Al Khalifa's New Ally: What's King Hamad Asking Israeli Entity for?

2020-10-29 - 6:18 p

Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The correspondences leaked by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that the ruling family in Bahrain is the one that demanded the Saudi national guard to enter the country to help it oppress protestors demanding to put an end to Al Khalifa monopoly over power in March 2011.

10 years later, he repeats the same mistake. King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is demanding the help of Israel to achieve stability which has been lost in the country for decades, believing that what the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have failed to do will be achieved by Israel this time.

Bahrain has explicitly expressed the motives behind signing the normalization agreement with Israel and said that this would stop what it deems "an Iranian role in instability in Bahrain".

In fact, what causes instability in Bahrain is opening the doors for foreign interference in the country. This is done by the ruling family, believing that this would help it eradicate the hopes of Bahraini people in a democratic transition of power and respect for human rights.

What's the king betting on this time?

First: The king doesn't have a lot to lose after the signing of the agreement. He has lost his sovereignty over the country since he summoned the Saudi and Emirati forces to face protestors in the capital, Manama. Things have become more complicated after Manama became financially dependent on Riyadh and Abu Dhabi amid its financial collapse.

Second: Israel enjoys several security capabilities in areas like spying, surveillance, and confronting protestors. Security forces in Bahrain can, according to the king, rely on the expertise that Israel has built in confronting Palestinians to crack down on the repeated protests and monitor dissidents.

Even before signing the agreement, Bahrain is considered a regular customer of Israeli software companies. It is one of the countries that purchased the Pegasus program from the Israeli NSO company. This program enables states to monitor the phones of government opponents, and to record their calls, conversations, messages and data and identify their locations.

The ruling family believes that normalizing ties with Israel would make the expertise of the Internal Security Agency (SHABAK), one of the most powerful security agencies in the world, available to its counterpart in Bahrain. This includes the training of members, exchange of information and learning eavesdropping techniques.

Third: The new agreement would allow building military ties between the two countries. Bahrain may also allow Israel to establish a military base in its territories to face Iran. The ruling family would have a foreign base added to the US and UK forces which it relies on in case of any foreign threat.

Fourth: Israel has a unique experience in demographic engineering and settlement distribution. An ESCWA report indicated that Israel had designed a system that ensures that the state would continue to be Jewish through the naturalization of Jews in the world and that it is based on a system of apartheid.

Those in charge of naturalization and demographic engineering projects at the Royal Court believe that Israel can help Bahrain in this area. It is true that the Government has made significant progress in disrupting the demographics, but it wants to see significant outcomes from the political naturalization project it launched some 20 years ago.

As the anniversary of the February 14 protests approaches, these steps, along with worsening economic conditions, could help worsen the country's political situation. Stability can only be achieved through a genuine partnership in decision-making, otherwise what the former allies have not achieved will not be achieved by the new one.

Arabic Version