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Abbas sides with Olmert and Burhan sides with Netanyahu

February 8, 2020 at 1:40 pm

President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (L) and Former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert (R) [Twitter]

I first heard about Sudan when I was a child, when my older brother travelled to Khartoum to continue his studies at the Military College at the end of 1969, and he would then come back to fight against the Israeli enemy who defeated us and occupied our land.bas

With the awareness of a five-year-old child, the image of Sudan was formed in my conscience, as the place where warriors learned how to conquer the enemy and liberate Palestine. I used to enjoy the stories of those returning from Khartoum, as they spoke about the beauty of Sudan and how awesome the Sudanese people are.

Decades later, in the nineties of the last century, after the enemy opened embassies in Cairo and after normalisation was imposed on everyone against their own will, I was reading the memoirs of General Mohamed Fawzi, the Egyptian military minister, after the setback of June 1967, and I noticed the great Sudanese contribution to achieving victory over the enemy in October 1973, where he recounts the following:

“Steps started to follow after the Khartoum summit, aimed at putting the slogan “battle nationalism” into practice, over the course of three years from 1967 to 1970. I made several visits to Algeria, Sudan, Morocco, and Iraq, with the aim of strengthening Arab military solidarity through the participation of forces from these countries on the front lines. Algeria, for example, provided a full infantry brigade with its supporting units, then reinforced it with 2155-mm artillery battalions, and Sudan and Kuwait provided a number of infantry battalions.”

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1969 was full of drastic changes in the Arab-Israeli conflict, where two revolutions took place in Sudan and Libya (May-September 1969), both declaring from the first one, their full alliance with Egypt and Syria in their conflict with Israel. They also offered their land as a strategic depth for the Egyptian forces, and so the Military College was transferred to Jabal Al-Awliya, south of Khartoum, and Egyptian naval pieces were deployed at the naval base in Tobruk. In addition, training centres for the Air College were opened in various Libyan bases.

It was these groups of Military College graduates that Khartoum embraced, providing them with protection and care, resulting in the victory of the October 1973 war. Before that, the Arab summit that was held in Khartoum after the setback, which was famous for being the summit of the “three Nos”: “No peace, no recognition and no negotiation” was the first step on the path to use the power of Arab weapons to restore lost dignity.

All of that Sudanese legacy, which has deep roots as part of the Arab struggle for the stolen Palestinian right, was sold to the Israeli enemy by General Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, just as was done by Egyptian General Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, in compliance with the orders of the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, to maintain their position at the head of an authority that was generated through illegitimate ways, including normalisation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan's sovereign council [Twitter]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s sovereign council [Twitter]

Now, as Al-Burhan has followed in Al-Sisi’s footsteps, it can be said, without exaggeration, that the whole Nile Valley, in addition to its extension to the west, Libya and Chad, is under complete Israeli domination. Benjamin Netanyahu can drive his car from the south, beginning with Ethiopia, passing through Sudan, and from there to Chad, then Libya and Egypt, spending some time enjoying a luxurious service from Al-Sisi, before setting out to sea to Cyprus and Greece, inspecting the gas fields abandoned by Al-Sisi’s Egypt.

That’s how the miserable Arab future looks, after the fall of Sudan’s generals at the bottom of normalisation. All is allegedly done for the nation’s best interests and security, thus tightening the Arab siege against Palestinians, leaving them no other option but to accept the “Deal of the Century”, in light of this Arab struggle to build bridges of cooperation with the Israeli occupier.

When Palestinians look around, they’ll find that they are surrounded by a new Arab regime which, at best, can only provide them with a nicely written statement that does not stand the test of realities on the ground. It won’t be a surprise if a new Palestinian Intifada were to erupt, for us to see some Arab regimes cooperating and sending their armies to crush the Intifada and break Palestinians’ bones, all for the supreme national interests.

This forces Palestinians to realise that in this moment of darkness, Palestinians only have one another, their arms and rocks. But the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has another opinion and position. He rushes to coordinate with the former prime minister of the Israeli enemy, Ehud Olmert, to hold a joint press conference against the “Deal of the Century”.

READ: Sudanese army supports Al-Burhan’s normalisation approach to Israel

I thought that Abbas, who hinted at stopping security coordination with the occupation while at the Arab Foreign Ministers summit in Cairo, would seek to shake hands with head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, and to hold a mass conference in Gaza, or invite the Palestinian factions to a meeting that looks into national alternatives to confront the new Nakba, but the man never disappoints anyone.

Translated from Alaraby 8 February 2020

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.