Israeli Parliament to Vote on Bahrain Deal as UN Erases Jewish Connection to Temple Mount

Israel’s parliament is slated next Tuesday to vote on whether to approve the normalization agreement forged with Bahrain.  The motion is expected to easily pass, not unlike the peace treaty signed with the United Arab Emirates that was essentially rubber-stamped by the legislature by a margin of 80 to 13 on October 15.

An Israeli delegation three days later traveled to Manama for a ceremony during which the two countries established official diplomatic relations. “This is a historic breakthrough that will allow us to achieve security, peace and prosperity,” Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdellatif al-Zayani said at the time. 

It comes as Malawi earlier this week announced that it would by next summer become the first African nation to open an embassy in Jerusalem. While in Israel, Malawi Foreign Minister Eisenhower Mkaka described the decision as a “bold and significant step.”

US President Donald Trump in December 2017 recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the following April relocated the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.

Guatemala followed suit shortly thereafter and Honduras reportedly aims to do the same by the end of 2020. Brazil, the Dominican Republican and various Eastern European nations have likewise hinted that they could move their primary diplomatic missions to what the Jewish state considers its undivided capital.

Some 140 United Nations member states on Wednesday voted in favor of a resolution that whitewashed the Jewish people’s connection, both past and present, to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. During a session of the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee in New York, seven “pro-Palestinian” motions were passed, including one that only referred to Judaism’s holiest site – where the two biblical temples once stood – by its Islamic name, the al-Haram al-Sharif.

While the resolution did note the importance of Jerusalem to the major monotheistic religions, it described the eastern part of the holy city, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state, as “occupied.”

In response, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, slammed the resolution as “a disgrace,” adding that the “audacious attempt to rewrite history will not change the indisputable fact that the Jewish connection to the city of Jerusalem dates back thousands of years.”

Antisemitism Watch: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has blamed the recent beheading of a French teacher on Israel and its allies. “Today, the main enemies of Islam are the arrogant powers and Zionism,” Khamenei reportedly said, adding that “the last manifestation of their enmity was the Paris incident.”

The comments are being construed as a reference to the October 16 murder of Samuel Paty, a middle-school educator who was killed by a teenager from Chechnya after the former showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to students during a class on freedom of speech.

“The issue is not merely about an artist’s deviation and corruption,” Khamenei proffered; “rather, there are hands behind this incident.”

For the first time since September, Egyptian authorities reportedly reopened the Rafah border crossing between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip. The crossing, which had been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, is one of only two land bridges into and out of Gaza, the second being the Erez crossing with Israel.

“The terminal will be open in both directions… until Thursday,” Egyptian authorities said in a statement. They added that travelers had followed COVID-19 protocols in the process of entering and leaving the Palestinian enclave.

The Egyptian Health Ministry noted that those returning to Gaza were required to present coronavirus test results in order to enter the Strip.

The Hamas-controlled territory has been of particular concern during the health crisis due to its fragile medical infrastructure and high population density, in particular, among other reasons.

LISTEN: HonestReporting CEO Interviewed on Popular Israeli Talk Show

Daniel Pomerantz on Wednesday was invited to discuss the US elections on the popular Israeli talk show “Ofira and Berkovich.” The discussion centered on why the tabulation of votes was taking longer than normal and how the results could impact on Israel.