Qatar Rules Out Normalization With Israel After Multiple Arab States Agree To Establish Diplomatic Ties

Qatar has refused to normalize its relationship with Israel, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain both agreed to establish diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.

“We don’t think that normalization was the core of this conflict and hence it can’t be the answer,” Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson told Bloomberg on Monday. “The core of this conflict is about the drastic conditions that the Palestinians are living under” as “people without a country, living under occupation.”

Qatar had established trade relations with Israel in 1996 but severed these ties in 2009 due to an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. Israel has frequently criticized Qatar’s financial and diplomatic support for Hamas, the fundamentalist militant organization governing the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, along with the foreign ministers of the UAE and Bahrain, to celebrate the normalization agreements.

"Together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region, something which nobody thought was possible, certainly not in this day and age," Trump declared. "These agreements prove that the nations of the region are breaking free from failed approaches of the past. Today's signing sets history on a new course and there will be other countries very very soon that will follow these great leaders."

Israel has now normalized its ties with four nations in the Arab world. In 1994, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan, with Egypt signing onto a peace agreement with the Jewish state in 1979.

Palestinian leaders have slammed the new normalization agreements, with the Palestinian Authority calling the UAE-Israel deal “a betrayal.” Ahmad Majdalani, a social affairs minister in the Palestinian Authority, has characterized the Bahrain-Israel agreement as "a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people.”