All the signs on the board indicate it's about to happen. That within a few days, Israel will sign a peace treaty with Sudan, one of the largest and most important countries in Africa. So say sources in Jerusalem, whose sources are currently in the heart of Sudan.
We should revisit the past again. Sudan was among "our worst enemies," as described by those intimately familiar with the history on the ground.
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Al-Qaida founder Osama Bin-Laden resided there. First and foremost, Sudan was a terrorist hub used by al-Qaida and Iran to target moderate Muslims.
This is an achievement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spearheaded and cultivated for years. It's the hat trick of the decade – two treaties in the Persian Gulf and one in Africa. Sudan is a classic Arab peripheral country, similar to Iraq, and peace with it will not only improve Israel's standing but make it a key player in the Middle East. Not necessarily in terms of the Arab-Iranian conflict, but in terms of Israel's economic and technological prowess and its capabilities in the fields of agricultural and water development.
Apparently, when true policy shifts occur, they do so behind the smokescreen of media demagoguery and populist propaganda – a clumsy effort to cast a fog over important historical information. But it's better this way, through an arduous road, coronavirus pandemic and insane opposition, rather than a ceremonial and festive facade of peace for the masses to consume, with doves flying and speeches written by journalists-cum-political advisers. Such ceremonies have tended to be washed away by blood.
Sudan, on the brink of signing an accord with us, is a gigantic country in the midst of an identity shift. It is becoming less Arab and more African. This was a gradual process. The Sudanese didn't want a treaty with Israel to be the result of American pressure. The Americans accepted their approach and said, "We'll remove you from the list of state sponsors of terror, and you will reach an agreement with Israel in your own good time."
As a reminder, on his return leg from Washington in February, Netanyahu stopped in Sudan to meet with the country's leader, Abdel-Fattah Burhan.
There is still concern over a scenario developing with Mauritania, a Muslim country in the Sahara of Northwest Africa with which Israel had diplomatic relations until a coup there in 2008. Sudan, too, still hasn't fully stabilized since the civil war that erupted there in 2013.
It is possible, however, that Israel could become a stabilizing factor in its role as the region's leader on water development. Israel, though, should not wade into the growing tensions over water resources between Ethiopia, which is building a giant dam on the Blue Nile; Egypt, with which Israel has a peace treaty; and Sudan, through which the Nile River flows between Ethiopia and Egypt.
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