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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday spoke to Bahrain’s Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, in their first conversation since Jerusalem and Manama signed a historic “Declaration of Peace” in Washington.
During telephone call between HRH the CP #Salman_bin_Hamad and @IsraeliPM, HRH underscored importance of securing regional and international stability and enhancing efforts to support peace in the region. Potential areas of bilateral cooperation also reviewed #Bahrain
— ????? ??? ??? ????? (@BahrainCPnews) September 22, 2020
The two leaders reiterated the content of the Abraham Accords, and 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.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke today with Bahrain Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. ????https://t.co/IKi0XeWEZV pic.twitter.com/zEn81f0KiC
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 22, 2020
Following the historic phone call, a delegation of Israeli officials flew to Bahrain for talks meant to hammer out the details of the two countries’ formal normalization treaty.
Regarding the White House-brokered peace deals, US President Donald Trump said during his address at the opening session of the 75th UN General Assembly that more agreements to normalize ties between Israel and Arab countries are likely:
“They are coming fast, and they know it’s great for them, and it’s great for the world. These groundbreaking peace deals are the dawn of the new Middle East… We intend to deliver more peace agreements shortly, and I have never been more optimistic for the future of the region. There is no blood in the sand. Those days are hopefully over.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki said on Tuesday that the PA will relinquish its role as temporary chairman of the current round of Arab League meetings in protest over the League’s refusal to condemn normalization with Israel.
“Palestine refuses to record in its history that it presided over the moral degeneracy that was revealed in the last meeting… and the normalization steps that followed it, which were in essence a rejection of the work we did between the walls of the Arab League,” al-Maliki stated.
Ramallah had previously indicated that it would leave or suspend its membership in the pan-Arab body after the League rejected a Palestinian resolution to condemn the United Arab Emirates for establishing open ties with Israel.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told his Israeli counterpart Benny Gantz that Washington was committed to maintaining the Jewish state’s qualitative military edge in the Middle East, as they sought ways to assuage Jerusalem’s concerns over the sale of F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi has expressed hopes that the normalization agreement will make it easier to push through the sale of the planes.
The United States and UAE aim to have an initial agreement on the sale confirmed by early December. The deal must satisfy a decades-old policy that states any US weapons sold in the region must not impair Israel’s qualitative military edge, guaranteeing that American military technology furnished to the Jewish state is superior to those sold to its neighbors.
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A powerful explosion shook a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. While the cause of the blast remains unclear, Lebanon’s official news agency said that it coincided with intense Israeli aerial activity “that did not leave the skies” since Tuesday morning. No casualties were reported.
The mysterious blast comes seven weeks after the giant explosion at the Port of Beirut, caused by the detonation of nearly 3,000 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate. The blast killed nearly 200 people, injured 6,500 and damaged tens of thousands of buildings in the Lebanese capital.
While Hezbollah has denied storing weapons at the port depot, the terrorist group is believed to have expanded its arsenal, amassing tens of thousands of rockets and missiles that can hit virtually anywhere in Israel. Jerusalem did not comment on Tuesday’s explosion, though the IDF has targeted Iran-tied forces such as Hezbollah in neighboring Syria as well as Lebanon.
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Israel on Wednesday registered a new single-day record for coronavirus infections, shortly before the government was set to meet to discuss the tightening of a nationwide lockdown that took effect on Friday.
The Health Ministry reported 6,861 new cases as the raging outbreak showed no signs of slowing. Israel now has one of the world’s highest per capita infection rates, with health officials saying that hospitals are quickly approaching capacity.
The coronavirus cabinet will be meeting on Wednesday to decide whether to expand the lockdown, by shuttering synagogues and clamping down on protests. Such restrictions would come at a time when Israeli Jews are observing the High Holidays and when weekly demonstrations are being held against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the crisis.
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Antisemitism Watch: A planned speech by Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, sponsored by San Francisco State University (SFSU), suffered a setback on Tuesday after the Zoom video conferencing platform reportedly pulled the plug on hosting the virtual event amid a public outcry.
Khaled was part of a team that hijacked TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1969. A year later she participated in the attempted hijacking of an El Al flight from Amsterdam to New York City, as part of a series of simultaneous hijackings carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Khaled was arrested in London, where the pilot diverted the plane, and later released in exchange for hostages from another hijacking. She lives in Amman, Jordan and remains a member of the PFLP, an organization that is blacklisted as a terrorist entity by the US, Israel and the European Union.
“In light of the speaker’s reported affiliation or membership in a US designated foreign terrorist organization, and SFSU’s inability to confirm otherwise, we determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service and told SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event,” Zoom said in a statement.
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The US state of Florida will be issuing specialty Florida Stands with Israel license plates, after Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation authorizing the initiative.
The design of the license plate is still up for debate, however, and Florida will host a 30-day design contest which will receive submissions by the general public. The contest is being sponsored by the Israel-American Council and coordinated by Artists for Israel.
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An Israeli kibbutz has temporarily changed its name to commemorate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week at the age of 87. RBG was a towering women’s rights champion who was the court’s second female and first Jewish female justice.
Kibbutz Ramat Hashofet (“Hill of the Judge”) was established in 1977 and named in honor of American-Jewish judge Julian W. Mack. The kibbutz will now be known as Ramat Hashofetet — in Hebrew, a female judge.
The name-change will remain in effect through the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
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