Sudan.. Normalization, and the dialectic of strategy and sociology

I do not hide that what prompted me to write about Sudan is not the material facts, including what is related to the strategy that links Palestine and Sudan only, but what is indicated by the great sympathy between the Sudanese and the Palestinians, much more than what many people think, including the Palestinians and the Sudanese. It is my belief that the Israelis are the ones who understand and still understand this interdependence between Palestine and Sudan, who have worked and are still working to destabilize it in one way or another.

In the many meetings that brought me together with my Sudanese friend Othman, other friends used to make fun of us by saying, "The miserable swoon over the disappointed hope." We used to accept that "judgment", without thinking much about its realism, and without trying ourselves to determine who among us was "unhappy" and who was "disappointed", until we met for the last time after the last "revolution" in Sudan, and what happened from " Normalization" of the relationship with Israel, when Othman, who usually had a loud voice, said to me in a low voice that carried a lot of feelings of apology... "The unfortunate betrayed the hope, my friend." Only then were the meanings defined, and it became clear that the unfortunate is Sudan, and that the hopeless is disappointed It is Palestine, at least in this context.

We, the people of the Arab East, did not know much about Sudan and the Sudanese, despite the great affection between us, as I said. All we knew about that vast country is what was mentioned in the geography lesson that it is the "food basket" of the Arab world, in addition to the impression we got from the Egyptian cinema - may God forgive her - that the Sudanese is the gatekeeper of the "cute and light-blooded" architecture in the films of the sixties and seventies . Perhaps because of that, I was surprised when I visited Geneva, and learned that the hotel I stayed in was owned by a Sudanese, and that the Sudanese community there was one of the most successful.

The strategic value of Sudan
In order for the picture of what we are talking about to be more clear, the state of Sudan, which is part of what is historically called the region of Sudan, which extends from the Red Sea through Chad, Niger, Mali, and the southern borders of Algeria to Mauritania, and where Arab and African tribes mix, is a very strategically important country. Because of its exceptional location, as it is considered the "gate" of Asia and Africa, and its unlimited wealth.

The area of ​​Sudan, after losing a third of its lands with the secession of the State of the South (which has an area of ​​the total area of ​​Iraq, Syria and Lebanon), has become equal to the area of ​​Germany, France, Italy and Spain combined. After the separation, it became the third Arab and African country in terms of area, after it was the largest before that.

Sudan is a country that has borders with seven important countries; Egypt, Libya, Chad, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Central Africa, on the other side of the Red Sea are Saudi Arabia and Yemen, with all the importance of these two countries.

Sudan's beaches extend on the Red Sea for a distance of 850 km. This puts him in a position to control the security of the Red Sea, which means the Bab al-Mandab and the Suez Canal, the ways of communication between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the very important security of the Horn of Africa.
And because of the Nile River, which cuts Sudan from its south to its north, the role of Sudan is considered decisive in the issue of water security for the region, especially for Egypt.

Sudan is also of great importance to the food security of the region. In addition to the vast arable areas, those lands that Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have begun to invest in extensively, there is a huge animal wealth, although a large percentage of it does not add much to the Sudanese economy, as it is only used as an indicator of The social value of its owners, tribes and individuals.
Sudan also possesses huge mineral wealth, primarily gold, which is one of the reasons for the current conflict between Sudanese leaders.

Sudan Sociology
Sudanese society consists mainly of Arab and African tribes, the majority of which profess Islam, in addition to a percentage of Christians and pagans. Many tribes of African origin are farmers working in agriculture, while the Arab tribes, which we mentioned extend beyond the borders of Sudan to Chad, Niger and Mali, work in cattle grazing.

It is obvious that the relations between farmers and pastoralists are tense, and matters become more complicated when the ethnic and religious identities of both parties multiply, as Muslim pastoralists of Arab origins “clash” with African peasants of various religious affiliations, so that the conflict takes on an identity and intellectual character that is difficult to control. This complex form of conflict prevailed in the Darfur region, starting in 2003. There, the "Arab" tribes felt weak in front of the "African" tribes, so the central government in Khartoum, which considered the Arab tribes to be their natural extension, won victory for those tribes, and established the Janjaweed militias. From which the Rapid Support Forces later emerged to fight the "rebels". This was in order for the government to find supporters in those tribes, and the rift deepened between the government and an important part of the people, and between the components of the people themselves.

The regime's mishandling of multiple identities in Sudan, and its "suspicious" resort to Islamic law to compensate for the erosion of its legitimacy, has often been a motive for the country's instability, its sometimes going into civil wars, and secession, as happened with the south.

The Nimeiri regime, which was nationalist and socialist in its infancy, "adopted" Islamic law to confront its opponents, at the same time that it conspired with Israel to facilitate the transfer of Ethiopian Falashas to Israel via Sudan.

After the coup of Field Marshal Swar al-Dahab against al-Numeiri in 1985, and the advent of civil rule after that, Lieutenant General Omar al-Bashir seized power with the support of the Islamic Front led by al-Turabi, and imposed Islamic law, which contributed to the south going to secession, and the outbreak of fighting in Darfur before that.

With regard to the fighting now taking place between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, despite the ferocity of the fighting and the suffering incurred by the peaceful people as a result, the fact that this conflict does not take an identity or regional dimension makes the possibility of intervention to find a quick solution to it a possible issue, as this fighting is nothing more than A struggle between two "leaders", each with its international and regional extensions, competing for power and wealth in Sudan.

Sudan in the midst of international conflict
There are many countries concerned with the Sudanese issue, where the interests of those countries decide their policies towards that country, and their alignment in the ongoing conflict there now.

Egypt is considered the country most affected by what is happening in Sudan, as its stability is stability for it, as it has a border with Sudan of 1,200 km, and through it comes the Nile River, which is indispensable to both, and they also share the security of the Red Sea. Sudan is a route for illegal immigration to Egypt and through it to Europe, and it may be a source of "terrorism" in its various forms.

Saudi Arabia, which faces Sudan on the Red Sea, is also concerned with what is happening there. It is an ally in its war in Yemen, and it has huge investments in it, so we found it participating in the United States in an initiative to put an end to the conflict in it.

In parallel with Saudi Arabia, the UAE has close relations with the Rapid Support Forces and its leader, Hamidti, given the great commercial relations between the two parties, especially in the field of gold, and large investments in the field of land, as well as its ambition to manage Sudanese ports, as the UAE is keen to "control" maritime transport through ownership Ports in various important regions of the world.

As for America, it is historically concerned with Sudan, as it is a starting point for the rest of Africa, and it is an arena to confront the growing influence of China and Russia on the continent, and it wants Sudan to never again become an ally of Iran and Palestinian organizations.... That is why it imposed sanctions on it, and therefore lifted them.

In addition to these countries, there are China, Russia, Ethiopia, and Chad, as well as Israel.

Sudan, which is the country of the three "no's" of "no peace, no recognition, no negotiation" with Israel, was among the countries closest to the Palestinian cause, not only in terms of popular sympathy for it, but also through the support it provided to the Palestinian resistance.
Because of this, in addition to other reasons related to Sudan’s location in relation to Egypt, the central Arab state, and the major international alignments and the international conflict over Africa, Sudan has suffered a lot in the past decades from direct American and Israeli aggressions, as well as from internal problems that resulted from “irresponsible” dealings. Successive Sudanese governments with the mosaic social structure, and the West relying on this sociology and dealing with it in order to fuel internal conflicts, which led to the secession of southern Sudan, and the presence of other movements in some regions of the north, that could go, if not dealt with rationally, to other divisions .

As is the custom of the West and America in particular, in the selective use of human rights, to pressure and blackmail countries that do not agree with it, US sanctions were imposed on Sudan, and Sudanese leaders, including former President Omar al-Bashir, were sued at the International Criminal Court, and finally Barakat arrived. The Arab Spring to overthrow the Al-Bashir regime, and the advent of a "new" regime headed by the former regime's senior men in the army and the Rapid Support Forces.

It is difficult to find any indication of the "success" of the Arab Spring in the countries it reached, other than going to normalization with Israel. With Qadir’s ability, and through a barter deal that removed Sudan from the list of terrorism, and promised a loan of $1.2 billion, and some aid related to Corona, the head of the Sudanese Transitional Presidency Council, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, met with Netanyahu in Uganda, and Sudan turned from an anti-Israel party into an ally, and established Economic relations between the "two countries" and the opening of Sudanese airspace to Israel. The relationship reached the point of Israeli mediation between the two poles of the Sudanese leadership in the recent conflict between them.

When the United States decided to "reduce" its presence in the Middle East in order to dedicate itself to fighting China and Russia, it "assigned" Israel to be its exclusive agent for hegemony in the region. The normalization of relations with Israel has become tantamount to "baptizing" any regime that wants to prove its "purity" to the United States.

The United States used all its military and economic means, accusing it of terrorism, "international law", "civilian" conspiracy, and "relatives" pressure to force Sudan to normalize relations with Israel until it succeeded in doing so. It is a normalization that is closer to the actual "rape" of the victim than to anything else.

Israel is now working to weave relations with various military and civilian forces in Sudan. Through this, it aspires to perpetuate its presence, and the presence of the West, in Africa, and impose a siege on Egypt, which together with Palestine forms the strategic heart of the nation, to keep it a weak, anxious and dependent country in order to dominate it and use it as it wants.

All that we see of Israeli tampering with the fate of the Arab world and the fate of the "East" in general, and which appears in Sudan today in its clearest form, comes in the context of America's attempts to cling to its hegemony over the world, and for that it invests - in the case of Sudan - all its own weaknesses, especially at the level Its social and identity structure, and exploits the "unjustified in many aspects" weakness that Egypt (the heart) suffers from, and its symptoms are clearly reflected in the "periphery" countries of the nation.

Palestinians must realize that what is happening in Sudan now is a state of temporary and transient "loss of balance", which does not reflect the true essence of Sudan towards Palestine (nor towards Sudan itself). In Sudan there are living forces represented in an aware and active civil society, in ancient political parties whose position on Palestine is an essential part of their consciousness, in historical unions that have been established on the culture of liberation that is not complete except in Palestine, and in two peoples who are "distorted" in distinguishing between their flags.