council item reserved for Israeli “human rights abuses” against Palestinians and other Arabs.

“The political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule… satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid,” said the ugly report.  The report was the latest in a litany of one-sided, baseless reports, vilifying Israel and engaging in a full-scale lawfare assault on Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state.

Saleh Higazi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International praised the HRC report as “an important and timely addition to the growing international consensus that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against the Palestinian people.” In February, Amnesty International released its own tendentious report accusing Israel of apartheid.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett conducted two days of discussions this week to solidify their new regional alliance for peace and security. They discussed energy, market stability, and food security, as well as development of a regional radar security umbrella against Iran.

The Crown Prince also unfroze $10 billion in investments in Israeli companies that he promised former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UAE’s large sovereign funds will divide the investments between them. The first fund to enter the Israeli market is the ADG (Abu Dhabi Growth) Fund, which plans on investing $200 million in 2022 in Israeli companies, and a similar sum each year over 10 years.

Also this week, Sheikh Mansoor Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum visited Israel’s national pavilion at the GISEC Global cybersecurity fair in Dubai; an Emirati think tank published book on Zionism written by Tel Aviv University researchers; the UAE-based retail giant Lula began talks on operation in Israel; Morocco signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for a joint research and engineering center; and the Israeli navy took part in another joint Red Sea naval drill with the US, UAE, and Bahrain, under auspices of the US Fifth Fleet (which is headquartered in Bahrain).

UNFORTUNATELY, Israel seems to exist in two parallel, contradictory worlds.

One universe, dominated by so-called Western “progressives” in cahoots with Arab/Islamic radicals, disses rather than embraces the Abraham Accords and is stuck in a time warp where Israel is an evil actor.. It is a tragic, forlorn universe.

The other universe – real, promising, forward looking, and stabilizing! – is marked by a peace dynamic. The discourse about Israel in corrupt international institutions and in some aspersive Western campuses and capitals couldn’t be more different than the discourse in Arab capitals and other calm and considered decision-making centers. It’s confrontation versus cooperation, demonization versus solidarity.

 

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Conflict Won’t Change Arab-Israel Normalization

                          

Video Of The Week -Second Temple Period Revealed https://tinyurl.com/47uzbhzm

 For the full article go to “The Algemeiner” - by Ahmed Quraishi

 A future Gaza war will not derail Arab-Muslim normalization with Israel. The theory that Palestinian-Israeli peace dictates Israel’s wider acceptance in the Arab and Muslim region no longer holds true. The Palestinian conflict remains significant, but does not preclude Israel’s integration into the Arab-Muslim expanse around it.  The direst prediction of them all — the death of the Abraham Accords after the latest Gaza war — never came close.

 

On the contrary, a stream of actions involving major Muslim nations, stretching from Kazakhstan to Egypt, and from Sudan to Morocco, immediately after the recent escalation, indicate subtle shifts in the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The biggest one could be the decoupling of the Palestinian-Israel peace process and Israel’s wider regional relations.

 

The United Arab Emirates has just received the first Israeli foreign minister in Abu Dhabi. Eight Muslim nations and Israel were part of the US-led Sea Breeze military drills in the Black Sea recently. The Muslim nation of Kazakhstan, a member state of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), dedicated a memorial to Jews just days after the recent Gaza war. And that war was still raging when Sudan reaped the fruits of its normalization with Israel (among other positive policies), through international debt-relief commitments in Paris on May 17.

 

A week later, President Ilham Aliev celebrated “the strong ties” between Azerbaijan and Israel, and proudly declared that Baku has “full access to sophisticated Israeli weaponry.” Egypt sent the first invitation in 13 years to an Israeli foreign minister to visit Cairo.

In March, OIC membership applicant Kosovo became the first Muslim nation to move its embassy to Jerusalem. When Gaza erupted two months later, Kosovo did not reconsider. Nor did the OIC or any member state take significant punitive action against Israel. [The multilateral organization did slap Kosovo on the wrist for that move, though].

 

There is also Bangladesh — days after the Gaza ceasefire — removing the Israel exclusion from its passport and telling the Palestinian ambassador: “We are a sovereign country; we will decide what to do.” Although the country has no diplomatic ties with Israel, the timing of the gesture is important.

Normalization is here to stay, and Israel is no longer the enemy in many strategic circles across the wider Middle East. Predictions of the Abraham Accords’ demise were premature. Hamas and Iran, and a long list of right-wing parties, leftist nationalists, and populist leaders (like President Erdogan in Turkey and Prime Minister Imran Khan in Pakistan) find few buyers in the region for their anti-normalization pitch.

 

In interviews with two security officials in two countries neighboring Iran in January and May last year, they said that they indirectly rely on Israel to counter Iran’s influence, which they believe they cannot do alone. Officials in the region will not say this openly, but journalists have heard variations of this view from government, military, and intelligence officials in background briefings within the past five years.

 

While the dynamics have changed, a repeat of the Gaza conflict, renewed unrest in Jerusalem, and fresh images of Palestinian women and children scuffling with strong-looking, impressively attired Israeli soldiers will strain the luck of Israel’s many good friends in the region, empower hard-liners, and could slow new ties.

But if Israel shows its new friends that it can deftly handle the conflict with the Palestinians, then it can expect help from its new support network in the region to pressure Palestinian leaders to enact necessary reforms, focus on opportunities for young Palestinians, and shun violence. The idea that Arabs should nudge Palestinians toward moderation is another brewing trend in moderate Arab countries that has the potential to change the Arab approach toward the Palestinian issue, depending again on how Israel plays its cards.

 Ahmed Quraishi a journalist who covers national security issues in the MENA region. Twitter @_AhmedQuraishi