Israel, Bahrain to launch formal ties
Mnuchin to fly in with US delegation for today’s ceremony
Israeli and Bahraini officials plan to sign a normalization declaration in Manama Sunday that will launch diplomatic relations and peace between the two countries.
“From tomorrow there will be full diplomatic relations between Israel and Bahrain after the joint declaration,” an Israeli official told reporters on Saturday night.
The signing ceremony builds on the statement of intent between the two countries signed in Washington on September 15, which still lacks the status of a full- fledged agreement.
The Israeli official referred to the document as a “joint communique,” but explained that in practice, full diplomatic relations will be in place by the end of the day Sunday. After, the signing work can begin on the establishment of embassies in both countries.
The scheduled Israeli- Bahraini ceremony follows the Knesset vote Thursday to authorize Israel’s peace deal with the United Arab Emirates.
Both deals were brokered by the United States as part of its Abraham Accords.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin,
along with Avi Berkowitz, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman will participate in the ceremonies.
Mnuchin and his delegation will land first in Israel’s Ben- Gurion International Airport. According to the US Treasury, the Americans will travel together with an Israeli
delegation on the “first- ever direct commercial flight from Israel to Bahrain.”
There will be both a ceremony at the airport in Bahrain when the plane lands followed by a signing ceremony in the evening.
The Israeli delegation will be led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben- Shabbat.
During the day, Israeli and Bahraini official will hold talks on areas on potential cooperation including investment, civil aviation, tourism, trade, science and technology, environment, communications, health, agriculture, water, energy and legal cooperation.
From Manama the US delegation will fly to Abu Dhabi, where “the first- ever Abraham Accords Business Summit” will be held. The group will then fly back to Tel Aviv, the Treasury said.
Separately, the first official delegation to Israel from the UAE is expected to land in Israel Tuesday, but may remain at the airport and fly home the same day, rather than conduct a wider visit, due to coronavirus precautions, an Israeli minister said.
Israel is under a second coronavirus lockdown, which it plans to begin easing in the next few days, after a surge in cases.
Science Minister Izhar Shay, whose ministry is taking part in talks with the UAE delegates, said the visitors would stay for several hours under a coronavirus protocol.
“Right now it looks kind of ‘ touch and go.’ It’s possible that the meetings will be at the airport or close to it,” he told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM.
Officials have said the UAE delegation will involve eight or nine groups working on various areas of bilateral cooperation, as a follow- up to talks launched in Abu Dhabi during an August 31 visit by an Israeli delegation.
Two other officials involved in the planning, one Israeli and the other American, said it was possible the UAE delegation visit would take place entirely at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv. The UAE has yet to confirm the delegation visit.
Reuters report. contributed to this •
it was considered “completely groundless.”
Mandelblit’s office responded Tuesday night that, “there is no connection between what was said [ in his private telephone conversation] and the professionallybased decisions [ regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] that were made.”
“It’s true that at the time of the telephone conversations that Mandelblit had harsh claims against certain officials [ Mandelblit also mentioned Deputy AttorneyGeneral Dina Zilber] who were involved with the investigation of the Harpaz Affair, including relating to the basis for closing the case” said the response.
Should Mandelblit later seek appointment to the Supreme Court, he might need the reason for the case being closed to be determined as “completely groundless,” which absolves him of any speculation regarding the case, unlike the other category of “lack of evidence” which leaves a different impression.
Dating back to 2015, Mandelblit had been trying to get Nitzan to officially specify that the case against him was closed for being “completely groundless.” However, by 2017 Nitzan concluded that he could not rule on the issue, with Nitzan saying that he might be perceived as having a conflict of interest to benefit Mandelblit since in the interim the attorney- general had become his superior.
In July, responding to a request to evaluate Mandelblit’s role in the Harpaz Affair, Justice Ministry oversight czar Judge David Rozen said that if an error needs to be amended, it is that Mandelblit’s name should be fully cleared. Rozen issued his ruling the day after Netanyahu launched multiple attacks on Mandelblit for seeking to block him from receiving tycoon donations to pay his legal expenses in his public corruption trial.
The oversight czar, who sent former prime minister Ehud Olmert to jail and criticized Mandelblit and the prosecution on a number of issues, is not viewed as being in anyone’s pocket.
Shortly before Rozen’s decision, Channel 13’ s Ayala Hasson and leaks from supporters of Netanyahu had called into question whether charges against Mandelblit should have been dropped and whether he had improperly tampered with the category indicating the basis for the case being closed.
However, Rozen said the biggest error to be fixed now is that Mandelblit’s case should be officially closed because those suspicions have been found to be groundless.
In the run up to the trial of Netanyahu for public corruption, supporters of the prime minister have claimed that Mandelblit was blackmailed or had some kind of improper motivation in his decision to indict the prime minister.
In the recordings of Mandelblit’s private conversation with Naveh from 2015- 2016, the attorney- general provides some of the first direct evidence that he felt Nitzan was unfairly holding the Harpaz Affair over his head.
Mandelblit makes no reference to the Netanyahu cases and his decisions about those cases came in 2019, long after Nitzan had refused to make a change in the grounds for closing the Harpaz Affair against him.
Whether observers will see a connection between Nitzan’s decision on the Harpaz Affair and Mandelblit’s later decisions regarding Netanyahu will likely depend on each person’s political outlook. •