Pompeo pulls aerial stunt to push Sudan-Israel ties

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flies directly from Tel Aviv to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum and uses the flight, which he called an “official” first, to push the establishment of relations between the Israeli regime and the Sudanese government.

Pompeo’s airplane took off on a direct flight from the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to the Sudanese capital on Tuesday, a day after he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds and amid Washington’s bid to push a normalization of relations between Israel and Sudan.

“Happy to announce that we are on the FIRST official NONSTOP flight from Israel to Sudan!,” Pompeo tweeted midair on Tuesday, before landing in Khartoum and meeting with Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister of the transitional government there.

The Tel Aviv regime and Khartoum do not have diplomatic relations, but Sudan’s leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the ruling council in the country, met with Netanyahu in Uganda in February.

That meeting was not immediately made public. Public and government support for the Palestinian cause runs strong in Sudan. The Khartoum-Tel Aviv relationship has also historically been hostile.

Netanyahu revealed the meeting only later, when he also spoke of an agreement he said had been reached with Sudan to “begin cooperation that will lead to the normalization of relations.”

Also in February, Netanyahu said Sudan had opened its airspace to Israeli aircraft for the first time. He said a private Israeli jet had used Sudanese airspace to travel from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Tel Aviv.

Sudan has long been part of a decades-old Arab boycott of Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians and its occupation of Arab lands. Recently, however, some Arab governments have been cozying up to the Israeli regime.

The US recently announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had “normalized” relations with the Tel Aviv regime, becoming the third Arab government — after Egypt and Jordan — to establish relations with Israel.

The announcement was met with strong backlash on the Arab street.

Forcibly silent majority in Persian Gulf region strongly condemns any normalization with Israel

A powerfully silent majority in Persian Gulf region firmly denounces any normalization with Israel.

The Sudanese government seems to be still testing the waters.

Last Tuesday, Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Haidar Badawi Sadiq revealed in an interview with Sky News Arabic that “there is no reason for the hostility to continue between Sudan and Israel.”

He said the ministry “does not deny the existence of communication between the two” sides.

Netanyahu was quick to express his enthusiasm, saying Tel Aviv would “do everything to make this vision [of relations] a reality.”

However, Sadiq was relieved of his duties over “unauthorized” comments a day later, with Sudanese Foreign Minister Omer Ismail saying that his ministry “didn’t discuss the possibility of relations with Israel in any way.”

Meanwhile, during his stopover in Khartoum, Pompeo among other things discussed the removal of Sudan’s name from the US government’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” according to Hamdok, the Sudanese prime minister.

The Sudanese military staged a coup in April last year, ousting long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir.

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