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They say
history repeats itself, but sometimes, history is made.
When eight
Arab countries gathered in 1967 in Khartoum, Sudan, to condemn Israel just
months after the Six-Day War and announce what became known as the “Three
No’s”—no peace, no recognition, no negotiations—none of them could have
imagined that 53 years later, Sudan’s leader would go out of his way to meet
an Israeli leader to say “yes” to establishing diplomatic relations.
And that
is exactly what happened this week when Sudanese Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan,
the head of Sudan’s transitional government, flew to Uganda to meet with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was there for a meeting with
its leader, Yoweri Museveni.
Dore Gold,
president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS the meeting
between Netanyahu and al-Burhan was the “crowning achievement” of the prime
minister’s visit.
“This week
is a week in which the Arab world is being mobilized by the PLO to oppose the
Trump plan,” he said. “And if you are going to expect anything this week, it
would be Arab states pulling back from Israel. What is so ironic with the Sudanese move is that Israel is being
embraced by Sudan precisely at a time when the Arab League is pulling back.”
“That also
makes this into a very big deal,” he added.
For Israel, the meeting marks a
major step towards improving ties with both African and Arab countries.
Gold,
previously director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had a hand in
furthering Israel’s diplomatic ties in
Africa.
Israel
renewed diplomatic ties with Guinea in 2016. After Netanyahu visited Chad for
a renewal of ties in 2019, it was reported that Israel was working to
formalize ties with Sudan.
According
to Gold, Sudan is a huge country with a contemporary history, “which made it
one of the centers of jihadi Islam for many years.”
Gold
referred back to the 1990s, when Hassan Turabi, Sudan’s
leader at the time, hosted a dozen or more terror organizations for their
annual meeting, and which included the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the PLO and
Hezbollah.
“The most
infamous guest of the Sudanese government in the ’90s was a Saudi dissident
named Osama bin Laden,” he said. “So that makes Sudan a very significant
place.”
Sudan, which is an
Arab-Muslim-majority country that borders Egypt to the south, has long been
viewed as a hostile nation towards the Jewish state.
Sudan is desperate to have
sanctions lifted and be removed from the list as a state sponsor of terror.
It wants to end its isolation and rebuild its economy after a popular uprising last year
that toppled the country’s leader, Omar al-Bashir—considered a war criminal
by the international community for his role in the Darfur genocide—and
installed the joint civilian-military sovereign council headed by al-Burhan.
The country is scheduled to hold elections in 2022 as part of its transition
to democracy under the interim government.
‘Turning
away from bad actors’
Jonathan
Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, agreed with Gold in the significance of the meeting, telling JNS
that the departure of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir clears the way
for broader recognition of Sudan in the United States and around the world.
“Sudan was
long-sanctioned for its support of terror organizations,” he said. “Now,
Sudan has a clean slate.”
Schanzer
said looking at Sudan’s track record the last few years, it has been
“demonstrably turning away from the bad actors it has past supported.”
The
meeting between Netanyahu and al-Burhan was purportedly orchestrated by the
United Arab Emirates, and that only a “small
circle” of top officials in Sudan, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, knew
about it ahead of time, reported the Associated Press.
Sudan is
hoping that by forging warm ties with Israel, it would increase its chances
for the United States to remove its status as a state-sponsor of terrorism,
which it was designated as in 1993. Under al-Bashir, Sudan also forged close
ties with Iran and served as a pipeline to supply weapons to Palestinian
terror groups such as Hamas. Israel is believed to have been behind
airstrikes in Sudan that destroyed a weapons convoy in 2009 and a weapons
factory in 2012.
“Sudan has turned away from the
Iran axis in a very clear way,” said Schanzer. “You
cannot engage with Israel while simultaneously supporting Hamas and Iran.”
“Sudan has taken a very important
step,” he added. It has “clearly broken with the Arab League.”
Notably,
Egypt and Jordan broke with the Arab League years ago, entering into peace treaties
with Israel.
“More importantly,” Schanzer
emphasized, “several years ago, Sudan was actually wooed out of the Iranian
orbit by Saudi Arabia, which sees it
as a sort of client state.”
As such, he believes that Sudan’s outreach to Israel “came
with the blessing of Saudi Arabia.”
Now, the Saudis are “waiting to see
the reactions from the Sudanese people and the Arab world before they begin
to think about their next moves. Bahrain perhaps comes next and perhaps after
that, the United Arab Emirates,” he predicted.
The apparent Saudi-led alliance in
the Middle East is slowly breaking away from past demagoguery and moving
slowly toward the West.
According to Schanzer, the Trump
administration has a broader idea of its “deal of the century” than what was
written in the plan. “There are other inducements the U.S. can offer to some
of the other countries still on the fence about recognizing Israel,” he said.
It
was reported this
week that the United States may move to recognize Moroccan sovereignty in
Western Sahara in exchange for Rabat taking steps to normalize ties with
Israel.
Schanzer explained that many Arab
and African countries are “coming to grips with the realization that the
Palestinian issue, while near and dear to the hearts of many, is not in their
national interest.”
Indeed, in
the case of Sudan, which has been wracked by tribal infighting, civil war and
genocide almost continuously since its independence from Great Britain in
1956, many in the country hope to move from an isolated military dictatorship
to a fledgling democracy with the help and investment of Western countries
like the United States.
They will
not set aside their own security or economic concerns “because of how they
feel about the Palestinians’ unfulfilled national aspirations,” he said. The
question right now is “how quickly these countries can move given the
conservative nature of their people.”
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