WASHINGTON _ The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain has agreed to begin efforts to normalize ties with Israel, the Trump administration announced Friday.
The three countries released a joint six-paragraph statement saying Bahrain "agreed to establish full diplomatic relations."
Bahrain joined the United Arab Emirates as the first Gulf countries expressing willingness to end their long-standing refusal to recognize Israel. Only Egypt and Jordan currently have diplomatic ties with Israel, with the rest of the Arab world demanding the Israeli government must first come to a peace agreement with the Palestinians before normalization.
Bringing the UAE and Bahrain into the fold is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to drive a wedge between the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, to isolate the Palestinians and further erode their standing. Trump has been pushing a plan to settle the conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians that is widely seen as overly favorable to Israelis and has been rejected by the Palestinian leadership.
It was not clear how far the Bahrain agreement goes. President Donald Trump exaggerated the reach of the UAE deal when he announced it earlier this month, with UAE officials saying it only bound them to finding a "road map" toward normalization with Israel as opposed to the immediate opening of full diplomatic relations.
Trump portrayed the arrangements with Bahrain and the UAE as "historic peace deals," although neither country was at war with Israel. He said it was significant to announce the agreement on the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which were carried out primarily by Saudi militants.
Trump announced Friday's agreement, he said, after a three-way phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isal Khalifa. A Bahrain representative will join Trump, Netanyahu and the foreign minister of the UAE for a signing ceremony Tuesday at the White House. The crown prince of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayad, de facto ruler of the emirates, declined to attend.
"I think this will reduce tension in the Muslim world and allow them to separate their interests from the Palestinians' interest," Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said in a telephone briefing with reporters in Washington.
The UAE agreed to work toward ties with Israel based on two major concessions. Washington agreed to sell an undisclosed number of F-35 stealth fighter jets to the Emiratis and Israel agreed to halt the annexation of large parts of the West Bank claimed by Palestinians. (Netanyahu later said the halt was only temporary and voiced opposition to the sale of the fighter jets _ more signs of the distance that remains between the signed agreements and facts on the ground.)
Kushner would not say what concessions had been made to Bahrain, a country of 1.5 million people which has a less robust military partnership with Washington but nevertheless hopes to buy weapons. The U.S. Congress has opposed such sales to Bahrain because of its abysmal human rights record.
Kushner and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo made separate trips to the region in recent weeks attempting to persuade other Arab countries to follow the UAE. Most refused. Only Bahrain agreed, acting with the consent of Saudi Arabia, experts said, because Riyadh, as custodian of the most holy sites in Islam, is loath to join in.
Arab countries with sizable populations of people who would protest the perceived betrayal of Palestinians would find it politically untenable to recognize Israel without progress toward a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.
By contrast, both the UAE and Bahrain are monarchies that can more easily repress any domestic opposition.
