Israel Officially Ratifies Treaty for UAE Normalization

Israel’s cabinet on Sunday officially ratified the treaty on normalization signed with the United Arab Emirates last month in Washington. Once ratified by the UAE, it will officially be in force. The announcement in August that the UAE and Israel would be pursuing normalization enabled working groups to begin preparing for bilateral agreements in travel, tourism, technology and other spheres; some have already been signed while others are being finalized. It also gave impetus to Bahrain to reach a declaration of normalization with Israel, with the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, now set to debate the issue in full expectation of approval. Only the country’s primarily Arab parties voted against ratification of normalization with the UAE, citing the fact that it bypasses peace efforts with the Palestinians. They are expected to do the same regarding the agreement with Bahrain. On Friday, word came that Sudan would sign a treaty with Israel as part of an agreement to remove it from Washington’s list of countries supporting terrorism. As that country is now being run under a tenuous power-sharing agreement following the ouster of dictator Omar al-Bashir, questions remain as to whether the disparate groups can actually reach an agreement on the matter.