Middle East
The UAE and Bahrain agreements with Israel “mark a dark day in the history of the Arab nation and a defeat for the Arab League,” says Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
Other opposition groups came out against the deal, including the Bahrain Bar Association.
The Israeli delegation is being led by Bank Leumi chairman Samer Haj-Yehia and CEO Hanan Friedman.
U.S. President Donald Trump personally invited Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto to be present at the ceremony.
Mossad director Yossi Cohen: “A lot of very good people worked on this for a great many years. It didn’t start yesterday.”
At the opening of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauds Bahrain for following the UAE’s lead in normalizing ties with the Jewish state.
The sultanate lauds the “new strategic approach espoused by some Arab countries” as a step towards establishing peace “based on the termination of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.”
Israel’s leading science institute and the UAE’s artificial intelligence university is among the latest cooperative efforts between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi as a result of the Abraham Accord.
“The UAE and Bahrain are contributing to Trump’s presidential campaign at the expense of the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine,” tweeted PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat.
“There’s just a rush of excitement from people to get to know each other, to work together and to seize common opportunities,” senior adviser to the president Jared Kushner told JNS.
American Sephardi Federation executive director Jason Guberman noted that the Emirati and Bahraini normalization deals with Israel exemplify “a new era, but one rooted in history.”
Like the UAE, Bahrain is a rapidly developing Arab monarchy in the Persian Gulf. The island nation has had longstanding close with the United States, especially in areas such as defense.
