Hargeisa, Republic of Somaliland

The flag of Somaliland seen at a fruit farm between the capital city of Hargeisa and Port city of Berbera, Somaliland, on February 19, 2026. (Tony KARUMBA / AFP)

"The recent recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state by Israel, the first and only country to have done so in 34 years, has reignited international debate, drawing attention not only to a long-standing post-colonial anomaly but to the lived reality of the people of Somaliland. Too often reduced to a geopolitical abstraction, Somaliland is first and foremost a society that has spent more than three decades building stability, democratic institutions, and a shared civic identity despite lacking formal statehood."

"This unresolved status is inseparable from the legacy of colonialism. The modern borders of the Horn of Africa, like those of much of the continent, were drawn in European capitals with little understanding of, or regard for, the peoples who inhabited those territories. This externally imposed cartography fractured historical communities, fused incompatible ones, and laid the foundations for conflicts that persist to this day. Africa is not the empty reservoir of resources or the passive geopolitical playground it has been treated as throughout colonial, Cold War, and neo-colonial eras alike. It is a continent of diverse societies, rich histories, and deeply rooted cultural identities that have long been constrained by the political frameworks imposed from outside and by the continued influence of external powers."

"In this context, Somaliland’s situation is emblematic of what it means to be an unrepresented state today: functioning governance without recognition, democratic legitimacy without a seat at the table, and a population whose political will is acknowledged at home but ignored internationally. In a region marked by protracted conflict and chronic insecurity, Somaliland stands out not as a legal anomaly but as a community that has demonstrated resilience, coherence, and the capacity to govern, despite an international system still shaped by the colonial legacy that once defined it."

Elena Artibani, Academy Analyst Assistant, UNP Academy (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization)

Hargeisa, capital of Republic of Somaliland

 

 Somaliland is an authentically sovereign nation, not part of Somalia, and awaiting world recognition for its democratic credentials, its peaceful existence in the Horn of Africa surrounded by nations embroiled in conflict -- most particularly Somalia, a functionally unstable, violence-prone state. The Islamist groups that hunt down and kill other Muslims who reject the fundamentalist demands of Sharia law are a plague in Somalia, but are non-existent in Somaliland. The U.S. military recently conducted  an aggressive bombing campaign in Somalia against the world-threatening presence of jihadist-Islamist predators.

 

The U.S. Africa Command targeted 150 hits in Somalia to eradicate the presence of those dangerously militant terrorist groups. U.S. President Donald Trump is less than convinced of Somaliland's presence as a completely separate nation, aspiring to be recognized as the African continent's 55th sovereign country.

For its part, the state of Israel had no problem recognizing Somaliland as an independent sovereign nation, sharing democratic values of freedom and rule of law. Both countries use their natural resources and their people-power to meet their prosperous futures. 

 

And when Israel formally recognized Somaliland in response to its search for recognition from the global community, emphasizing its independence from Somalia, Israel was the first nation in the world to form an alliance with Somaliland, in full recognition. Almost instantaneously, the world responded, with China, France, Britain, Denmark, Russia and the African Union criticizing Israel's move of diplomatically legitimizing Somaliland's independence. Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt made it clear that they deplored Israel's action verifying the Republic of Somaliland's right to declare itself independent of Somalia.

 

Hargeisa's street markets where large quantities of money that money changers stack around them without fear of theft.

Regional countries in the Horn are concerned with access to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, considered among the most vital waterways worldwide for global shipping trade. Yemen's Houthi rebels linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran in its global Shiite jihad, have been particularly troublesome for global shipping in their hijacking of shipping vessels, in particular targeting any shipping that may have an Israeli component, linked to the Tehran-led Shiite terrorist axis supporting the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023 in southern Israel where sadistic barbarism and mass slaughter led Israel to invade Gaza to eradicate Hamas terrorists.

 

According to analysts, Israel's recognition of Somaliland is being interpreted as a measure whereby the conflict with the Houthis can be mitigated. Israeli foreign policy expert Asher Lubotzky at the University of Houston in Texas, stated his interpretation that a greater Israeli footprint in Somaliland could assist in the deterrence of weapons smuggling by the Houthis into Yemen. Israel and Somaliland in their mutual recognition, however, are looking toward agreements in security, trade, technology and agricultural techniques.

 

According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the agreement with Somaliland reflected the spirit of the Abraham Accords, that series of agreements since 2020 that have established amicable relations between the Jewish state and Muslim-majority countries that include Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Just as Israel defends Somaliland's right as a sovereign state conducting diplomacy, so too does the United States defend Israel's right to do likewise, even as the U.S. itself holds back yet from recognizing the Republic of Somaliland.  

 

Afar tribe cultural show in Hargeisa

 

Somaliland is a federal republic with a series of  semiautonomous regions. The country broke from Mogadishu in 1991 following a war of independence, during which Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital, and other cities were bombed by the Barre regime. Since then, support by the United Arab Emirates, and relations with Ethiopia and Taiwan have buoyed Somaliland's prospects for future prosperity. The UAE invested in the development of a modern port in Berbera on the Gulf of Aden in recent years. In response, Somalia retaliated by canceling all contracts with the UAE, a move in which it is Somalia that loses. 

 

China is enraged over Hargeisa's decision to maintain ties with Taiwan. Ethiopia, on the other  hand, signed a 2024 deal to build a naval facility on Somaliland's coastline, in exchange for recognition. 

 

Formalities and diplomacy have moved apace between Israel and Somaliland, with Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, visiting Hargeisa in January. And according to Mohamed Hagi, Somaliland's minister of state for foreign affairs, Somaliland would soon join the Abraham Accords. Reciprocal embassies are shortly to be opened and business leaders in Israel are viewing investment possibilities with the Somaliland government.

 

On the cusp between rural tradition and urban modernity, donkey carts can still be seen on Hargeisa streets amidst vehicular traffic.

 

"Here in El Fasher, we are starving."

"The responsibility is not just on those holding the guns. It's on the world. The Arab countries. The African Union. Europe." 

"The so-called international community. All of them."

"We know they can help. We know they have the power to airdrop food. They have planes. They have supplies."

"But they are choosing not to."

Abaaz Sudan Dispatch quoting Sudanese civilian

 

"[The U.S.’ determination of genocide in Sudan is] long overdue [and should have happened sooner]."

"[Nonetheless, it is] a form of justice because it recognizes victims’ grievances."

"It is a step towards peace and accountability by paving the way to hold actors responsible to account, not only perpetrators themselves but actors complicit in genocide."

Sudanese lawyer Mutasim Ali, legal adviser, Canada-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

 

"We don’t think that the scale of these atrocities happening in Sudan and Darfur would have been this big without the support of the UAE [United Arab Emirates] to the RSF [paramilitary Rapid Support Forces]."

"So, we hope that the US decision to sanction Hemedti will send a strong message to the UAE to rethink its position and engage in a serious political process to end these atrocities and genocidal acts happening across the country."

"The RSF has been completely emboldened by impunity, a lack of accountability, and the fact that they were not seriously subjected to any sort of accountability."

Sudanese activist Hala Al-Karib, head, regional arm, Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa 

 Smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese military in Khartoum, Sudan. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

 

 

The RSF's  Hemedti

"[Hemedti’s RSF and its allied Arab militias had perpetrated] direct attacks against civilians [including the systematic murder of] men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis."

"[They also] deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. [The same forces] targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies."

"Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan."

"To the foreign sponsors sending drones, missiles, mercenaries – enough. To those profiting off the illicit oil and gold trade that fund this conflict – enough."

Biden Administration U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

 

"The UAE has made absolutely clear that it is not providing any support or supplies to any of the two belligerent warring parties in Sudan."

"Our primary focus remains on addressing the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan."

"We continue to call for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful resolution to this man-made conflict."

United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry  

According to the United States there is an actual genocide taking place in Sudan, one that the world largely overlooks. Yet Sudan represents the world's worst humanitarian crisis where last year famine was officially declared, with the United Nations reporting that 25 million Sudanese face extreme hunger, with up to 12 million having been forced to flee their homes, in the midst of a brutal civil war. The death toll after years of conflict, according to the U.S. special envoy Tom Perriello, appears to have exceeded 400,000. 

 

Back in January before the change of administration, there was an official declaration naming the killing in Sudan as a genocide, and in April the Trump administration as well characterized the ongoing slaughter as a genocide. A determination echoed by the U.S. State Department. Bipartisan agreement has been reached in the United States affirming that Sudan is suffering through both genocide and famine. Despite which there is no consensus opinion over what official reaction or intervention might take shape. 

 

Somewhat reminiscent of the years of civil conflict in Syria when President Bashar al Assad, faced by a  rebellion from Sunni Syrians fed up with being treated like second-class citizens by the ruling Alawites, brooked no dissent of his rule, and set out to destroy his detractors by turning a protest into a civil war, attacking his own Sunni population with all the conceivable weaponry at his disposal, including chemical warfare and barrel bombs along with support from Iran's Republican Guards and Russian air offence. There too, a figure of 400,000 killed and millions internally displaced, millions more refugees, took place.  

 

A woman and baby are seen at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan.  Mohamed Zakaria/MSF/Reuters

 

While the world community has its condemnatory gaze fixed on Gaza, where charges of genocide and starvation are rife yet faces plausible deniability by Israel, in a conflict where it is a common ploy for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to shelter behind the civilian population, deliberately placing civilians in the direct line of conflict with a defining purpose to use figures of large numbers of civilians becoming casualties to flay the conscience of the West with the charge of Palestinian victimhood at the armed hands of the Israeli 'occupation', that same world community is utterly disinterested in a real genocide and famine taking place in Africa.

 

In Sudan, survivors speak of ethnic cleansing of immense savagery. In a village on the Sudan-Chad border, an Arab militia ordered men and boys over age 10 to line up and a massacre took place, after which the women and girls were raped. Light-skinned Arabs targeting Black African ethnic groups; as one militia leader stated: "We don't want to see any Black people". These massacres reflect what happened in Darfur, Sudan, when the Sudanese government empowered Arab horsed tribesmen called the Janjaweed to hunt down and kill Darfurian farmers. That same Janjaweed has been transformed into the Rapid Support Forces.

 

For the past two years the Sudanese Armed Forces has been at war with the Rapid Support Forces militia, where both are responsible for starving civilians and impeding humanitarian attempts to give aid and comfort to the starving Sudanese. And although both sides are believed to have committed war crimes, it is the Rapid Support Forces who are responsible for the worst horrors visited  upon their ethnic targets, burning entire villages and slaughtering and raping civilians.

 

Despite their denials, the United Arab Emirates appear as the major supporter of the Rapid Support Forces by underwriting its atrocities. The Biden/Trump administration have held back on holding the Emirates responsibly accountable, yet there are some in the U.S. Congress who support a ban on arms transfers to the Emirates as long as it continues to enable rape and murder of civilians.   

"The RSF and RSF-aligned militias have continued to direct attacks against civilians. The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence."

"Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies. Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan."

"The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities. We are today sanctioning RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, known as Hemedti, for his role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people."

"We are also sanctioning seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates and one individual for their roles in procuring weapons for the RSF."

Then-U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken  

Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces unit stand on their vehicle during a military-backed rally south of Khartoum, Sudan. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

 

 

InTried-and-True Humanitarianism: Israel/UAE/Afghanistan Mission

The group of 41 Afghan women, including some members of the country's women's cycling team, and robotics team, and their families, on arrival in the United Arab Emirates Sept. 6, 2021. (Photo: UAE News agency WAM/Amjad Saleh)

"The issue was they had to collect them [Afghan evacuees] from hiding [from Taliban]."

"They [rescuers] had to do rounds around the city in alleys to pick up these people and try not to create any suspicious movement."

"The stressful part really was around the border. There were a lot of Taliban in the area, they were not allowed to leave the shelter and we were very stressed that someone might find them."

Yotam Polizer, chief executive, IsraAid

"Working alongside international partners to ensure that those in need may reach safety, the UAE has welcomed 41 Afghan evacuees, including vulnerable members from the Afghan girls' cycling and robotic teams, as well as at-risk human rights activists and their family members."

Afra al-Hamell, deputy director of strategic communications, UAE

Afghan evacuees arrive in the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Afra Al Hameli / Twitter screenshot

With the collaboration between Israeli aid workers and the United Arab Emirates, scores of Afghans have been given a new lease on life. These are people who are vengeance targets of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the new rulers of the country, the Taliban, whose previous rule was brutal and deadly, inspiring many Afghan civilians to flee their native country in fear of the Islamist terrorist regime, living as refugees in Pakistan (ironically the neighbour whose Interagency Intelligence service is largely responsible for the power now held by the Taliban), finding their way elsewhere around the world in a migration forced by terror.

Now that the Taliban have returned through a brief, violent upheaval that uprooted the democratically elected government of Afghanistan and its military, leaving the terrorists to inherit infrastructure and weaponry left by its fleeing military in the wake of the U.S. desertion of its ally, the hunt is on for former government elite, for civil servants, for those who served in branches of the military and the national police, for women who aspired to excel in music and the arts, sports and medical training, for a new-old world of male domination and female subjugation has found its comfortable niche once again.

The newly-revealed rescue mission launched by the two partners of the Abraham Accords, Israel and the UAE was launched to spirit sportswomen, female rights activists, an entertainer and their families, at high risk of imprisonment or sudden death at the hands of the Taliban avenging the incursion of Western influence in Afghanistan. It succeeded in rescuing a total of 41 people under difficult conditions requiring the utmost secrecy and exceptional skills of evasion.

As the first joint humanitarian project between two Middle Eastern countries this is hugely symbolic of the great opportunities that can be seized to help make the world a better place for those inhabiting countries known for their discriminatory and violent values led by unscrupulous and barbaric leaders. The team that formed the backbone of the evacuation exercised their scheme with cautious optimism that working in tandem with all concerned contributing to the success of the venture, would guide its outcome.

There were 19 cycling team members, three robotics team members, a prominent Afghan singer, a number of human rights activists and their vulnerable family members who constituted the rescued Afghans with reason to fear for their lives. The search missions exercised by the Taliban, going house to house to unearth 'collaborators' of the West, adoptees of Western cultural values, men and women who betrayed the Taliban version of sharia law would eventually reveal the presence of those fearing for their lives. These are 41 fewer souls living in the shadow of death.

The rescuers drove across the country's north after collecting those meant to be rescued, clearing checkpoints to arrive at a temporary destination at the border with Tajikistan, a safe house, for several days' stay while awaiting permission to cross into the country. That permission was eventually secured by the rescue team when the president of Tajikistan gave his permission for the border crossing, enabling the rescuers to ferry their charges to the capital of Dushanbe.

From there they were escorted to a chartered jet, courtesy of Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, arriving in the UAE in the early hours of September 6. The jet was financed by Montreal-born Adams who himself is a sport enthusiast, a bicyclist who represented Israel, where he moved five years ago, at the Tour de France with his Israel Start-Up Nation cycle team. Mr. Adams was also involved in lobbying the government of Tajikistan to support the rescue mission.

Israeli-Canadian billionaire cyclist and businessman Sylvan Adams rides a bike with members of his team Start-Up Nation at his velodrome in Tel Aviv on June 5, 2020. (Emmanuel DUNAND/AFP)

The Taliban of course would be apoplectic with rage that despised Israelis, Jews, had infiltrated their emirate under their noses, to plot and carry out a rescue of Afghans whose deserved destiny in their view, would be death. To describe the situation as 'politically sensitive' is to understate the reality. The Taliban went out of their way to state unequivocally their preparedness to foster good relations with any nation on earth -- with the exception of Israel.

Women activists had reached out to the Israeli aid group to assist in rescuing people they had selected ti be evacuated to safety. A mission partly financed by an anonymous family foundation. Nine other members of the Afghanistan's robotics team which had been awarded a U.S. robotics recognition in 2017 were evacuated to Doha with assistance from Qatari officials, making this the second such mission.

The future for girls and women in Afghanistan can be seen from the past, when from 1996 to 2001 when the Taliban were last in power, girls were prohibited from attending school and women banned from work and could only emerge from their homes accompanied by male family escorts with the women fully garbed in black head-to-toe burqas. The women’s ministry in Kabul has been converted to house the “Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” which had in the ruling Taliban's original iteration operated a feared police force implementing sharia.

 

Yotam Polizer, CEO of IsraAid, right, embraces the Afghan evacuees as they arrive in the United Arab Emirates Credit: IsraAid/IsraAid

"I do not know nor do I ask about the nationality of everyone I take a photo with."

"Anyone can take a photo with me so long as they are human."

"I never ask about his color, religion, or nationality. All of us are human.":

Egyptian actor and rapper Mohamed Ramadan

The picture in question of Omer Adam and Mohamed Ramadan. Photo: Twitter.

"[Pakistan] categorically rejects baseless speculation regarding [the] possibility of recognition of the State of Israel by Pakistan."

"The prime minister [Imran Khan] has made it clear that unless a just settlement of the Palestine issue, satisfactory to the Palestinian people, is found, Pakistan cannot recognize Israel."

"For just and lasting peace, it is imperative to have a two-state solution in accordance with the relevant United Nations and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) resolutions, with the pre-1967 borders, and Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] as the capital of a viable, independent and contiguous Palestinian State."

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri

Where Arab leaders of Muslim-majority countries might wish to finally lay aside their belligerent malice at the presence of a Jewish state returning to its Biblical-era heritage from the diaspora to which it had been exiled only to discover that no place on Earth guaranteed Jews equality, freedom of religion, the right to practise their distinct culture without eventually disowning and turning on them, with blood slanders, expulsion, pogroms, disentitlements, ghettoization, and finally genocide, the opinion 'on the street' will always reflect the campaigns embarked upon to delegitimize the presence of Jews on territory Islam claims for itself.

Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East utterly rejected the United Nations plan for official Partition, apportioning territory to each; Israel and Arab Palestine. Israel accepted the 1948 'permission to proceed' by the world body, while the Palestinians obdurately refused it and the surrounding Middle East states came to their side, swiftly assembling a joint-Arab military invasion to oust the Jews from their fledgling state. And failed. But the sting of failure and the insult to Islam mandated further military assaults, all of them failing. 

Eventually the sting of failure faded at the executive government level for Egypt and Jordan, but the propaganda lessons of Israel=enemy never did. So while both Egypt and Jordan have long since signed peace treaties with the 'enemy' whose presence they could never defeat, all quietened on that front, even as hostility from their populations remained. Turkey, the sole Islamic nation that supported the existence of Israel, did a turnabout with the introduction of an Islamist government.

Gulf nations that never aspired to military victory over Israel, and who unlike Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt did not expel their Jewish populations Arabized over the millennia of living side-by-side with Arabs in near-fraternal order came to the final realization that the failure of the Palestinian cause to found a nation of their own rested with the Palestinian leadership that adamantly refused all offers at the bargaining table with Israel that met Palestinian demands with the exception of two; the 'right of return' and Jerusalem as a Palestinian state capital.

Before the advent of Islam in the 7th Century, the Arabian Peninsula and particularly areas around the now-sacred city of Medina, was the home of Jewish tribes. Tribes that Mohammad battled against for refusing his offer to leave Judaism and accept Islam; exiling those he failed to kill in combat, and restricted residence in what became Saudi Arabia to only Muslims. In the modern era, the House of Saud contested control of Arabia with another powerful tribe, the Hashemites; with British mediation, the Hashemite Kingdom was given TransJordan to rule, and the Sauds took Arabia.

 

Now, the United Arab Emirates, a cosmopolitan, open society of moderate Muslim rule, and Bahrain with similar cultural values have chosen to normalize relations with Israel, once considered a sacrilege. Sudan followed suit. And more Arab states are expected to follow, under the aegis of U.S. diplomacy. Those Islamic states which have over the past decades turned increasingly Islamist like Turkey will continue their distance from Israel, spurning diplomatic overtures. Sadly, there is no depth of 'normalization' between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

 

The Egyptian actor/singer who embraced Israeli entertainers at a casual entertainment event is being sanctioned by his own Egyptian entertainment union, and lawsuits are being brought against  him for his friendly actions toward fellow entertainers in a comradely environment of relaxation and personal relations. His behaviour, the charges go, insult and degrade Egyptian values. He has apologized and will perform the necessary public penance required to redeem himself in public opinion. Nor do Jordanian citizens bear a warmer relationship to their Israeli counterparts. 

The normalization agreement and the process taking place now between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are of a different quality altogether. There is a warm reception on either end, mutually respectful and generously appreciative of the qualities each brings to a burgeoning new relationship. And the most difficult of the Arab states of all to pacify in their traditional distance with Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may now be warming to the concept of 'normalization' with the Jewish State, as  the Saudis turn toward moderation of their stern practice of Islam.

 

  Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed sign agreements as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, September 15, 2020. © Tom Brenner, REUTERS

These events are taking place under the imprimatur and guidance and diplomacy of the departing U.S. Trump White House administration, a goal and an achievement that no other American administration has ever succeeded with. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Saudi Arabia to meet its crown prince to discuss between them an issue of great importance both to Israel and to the Gulf Sunni states; the aggressively hostile ascendance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, threatening stability and the status quo in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is officially denying that any such meeting between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took place. But undoubtedly, it did. A meeting that the Saudis would like to keep under wraps, at least for the present, but which the other two, Messrs. Pompeo and Netanyahu, would prefer to have out in the open as a symptom and symbol that peace is achievable and good relations between neighbours opens the way to peace.

National flags of Bahrain, UAE, Israel and the US are projected on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City [File: L Ronen Zvulun/Reuters]

 

"To all of Israel's friends in the Middle East – those who are with us today and those who will join us tomorrow – I say, salaam aleichem, peace unto thee, shalom."

"[This day] brings hope to all of the children of Abraham."

"The blessings of peace that we make today will be enormous,” he continued, “first because this peace will eventually expand to include other Arab states, and ultimately, it can end the Arab-Israel conflict once and for all."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 15 September 2020

 

L to R: Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords. September 15, 2020   (photo credit: REUTERS/TOM BRENNER)

"[The accord will] change the course of history, [it marks] the dawn of a new Middle East."

"Together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region, something which nobody thought was possible, certainly not in this day and age."

"These agreements prove that the nations of the region are breaking free from failed approaches of the past. Today's signing sets history on a new course and there will be other countries very very soon that will follow these great leaders."

U.S. President Donald Trump

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were never at war with Israel. Their military arms never formed a coalition with Middle East Arab nations like Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan to march on Israel with the intention of destroying it. And while most Arab countries expelled their Jewish citizens and confiscated their properties when Israel we re-formed as a nation in 1948, neither of the Gulf countries removed citizenship from their Jewish populations. Bahrain had a Jewish parliamentarian, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo.

 

As a Bahrainian parliamentarian she was appointed Ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2013, by decree of Foreign Affairs Minister Khaled Ben Ahmad Al=Khalifa. Civil relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain through behind-the-scene arrangement has been ongoing for years. What their successive and simultaneous peace accords with Israel succeeded in doing was formalizing a warming relationship into a universally recognized position of neighbourly acceptance.

 

The accord, named the Abraham Accord, takes its name from the historical Biblical recognition that Arabs and Jews emerged from the same source in the Middle East. The Old Testament patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah in their old age finally bearing a son, Isaac, and an already-existing son of Abraham and a handmaiden of Sarah's, Ishmael, becoming the forbears of Jews and Arabs respectively. And that out of monotheistic Judaism came Christianity with the birth of the Jewish sage Jesus, and then the latecomer religion Islam. All three make up the Abrahamic trio.

 

Equally behind-the-scenes interventions and guidance by the Trump administration working to develop further a formal acknowledgement of acceptance of Israel  and peace between neighbours has resulted in the two Gulf nations agreeing to sign a formal concordance of peace, partially symbolic, and wholly reflective of the fact that the region needed to move away from its tradition of hostility to the presence of the historical-to-the-present position of the State of Israel. The Trump administration succeeded where previous administrations all failed to achieve that goal.

 

A group of paratroopers surrounds then-IDF chief rabbi
Shlomo Goren at the Western Wall on June 7, 1967.

 

And they did so by abandoning the expectation that no Arab country would take measures to normalize their relations with Israel until the issue of Palestinian statehood alongside Israel materialized, other than the peace agreements signed between Israel and Egypt on Israel's return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, captured in the 1967 war when Egypt marched with Jordan and Syria against Israel as part of a combined Arab army. Jordan followed years later. Israel retains the Golan Heights from which Syrian forces had continually attacked Israel from above.

 

 

The only non-Arab Muslim country in the Middle East, Shiite Iran, whose brand of Islam seeks ascendancy over the majority Sunni Muslim Arab nations, has become a threat to the balance of power and the security and stabilization of the Middle East. The Islamic Republic of Iran's interference in Arab nations, from Lebanon where it established Shia Hezbollah, to Syria where it supports the Alawite Shia minority regime against the Sunni majority, and Yemen where Houthi Shia rebels have torn the country apart, and its dedication to achieving nuclear supremacy concerns their Arab Sunni and Jewish Israel neighbours mightily.

Concerns that have brought Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Oman a little closer to Israel, viewed as a strong opponent of Persian Iran's agenda. The Palestinian agenda has gradually receded into the background in the face of the perceived threat from Iran and the need to present a united opposition to its plans, opposing Saudi Arabian stewardship of Mecca and Medina for one thing. For another, the failure, one after another, of the Palestinian Authority and its predecessor Yasser Arafat, to make good on their professed wish to achieve nationhood -- by accepting their Jewish neighbour unconditionally.

All of which conspired over time to reduce the fixation of the Arab League in its violent hostility to Israel's presence, in ostensible support of the Palestinian 'cause'. A cause which has proven time and time again that it is not peace with Israel that consumes its attention to the future, but the destruction of Israel to enable the Palestinian leadership to claim the heritage geography on which Israel sits as 'Palestinian', including the ancient Judean city of Jerusalem.

President Trump's negotiations with other Arab nations appears to be bearing fruit, with rumours of other Arab states like Morocco in North Africa reaching the decision-point of agreeing it to be past time to part with the antipathies of the past and welcome a future of shared geography, trade opportunities, sharing of future technologies to benefit and enrich the experience of all nations in the region. While the Palestinian Authority and Hamas fume and threaten both Israel and those whom they claim have betrayed them, they betray their own existential interests.