Context: Recently, Sudan and Israel have agreed to normalise relations, in a U.S.-brokered deal to end decades of hostility.

• Earlier, the USA brokered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain as well, to normalise their relations.

Key Points

• The announcement makes Sudan, technically at war with Israel since its 1948 foundation, the third Arab country to forge diplomatic relations with Israel in the last two months.
• Israel has also signed similar normalisation accords with the UAE and Bahrain recently, brokered by the U.S.
• The U.S. and its allies, including Germany, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, welcomed the deal as a boost to stability in West Asia.
• However, this deal has been criticized by the Palestinian leaders and Iran, which has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause.

Implications of this deal

• It  follows USA’s conditional agreement to remove Sudan from its blacklist of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism.
• It would deepen Sudan’s engagement with the West.
• Sudan will no longer stay deprived of foreign investments.
• Moreover, it delivers a foreign policy achievement for Trump just days before the USA election.

Additional Information
Israel-Palestine Conflict

• The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to the end of the nineteenth century, primarily as a conflict over territory.
• After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Holy Land was divided into three parts: The State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.
• The 1993 Oslo Accords mediated the conflict, to set up a framework for two state solution. It recognized the Palestinian Authority tasked with limited self-governance of parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Conclusion

• With this agreement, Israel will complete the creation of a safety cordon in the Red Sea, which currently includes Egypt, Jordan, South Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
• The deal is also aimed at unifying Arab countries against their common adversary, Iran.
• Though Sudan has been largely marginal to Middle Eastern politics in recent decades, the normalisation has significant symbolic value.