«Israeli» Group Praises Bahrain Recognizing Iran as Danger
Local Editor
In a statement released on Friday, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) praised the government of Bahrain for "breaking ranks with the position espoused by Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority to isolate the United States over President Trump's announcement this month recognizing al-Quds [Jerusalem] as the "Israeli" entity's so-called "capital".
The ZOA approvingly cites a tweet from Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, in which he argued: "It's not helpful to pick a fight with the US over side issues while we together fight the clear and present danger of the ‘theo-fascist' Islamic Republic [of Iran]."
ZOA President Morton Klein saw Khalifa's statement as an encouraging sign that Bahrain will not play along with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' strategy to diplomatically isolate the United States:
"We applaud the Bahraini declaration, which rightly focuses on the tremendous, existential threat posed in the region by an Iran seeking to obtain nuclear weapons. And, this declaration serves as an admission that major efforts are being made on behalf of a predictable and outrageous Mahmoud Abbas to censure the US for merely acknowledging, at long last, what is merely a fact - that Jerusalem [al-Quds] is the ‘capital of ‘Israel' and that not saying so, in deference to Palestinian Arab and wider Arab opinion, has not and will not produce ‘peace' or moderation.
As the ZOA argued in January in a New York Daily News op-ed advocating the move on Jerusalem [al-Quds], which President Trump took this month, important, indeed, vital common interests, such as preventing Iran going nuclear, unite ‘Israel' and a number of Sunni Arab states. Regional relations will not, therefore, be imperiled by President Trump's declaration.
Whatever the current disturbances and the hue and cry, much of it orchestrated, on the Arab street against President Trump, his Jerusalem [al-Quds] move is ultimately a service to truth and even to ‘peace'-making, as it serves to notice the world that its nations will not forever support this fiction that Jerusalem [al-Quds] is apart from ‘Israel', a lie which the PA seeks to foist upon it."
The day after he sent this tweet, Khalifa clarified that Bahrain still supports the establishment of a Palestinian state.
"We need to protect our homeland, first and foremost, from the Iranian ‘theo-fascist' agenda, so we can play our part in solving the Arab-‘Israel' dispute by achieving the two-state solution with east Jerusalem [al-Quds] as the capital of an independent, fully sovereign Palestine," he explained.
A delegation from a Bahraini interfaith group visited the "Israeli" entity as part of a tour of holy sites across the region soon after President Donald Trump formally recognized al-Quds as the "Israeli" entity's so-called "capital", prompting the Palestinians to block the group from entering Gaza.
There have recently been rumors that Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa might be ready to establish formal diplomatic relations with the "Israeli" entity, or at least ameliorate the longstanding boycott against the entity. On the other hand, Bahrain did vote in favor of the UN resolution against the US recognition of al-Quds on Thursday.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
