Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. (Photo by Mohamed Khidir, Xinhua)
The caretaker government of Muslim-majority Sudan agreed to end 30 years of Islamic law in the North African nation, after coming to an agreement with separatist rebels to end four decades of almost continuous civil war. Sudan has made diplomatic overtures towards Israel in the wake of the announcement of the Abraham Accords between the Jewish State and the UAE, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently visited Sudanese leadership in Khartoum during a recent Mideast tip, leading many analysts to believe that Sudan intends to join the accord in the near future. The transitional government has been seeking to have Sudan removed from the US list of states who sponsor terrorism, in order to begin economic recovery and to improve its diplomatic standing.
Since the removal of former president Omar al-Bashir last year during a nationwide protest movement, Sudan has slowly drifted from the orbit of Islamist nations and movements into the growing coalition of moderate Arab states, including Egypt. Bashir imposed Islamic law after coming to power in Sudan in 1989, acting as a champion of Islamic causes, and even hosting Osama bin Laden in the mid-1990’s while the infamous terrorist leader was actively plotting to attack the United States in East Africa. Bashir also continued the regime’s ongoing prosecution of a civil war against secularist rebel groups in Sudan’s southern and western provinces, eventually ordering his forces to commit mass killings and ethnic cleansing in the restive Darfur region between 2003-2009 in what has been described as the first genocide of the twenty-first century. Bashir is currently under house arrest, along with members of his former cabinet, awaiting trials for abuses of power against the people of Sudan. The transitional government has also signaled their willingness to extradite the former strongman to The Hague in compliance with his indictment by the International Criminal Court for his leadership in the Darfur Genocide.
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Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump announced the normalization of relations between the Balkan nations of Serbia and Kosovo on Friday, in a deal which also included a mutual initiative by both states to normalize relations with Israel. Kosovo was formerly a Muslim-majority province in the predominately Russian Orthodox nation of Serbia, until an uprising by Kosovar rebel groups began the final chapter of the bloody Balkan civil wars that raged throughout the 1990’s in the wake of the breakup of the former Soviet satellite of Yugoslavia. After a US-led NATO bombing campaign drove Serbia from Kosovo in 1998, the province was autonomous until it became internationally recognized as a sovereign nation in 2008. Kosovo is the second Muslim-majority nation to announce diplomatic normalization with Israel, after the UAE led the way in August. Multiple media outlets are reporting that a third announcement of diplomatic normalization between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain is also imminent. Long a staunch ally of moderate Arab powers and the United States, the small, Persian Gulf nation has been widely expected to follow in the steps of the UAE since the announcement of the Abraham Accords.
We welcome the latest announcements of peace and diplomatic recognition between Sudan and its rebels, between Serbia and Kosovo, and between all of those nations and Israel. We are thankful to see that nations are blessed with peace as they seek the blessing of peace with the offspring of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. However, we also recognize that these are complex and treacherous times, and that existential threats to the people of Israel and the Middle East are more present than ever, including threats that are both conspicuous and hidden. We ask the global FAI family to continue to pray that divine wisdom would be granted to the political leadership of the US, Israel, the moderate Arab world, and to all world powers who are involved in the issue of Israel and Mideast peace. We also pray that ongoing developments of both peace and war in the region will open wide, effectual doors for Good News to reach the unreached of the gospel frontier.
Maranatha.
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