Football can't save pan-Arabism

Saturday's Bahrain vs. Palestine match highlights Israel's blossoming relationships with authoritarian Arab governments.

Bruce Emmerling, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

On Saturday, Mar. 25, Bahrain will host Palestine for an international football friendly against a backdrop of deteriorating relations between the two governments following Bahrain’s normalization agreement with Israel. 

Bahrain agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel on Sep. 11, 2020—an agreement hailed as a “truly historic day” by then U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration helped broker the deal.

“Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region,” the United States, Bahrain and Israel said in a joint statement.