http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=10/16/2005&Cat=14&Num=001
Kuwait-Israel diplomatic hide-and-seek By Hossein Amiri During his lecture addressing Muslim diplomats from Arab and Islamic countries in Kuwait on October 9, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait called Kuwait's efforts to establish relations with the Zionist regime a betrayal and a crime against Islam. The possibility of Kuwait establishing relations with the Zionist regime, which has mainly been reported by the media, has become quite controversial in recent days. It seems that Kuwait intends to use the recent wave of news to weigh its citizens' sensitivities toward the issue. Meanwhile, some diplomatic sources in Manama have recently revealed that Bahrain and Kuwait plan to lift their sanctions on the Zionist regime in the near future in order to pave the way for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. Bahraini Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Mubarak al-Khalifa told the local newspaper Alwasat that the Manama office for boycotting Israeli goods would be closed. Although officials of Islamic countries, including Kuwait, are trying to justify these measures as being a response to the Zionists' withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and an incentive to the Israelis to withdraw from more Islamic territories, it must not be forgotten that the Zionist regime withdrew from the Gaza Strip due to pressure and the high cost of maintaining the occupation. Arab League spokesman Hisham Yousef in Cairo also criticized some Arab and Islamic countries for their relations with the Zionist regime and stressed that Israel does not deserve such privileges. Although some political experts believe that the inappropriate stance adopted by the Palestinian Authority during Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in the early 1990s pushed Kuwait toward the Zionist regime, a careful review of the background of the relationship shows that this was not the main reason but only a catalyst for the establishment of relations between Israel and Kuwait. Unlike other Arab states in the Persian Gulf region, Kuwait has always had a more moderate attitude toward the idea of establishing relations with the Zionist regime. In order to break the ice, in late September 1993, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah published an advertisement for a Zionist institute, inviting Kuwaitis to visit Muslim religious sites in Beit-ul-Moqaddas and to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The first major change in Kuwait-Israel relations happened a few days after the conclusion of the Gaza-Jericho Accord in May 1994. One month after the conclusion of the Gaza-Jericho Accord, Kuwait and the Zionist regime began official contacts. In October 1994, then Egyptian deputy prime minister Youssef Ghali announced that members of the Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian chambers of commerce had begun official visits to Israel. Ghali told an Israeli daily that these visits were made after the conclusion of the Gaza-Jericho Accord, adding that holding discussions on bilateral investment and economic relations was the main aim of the trips. Along these lines, in concert with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait took another measure to cancel the prohibition on transactions with Israeli companies by canceling the country's indirect sanctions on the Zionist regime. After the conclusion of the Jordan-Israel peace accord in October 1994, the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, announced that Kuwait would shortly thereafter establish political relations with Israel. A few months later, a Kuwaiti MP said that in order to pave the way for peaceful relations with the Zionist regime, the Kuwaiti government had ordered the Ministry of Education to omit all Quranic verses in which the Bani Israel tribe is blamed from the country's textbooks [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
