The October 25 military coup in Sudan has drawn condemnation from around the globe. The US, the UN Security Council, the EU, and the African Union have all called on the coup leaders to back down. The Biden Administration has managed to get Saudi Arabia and UAE – known supporters of military rule in Sudan – to join in calling for release of all those arrested and return to the civilian shared transitional process. Israel, on the other hand, is standing with the military junta. A delegation of Mossad and Defense officials visited Khartoum a few days after the coup in clear disregard for the vast popular protests in the country. Sudan has strategic value to Israel because of its geographical location on the Red Sea; the planned intelligence base near Port Sudan would put Israel in a good geopolitical position in relation to Iran. But, as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz believes, Israel’s “misguided” move may backfire – “turmoil in Sudan would undermine Israel's broader strategic goals.” (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/saudi-arabia-to-sudan-why-israel-s-normalization-strategy-is-imploding-1.10353622.)
Sudan has been under pressure to normalize relations with Israel since the Trump Administration set this as the price for being removed from the list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” The military side of the Transitional Government was eager to move ahead with this part of the “Abraham Accords.” The civilian component of the government went along with repealing the 1958 law boycotting Israel, but prefers to proceed more cautiously, given the country’s long-standing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Sudan was host to the 1967 Arab League Summit in the aftermath of the Six Day War, which led to the Khartoum Resolution: no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel. Indeed, Khartoum is known as “the three No’s capital.” In the eyes of many Sudanese, normalizing relations with Israel amounts to betrayal of their commitment to the Palestinian cause. Continued Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza have done little to soften this feeling. As Prime Minister Hamdok stated, normalizing relations requires a broad deliberative process. But, in its rush for strategic advantage and ostensible acceptance by more Arab and Muslim countries, the Israeli government has chosen to side with the military generals against the majority of the Sudanese people.
Many things have changed since 1967. Feelings toward 'the Arab World' in Sudan now are anything but warm; Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE were strong supporters of Omar Al-Bashir’s brutal regime, and may have played a role in the recent coup. In contrast, Israel has taken in thousands of Sudanese refugees fleeing his genocide in Darfur. These new realities offered some potential for exploring a new path of engagement between the two countries. Indeed, some efforts to recover the lost history of Jews in Sudan, and preliminary attempts to open dialogue between Sudanese and Jewish communities in the Diaspora were just beginning. With Israel’s failure to side with “freedom, peace, and justice” (the motto of the uprising in Sudan), hope for a new start has been dimmed if not extinguished altogether. In the last two years, the Sudanese people have embarked on a long arduous journey toward building a pluralistic democratic society; they have rejected hegemonic religious ideology and political oppression. Countries that do not support these principles are not welcome.
The peoples of Sudan and Israel do share some common ground: both have been scarred by long running war and conflict, both countries have experienced isolation and being shunned by other nations, both must fight religious extremism, and both need to think through the dilemmas posed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two peoples inevitably must find a path toward new understandings and coexistence. Israeli support of military dictatorship in Sudan does not help this process. What would help is if the Israeli people take a critical stand against their government’s foreign policy toward Sudan.
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