BDS is upset by warming ties between Israel and some 20 percent of the world’s Arab and Muslim nations.
By: United with Israel Staff
Some 20 percent of the Arab and Islamic countries maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign reported Monday.
“Nine Arab countries possess full diplomatic ties with the Israeli occupation, while six others who are experiencing lower-scale relations with Israel,” BDS said in its recent report, titled “The reality of normalization in the Arab and Islamic world.”
Middle East Monitor, which publicized the report, said BDS warned the Arab states of what it described as a “dangerous reality” resulting from the “Arab countries’ unprecedented normalisation with Israel.”
The Palestinian-led campaign urged all the Arab and Islamic countries “to renounce normalisation with the occupation [Israel] as well as pressuring them to recognise the rights of the Palestinian people.”
The anti-Israel organization pointed out that it has been following with worry what it described as “formal and informal normalisation” across the Arabic region, accusing some complicit countries of “committing an unforgivable crime.”
“Palestinians won’t forgive anyone who normalises with the Zionist entity [Israel],” the boycott organization stressed.
Israel and the Gulf Arab countries have shared concerns over Iran’s activities across the region, including its nuclear program and its involvement in civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The report came just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid an official visit to the Gulf state of Oman, the first such meeting in over 20 years.
Netanyahu has frequently boasted of warming, behind-the-scenes ties with Arab states, drawn to Israel in part out of mutual animosity toward Iran.
Similarly, Israel’s judo team competed in the United Arab Emirate under its own flag, while Minister of Sports and Culture Miri Regev, who accompanied the Israeli mission, made an historic visit to the Grand Mosque in Dubai.
On Sunday, Israeli Transportation Minister Israel Katz’s office said he would travel to Oman next week for an international transportation conference. Katz, who is also Israel’s intelligence minister, is to present a plan to build a rail link between the Arab Gulf states and Israel.
Communications Minister Ayoob Kara traveled to Dubai this week for a communications conference, and became the first Israeli minister to speak in the country.