Reports: Israeli officials fly to Bahrain to work on details of normalization treaty
According to media reports, Israeli government and business leaders flew to Bahrain on Wednesday in order to finalize the normalization treaty signed last week but he two countries in Washington D.C. last week.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa spoke by phone and apparently arranged the high-level delegation trip. During the call Salman “underscored the importance of securing regional and international stability and enhancing efforts to support peace in the region,” according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency.
The two leaders reiterated the content of the so-called Abraham Accords that both nations signed on Sept. 15.
“We discussed how we might quickly add content to the agreements between Bahrain and Israel and turn this peace into economic peace, technological peace, tourist peace, peace in all of these fields,” a statement from Netanyahu said.
Neither the agency nor the Israeli government acknowledged the trip on Wednesday though flight data showed an Israir Airlines Airbus A320 landed at Bahrain International Airport making it the first direct Israeli flight to Bahrain.
There was no ceremony greeting the flight as there was when Israelis landed officially in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago.
President Trump continues to speak of other nations normalizing with Israel soon, such as Sudan and Oman. Saudi Arabia has made very positive gestures, despite not being willing to put full peace before the Palestinian issue is solves, in seeking to change how Jews are perceived by their population. The Time of Israel reported:
Saudi Arabia is pushing to change public perceptions about Jews with a risky outreach to a community that has long been vilified by the kingdom’s clerical establishment and media, laying the groundwork for an eventual recognition. School textbooks, once well-known for denigrating Jews and other non-Muslims as “swines” and “apes,” are undergoing revision as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s campaign to combat extremism in education, officials say. “The Saudi government has also decided to prohibit the disparagement of Jews and Christians in mosques,” said Saudi analyst Najah al-Otaibi. “Anti-Jewish rhetoric was common at Friday prayers of the imams in mosques used to address Muslims around the world.”