Alwaght- After several delays and a heated debate about the trip of senior Israeli officials to Bahrain, on Thursday Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Manama, becoming be the first top Israeli diplomat visiting the small Persian Gulf Island state. Earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to visit Bahrain was canceled as it was delayed four times allegedly due to coronavirus outbreak and Israeli political crisis.
Bahrain visit, of great propagandistic importance to the Israeli leaders in terms of advancing the normalization agenda with the Arab world and breaking the several-decade isolation, came with a year of delay and at a lower diplomatic level.
Shock therapy for dying normalization agreements
Although the trip is ostensibly meant for opening Israeli embassy in Manama and inking several cooperation documents, the main theme is the propagandistic message the two sides are seeking to communicate: The normalization is alive and well and off isolation despite the impasse it met following public and state backlash across the Arab world and changes introduced by regional developments that were caused by the Palestinian equations and 11-day Israel war on Gaza.
The past year developments disappointed the anticipations of the deal's three parties, namely the US, Israeli regime, and the pro-normalization Arab monarchies, for other countries joining in. The normalization failed to leave necessary influence on the regional and international atmosphere to end the chronic Palestinian cause as the key obstacle hampering alliance-making puzzle against Axis of Resistance, a powerful and game-changing regional bloc led by Iran and including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
One-way agreement route; inconsistency of Manama's expectations and achievements
Israeli-Bahraini relations are going official with the opening of Israeli embassy in Manama while a look at the costs and achievements of thaw for Bahrain can give us a simple conclusion: Al Khalifa regime of Bahrain has been largely deluded by Washington and Tel Aviv. Home and Arab world criticism, damage to already weakening legitimacy, and security threats in regional environment by enmity to Iran as the absolute Persian Gulf power especially after the full US exit from the region in the near future are part of the political and security of costs Al Khalifa rulers have accepted by normalizing ties to Tel Aviv.
This comes while a majority of illusionary expectations of the Bahraini rulers for attracting foreign aids, involvement in geoeconomic projects, and acquisition of Israeli technologies to solve the several-year economic crisis have gone nowhere.
So, certainly Tel Aviv making its way to the Persian Gulf works like a one-way route only realizing the Israeli interests, at the expense of Bahrain.
Shaky Israeli "spy house" amid large-scale opposition
Opening the Israeli embassy, which many agree is essentially a "spy house" and command room for conspiracy and disability in the Persian Gulf, is coming against the backdrop of massive public and political opposition to the Israeli FM's visit. Thousands of Bahrainis on Thursday took to the streets in the capital to protest the taboo breaking trip.
Social media users circulated a poster carrying a message for Lapid. The poster contained a caption and a image. The caption read "do you know what is this, Lapid?" The image contained Zulfiqar, the prominent sword of Imam Ali, referring to Battle of Khaybar in which Imam Ali, cousin of Prophet Muhammad, defeated seditious Jews in the early years of Islam.
With such a degree of social opposition, even symbolic goals and aspects of the visit cannot find way to materialization. Opening a representation office may serve an important step towards bolstering economic, political, military, tourist, and security but security of investment and joint economic projects and presence of Israeli tourists in Bahrain would not be guaranteed and shadow of threats would keep constantly haunting them.
