Alwaght- Israel and Bahrain have signed a security cooperation agreement, the first between Israel and a Persian Gulf Arab nation, triggering reactions by the opposition groups that called it "Illegitimate."
The pact was signed during a visit by the Israeli defence minister to the tiny kingdom.
The agreement comes over a year after Manama along with Abu Dhabi signed a normalization deal with Tel Aviv in August 2020.
The Israeli officials have been boosting cooperation relations with the Persian Gulf Arab states recently as a part of a push to deisolate.
“The MOU [memorandum of understanding] framework will support any future cooperation in the areas of intelligence, mil-to-mil [military to military], industrial collaboration and more,” the Israeli ministry of defense said in a statement on Thursday.
The Israelis exploit such agreements as signs that their legitimacy is boosting in the region. The Israeli occupation has been under a full-scale regional boycott, something making diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv a taboo.
A week ago, Israeli President Issac Herzog visited the UAE with similar aims.
The relations go against the will of the public in these Arab states.
The Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society of Bahrain was the top movement to condemn the move.
The deal lacks all legitimacy, it said, asserting that Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifah regime “does not have any popular mandate” for entering such agreements with the Israeli regime, the Arab-language Bahrain Mirror website reported citing the opposition statement.
Al-Wefaq also denounced a trip made to the island on the previous day by the occupying regime’s Minister for Military Affairs Benny Gantz.
Bahrain was one of the regional states that normalized its relations with the Israeli regime via the Washington-mediated so-called “Abraham Accords” in August 2020.
Ever since, the island has been witnessing near-daily protests against such détentes, whose opponents say opens up the way for the Israeli regime’s interference in the Persian Gulf region.
Al-Wefaq said the island’s ruling regime was ingratiating itself to the Israeli regime in order to shore itself up in the face of “the deepening crisis” in its relations with the Bahraini people.
The country has been a scene to a popular revolution since 2011 against the ruling regime. The government arrested many in a crackdown assissted by Saudi Arabia that sent troops under Peninsula Shield Force mission.
