This straw will drown us: On Sudan’s normalization with Israel

On October 23, President Trump signed an executive order removing Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, a designation that has kept Sudan in near-total isolation from the international community for 27 years. The move was signaled as a major gain for Sudan’s transitional government, which runs on an uneasy coalition between civilians and military generals as per a constitutional declaration mediated by the African Union and signed in August 2019 after nine months of mass protests that were met with deadly government force and succeeded in ousting President Omar al-Bashir from office after 30 years in power.

There are two layers of governance: Cabinet, which is made up of civilian technocrats and is led by Prime Minister Dr. Abdullah Hamdok, an economist and former AU official, and the Sovereign Council, which is made up of civilians and military generals and is led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state.

Just a few days prior to the announcement, the civilian finance minister said that the removal from the list was pending payment of $335 million to settle legal claims for US victims of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, and most importantly, that the deal was effectively separate from the thorny issue of normalization with the state of Israel. Earlier that month, Hamdok himself had also insisted there would be no quid pro quo. “We would like to see these two tracks addressed separately," he told the Financial Times.

Yet soon after Trump’s signed the order to remove Sudan from the list, the US, Sudan and Israel announced in a joint statement that “the leaders have agreed to the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations.”

The military wing in Sudan, which finds its weight in the Sovereign Council, was quick to commend this step and hail it as the way forward. However, the Council of Ministers was silent for several  hours before the foreign minister released a carefully worded statement to confirm the council’s agreement to the normalization process but reaffirmed that the final decision required ratification by the legislative council upon its formation. 

Hours later, the minister of justice, Dr. Nasraldeen Abdulbari, issued a statement contradicting an earlier statement made by Hamdok to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit to Khartoum, on the mandate of the transitional government. Abdulbari instead reiterated that the final decision on normalization does not have to be signed off on by the legislative council, which has yet to be formed, but can be agreed upon in a joint meeting of the Sovereign Council and Cabinet.

The joint statement announcing the normalization deal sparked a firestorm of controversy within Sudanese civil society and political circles, with finger pointing and accusations of treason. The wave of anger was only heightened when an Israeli delegation visited Sudan a few weeks later to “improve relations” and firm up the deal. 

Many shared the Arabic hashtag “normalization is betrayal” to express their sentiments and recalled Khartoum’s historical position as the place where Arab nations came together in 1967 and said no to normalization, no to negotiations with Israel, and no to peace with Israel. Ironically, many of the Arab countries that have championed this slogan have succumbed over the years and have chosen to ally with Israel to advance their interests, all but abandoning the ambitious — and perhaps unattainable — vision of Arab unity inspired by a previous generation of Arab leaders.

For years, Khartoum was at the forefront of displays of Palestinian solidarity, as the former government made Palestine a central issue and was quick to issue passports to Palestinian nationals and Hamas officials. While political opinions were stifled and public gatherings banned, the only protests that were allowed were pro-Palestine demonstrations or those opposing Israel’s assaults on Gaza.

Yet Bashir and his regime’s rejection of Israel didn't come from a place of inherent solidarity with Palestine, but from their embrace of religious fundamentalism and rejection of everything they believed was at odds with their ideology, be it Israel, the West, liberals or communists. As they declared jihad on Christians and animists in what is now South Sudan in the 1990s, they also supported the movement of jihadis in and out of the country and turned a blind eye as young men kept disappearing from their families to join the holy war in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. 

Bashir’s championing of the Palestinian cause to bolster his legitimacy as a supposed bulwark against the West complicated issues of Palestine solidarity for the Sudanese people who were opposed to his rule. This is evident today, as the political elite are vocally livid over the normalization deal while many ordinary people I met in different cities in Sudan over the last few weeks displayed a more complex and pained reaction. They feel they have suffered for years without sincere solidarity or support from neighboring Arab countries, and they are unable to separate the issue of Palestine — which was at the core of inter-Arab relations for decades — from the larger issue of Sudan’s precarious relationship with other Arabs.

In fact, they see the Arab world as complicit in their suffering, as rich Gulf countries gave Bashir a lifeline for years in return for agricultural lands, loans and a steady flow of Sudanese soldiers fighting wars on their behalf in Yemen and Libya. 

The sentiment toward Arab governments was prevalent during the revolution, with one of the most famous slogans referencing the leaders of the Arab world:

Al-Nahyan, should just fall

Mohamed Salman, should just fall

Sisi also, should just fall.

The whole axis should just fall.

Many that oppose normalization do not see Palestine as just an Arab cause, but an international issue that has inspired revolutionary struggles over the last three-quarters of a century. Palestine is a cause that we the Sudanese relate to because we have seen injustice and its ramifications for decades under successive military dictatorships. 

Another pressing issue is the everyday racism faced by Sudanese people, who are perhaps the largest black community within the Arab League countries. Several months ago, as Black Lives Matter protests filled the streets in the US, social media in the Arab world was abuzz with posts and testimonies of anti-black sentiment. A Kerning Cultures podcast episode called “Ugly Truth” hosted by Sudanese-American podcaster and writer, Sarah El-Hassan, tackled this issue in July. In the episode, she said that Sudanese people have started calling the month of Ramadan, with its slew of new television shows, “the season of racism” because every year they are forced to witness the same stereotypical portrayal of Sudanese characters in blackface. Every year, Sudanese people protest our general portrayal in the Arab media and instead we are told to have a sense of humor. 

This type of racism was again made apparent after Sudan’s normalization agreement with Israel was announced, with a slew of racial slurs posted online by Arab social media users. 

What is even more concerning is that Burhan, the head of the Sovereign Council, had already approved normalization in his meeting with his Israeli counterpart in Uganda earlier this year, according to a military source. His deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), also expressed support, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that “the country’s decision to normalize ties with Israel stems from a national conviction” and that Sudan will gain from normalizing ties with Israel.

Burhan and Hemedti were part and parcel of Bashir’s inner circle — the circle that fought his senseless wars inside the country. Before his ascent to power, Hemedti managed the presence of Sudanese troops in the Saudi war on Yemen.

In fact, Burhan and other military members of the Sovereign Council were part of Bashir’s security committee until it ceased to exist on April 11, the day he was ousted.

Naturally, part of this same circle championed anti-US and anti-Israel sentiments and were part of the military establishment in the 1990s when Sudanese children and young adults were forced to protest against the US. “Down down USA, we will not be ruled by the CIA” was one of the popular slogans at the time. 

For the US to work with Burhan to undermine the civilian prime minister who tried to separate the terrorism list issue from normalization with Israel, is a crime against a democracy in its genesis. It is a calculated and cruel move against a desperate country trying to stay united in the face of conflict, an unwavering deep state, a collapsed economy, mass displacement and deep and sustained pressure by the regional axis to force Sudan back to a dictatorial rule to continue to plunder its resources and control its people. 

In Sudan, a common proverb we use is: a drowning person will clutch at a straw. This is what Sudan was forced to do. But this straw will drown us.

The proponents of normalization argue that this step favors Sudan’s interests without explaining how and without answering questions about the moral sacrifices we would have to make. Sudanese people understand persecution, displacement and degradation. We have lived it and seen it for decades. The only viable alternative is to abide by the slogans of our revolution: freedom, peace and justice. To side with the Israeli government or any government that persecutes and displaces citizens is to normalize suffering and dehumanize Palestinians at a time when the world is contributing to making them invisible. We did not fight the cruel government of Bashir to take the wrong side of history.