Yemen's Political Council Slams Bahrain’s Signing of Deal to Establish Formal Ties With Israel

Monday, 19 October 2020 4:38 PM 

Press TV

An Israeli delegation signs an agreement with Bahraini officials in Manama, Bahrain, on October 18, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

A member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council has denounced Bahraini officials over signing a joint communiqué with Israeli authorities to establish full diplomatic relations, after the Persian Gulf kingdom reached a US-brokered normalization deal with the Tel Aviv regime last month.

“Bahrain's normalization of relations [with Israel] is condemned; although its (Manama) regime is not considered a threat even in the event of a war with the Zionist regime,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi wrote in a post published on his official Twitter page on Sunday.

“Nevertheless, normalization [of relations with Tel Aviv] is a crime, and whoever commits it is a tyrant that will never be guided as cited in the Holy Qur'an,” the Yemeni official pointed out.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is in Bahrain for formalizion of the kingdom’s relations with the Israeli regime.

At a ceremony in Manama on Sunday evening, Bahraini and Israeli officials signed a joint communiqué establishing full diplomatic relations. The Manama and Tel Aviv regimes are now expected to open embassies.

The Israeli delegation, led by Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, flew on an El Al Israel Airlines charter flight from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, to Bahrain and was accompanied by US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin.

Following the signing, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani said in a speech that he hoped for “fruitful bilateral cooperation in every field” between his country and Israel, asserting Manama supported the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through dialogue.

A senior UAE official accuses Palestinians of ‘ingratitude’ after Ramallah’s France envoy decries the Emirates’ normalization deal with the Israeli regime.

Sunday’s meeting followed a September 15 ceremony at the White House when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed US-brokered normalization deals with the Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahrain's top diplomat.

The normalization deals have drawn widespread condemnation from Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital. They say the deals ignore their rights and do not serve the Palestinian cause.

Grand Mufti of Oman slams normalization with Israel 

Meanwhile, the Grand Mufti of the Sultanate of Oman, Sheikh Ahmad bin Hamad al-Khalili, has censured attempts by a number of Arab states to normalize ties with the Israeli regime.

“A new negative phenomenon has emerged in the Muslim world, which seeks to befriend the enemy that the God Almighty has commanded us to oppose… A number of prominent Muslim scholars, whom we treated with considerable respect, were quick to do so,” read part of a tweet by Sheikh Khalili.

The head of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement’s political bureau condemns the US-brokered deals that the UAE and Bahrain signed to normalize ties with Israel, warning about “no mercy” for the Arab states that betrayed fellow Palestinians.

The Palestinian leadership has condemned normalization agreements with Israel as “a stab in the back” for Palestinian aspirations to establish an independent state of their own.

Many Arab states say they remain committed to the so-called Arab Peace Initiative – which calls for Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Palestinian territories occupied after 1967 in exchange for peace and the full normalization of relations.

But speculation has been rife that some countries in the region would soon join the bandwagon to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel.