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How Gulf states became business partners in Israel's occupation

Cook, Johnathan
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2020-12-14/gulf-israel-partners-occupation/

Date Written:  14/12/2020
Year Published:  2020  
Resource Type:  Website

Since signing the Abraham Accords, the UAE and Bahrain have been actively colluding with Israel's settler movement and military authorities. The professed rationale for the recent Abraham Accords, so-called "peace deals" signed with Israel by the UAE and Bahrain, was to stymie Israeli efforts to annex swaths of the West Bank.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Bahrain demonstrated this month how indifferent it is to the negative impacts on Palestinians. On a visit to Israel, the country’s trade minister, Zayed bin Rashid al-Zayani, said Bahrain was open to importing products from Israel wherever they were manufactured. “We have no issue with labelling or origin,” he said.

The comment suggested that Manama was ready to become a gateway for Israel to export settlement products to the rest of the Arab world, helping to bolster the settlements’ legitimacy and economic viability. Bahrain’s trade policy with Israel would then be even laxer than that of the European Union, Israel’s top trade partner. The EU’s feeble guidelines recommend the labelling of settlement products.

After wide reporting of Zayani’s comments, Bahrain’s state news agency issued a statement shortly afterwards saying he had been “misinterpreted”, and that there would be no import of settlement goods. But it is hard not to interpret the remarks as indicating that behind the scenes, Bahrain is only too willing to collude in Israel’s refusal to distinguish between products from Israel and those made in the settlements.

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