Pompeo's visit sends a message to Iran and also to the president-elect: Much can be achieved when there are no cracks between the United States and Israel • Opinion
Bahrain's foreign minister (right) with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mike Pompeo
Photography:
Reuters
All the political and military happenings in the region these days are happening in the shadow of the expected change of government in Washington.
The visit of Bahrain's foreign minister, which includes signing aviation agreements and opening an Israeli embassy in the capital Manama in a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, sends a clear message.
The Gulf principalities are not hesitating in the wake of Trump's loss.
They do not shy away from Iran and continue the far-reaching course of an alliance with Israel.
Pompeo's visit is intended to signify his personal legacy and the legacy of the Trump administration, in a revolutionary change in American attitudes toward Israel.
He demonstratively visits a locality in Judea and Samaria beyond the '67 lines.
Pompeo is the one who declared that the United States does not consider Jewish settlement in the territories of Israel illegal.
Photo: GPO
Not only did the Obama-Biden administration allow for the passage of a resolution in the Security Council, which states that any Israeli presence beyond the 1967 lines is a violation of international law - it did not recognize Jerusalem at all as part of the State of Israel.
Whatever happens in the future, the Palestinian issue is likely to be a sort of sliver in the butt that will cause discomfort, whenever the heads of state sit side by side - but not much more than that.
On the other hand, the Iranian issue is the one towards which the regional organization is directed.
Some made all sorts of guesses about what lies behind the Secretary of State's visit to Israel, about two months before he left office.
Michael Oren's article from yesterday seems a bit extreme and it is difficult to see Israel carrying out a major operational hijacking, as long as it has the full backing of a friendly administration that gives it unlimited credit.
It is a different era of exerting economic, political and spot-on pressure, of intelligence exposures and targeted assassinations, as we saw in Iran and also in the recent bombing this week in Syria.
The Netanyahu-Pompeo meeting yesterday sends a message of full coordination between the two countries.
But the message is not only to Tehran but also to President-elect Biden: much can be achieved when there are no cracks between the United States and Israel.
Israel's allies want that if there is an attempt to return to the nuclear deal - it will be without repeating past mistakes.
This is exactly what the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turk al-Faisal, has warned in recent days.
And things are known: an indefinite agreement, an agreement that addresses the issue of missiles and the spread of terrorism and radicalism in the region.
The legacy that Biden brings with it is of tolerance towards Iran and disgust towards Egypt under the leadership of al-Sisi, and resentment towards Saudi Arabia over the murder of the journalist in Turkey.
Saudi Arabia is the one turning its back on the past in the current era, in which it has encouraged radical Islam and funded terrorist organizations.
The one caught on hot in cooperation with al-Qaeda is Iran.
The radiant images from Jerusalem of Pompeo and the Bahraini Foreign Minister send a clear message to Baiden: there is a stable Israeli-Arab front here, it only works in your favor.
Please do not spoil.
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