Half Year After Trump-Brokered Peace Deal, Sudan Scraps Israel Boycott Law

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Deborah Brand

Six months after the Trump administration brokered a normalization deal between Israel and Sudan, Khartoum on Tuesday moved to scrap a decades-old Israel boycott law.

Cabinet ministers voted to abolish the 1958 law, which penalized violators with heavy fines and up to 10 years jail time for infractions such as conducting trade with Israelis.

“The council of ministers approved a bill repealing the 1958 boycott of Israel law,” the Sudanese prime minister’s office  said in a statement, adding that ministers also reiterated “Sudan’s firm position on the establishment of a Palestinian state within the framework of a two-state solution.”

The Palestinian leadership slammed the news Sudan and Israel were working towards building ties as a “stab in the back.”

Tuesday’s bill will be presented before Sudan’s cabinet and the ruling sovereignty council before being made into law.

Khartoum has also promised Jerusalem it would abolish a law calling for the imprisonment of former migrants returning to Sudan, opening the way for thousands of Sudanese migrants in Israel to go back to their home country.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year noted Sudan is “an Arab, or rather a Muslim country, speaking Arabic, that hosted the Khartoum Conference. And in Khartoum they have all the no’s against Israel. Remember the no’s? No recognition, no Israel basically.”
Sudan was one of four Muslim and Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel as part of the so-called Abraham Accords led by the Trump administration. As part of the deal, Sudan was removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

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