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Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Bahrain’s Jewish community Tuesday after arriving for the first visit by an Israeli head of government to the Gulf country, 17 months after they defied decades of tensions to normalise ties.
Bennett was welcomed by Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani at Manama airport, which was decorated with the flags of both countries, late on Monday. He will meet King Hamad and Crown Prince Salman, who is also prime minister, on Tuesday.
Bennett’s visit is the latest such initiative following the US-brokered 2020 Abraham Accords, which ran counter to the longstanding Arab consensus that ruled out ties with Israel in the absence of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I’m very delighted to be here in Bahrain, and I could think of no better way to kick off this visit than seeing my family here,” he said during a meeting with members of the Jewish community, according to his office.
Israel’s ambassador to Bahrain, Eitan Naeh, Jewish community president Ebrahim Nonoo, Jewish community member and former Bahraini ambassador to the US Houda Nonoo were also present.
In September, Ebrahim Nonoo led prayer services in Manama’s renovated synagogue, bringing Jewish traditions into plain view after decades of worship in private.
“We’re very happy to be out in the open,” Nonoo told AFP at the time.
Bahrain’s tiny Jewish community, about 50 people, have practised their faith behind closed doors since 1947, when the Gulf country’s only synagogue was destroyed in disturbances at the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But when Bahrain normalised ties with Israel, it opened everything up, with the small synagogue in the heart of the capital renovated at a cost of $159,000.
Bahrain and its close ally the United Arab Emirates became only the third and fourth Arab states…
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Source : france24
