Hawzah News Agency (Occupied Palestine) - Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has censured Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifah over calling for open communication with the Tel Aviv regime, and asserting that Israel is part of the Middle East region's heritage that should be recognized.
Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk, in a post published on his official Twitter page on Thursday, said that Al Khalifah’s call for such recognition by Arab states proved that the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop in Manama was aimed at abdication of Palestinian rights and normalization of the Israeli occupation as part of the fabric of the region.
Speaking in an interview with English-language The Times of Israel daily newspaper on the sidelines of a US-led economic workshop in Manama on Wednesday, the top Bahraini diplomat recognized Israel’s “right to existence,” saying the regime is “there to stay, of course.”
“Who did we offer peace to [with] the [Arab] Peace Initiative? We offered it to … Israel…. We want better relations with it, and we want peace with it,” Khalifah added.
He pointed to the Arab Peace Initiative as the blueprint for normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel, terming the Tel Aviv regime’s rejection of the plan as a “missed opportunity.”
The Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002, calls on Israel to agree to a two-state solution along the 1967 lines and a “just” solution to the Palestinian refugee issue. The initiative has been repeatedly endorsed by the Arab League in 2002, 2007, and 2017.
The Bahraini foreign minister further encouraged Israel to approach Arab leaders about issues of concern regarding the proposal.
Earlier this year, Israel's Channel 13 television network reported that Bahrain informed Israel more than two years ago that it was interested in normalizing relations.
The Bahraini foreign minister held a secret meeting with former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni on the sidelines of the 2017 Munich Security Conference in Germany, the report said, citing unnamed senior Israeli officials as saying.