Security files overwhelmed the visit of an Israeli delegation that arrived in Khartoum two days ago and held talks - in remarkable discretion - with Sudanese counterparts, while the executive government denied its knowledge of the move.

According to an informed source who spoke to Al-Jazeera Net, the file of normalization with Israel is still managed by a narrow circle in the Transitional Sovereignty Council headed by Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, and the government has not yet committed to it.

This department includes one of the civilian members of the Sovereignty Council.

Another source familiar with the file of normalization between the two countries confirmed that the steps of normalization between Khartoum and Tel Aviv are similar to the steps of normalization with the UAE and Bahrain in terms of their beginning with the security file.

The same source indicated that the Israeli delegation that visited Khartoum, headed by Meir Ben Shabat, head of the Middle East and Africa division of the National Security Council, had more than 30 security files on the table for discussions.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, the source added that the Israeli delegation included 17 security figures, including intelligence men and multinational security experts.

Security files

Hussein Qamar, head of the preliminary committee of the Sudanese-Israeli People's Friendship Association, said that the security file between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain required between 12 and 14 months before the signing of the normalization agreements between the two countries and Tel Aviv last September.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Qamar expected that the folding of the security file between Sudan and Israel would require more than two years due to the large and complexities of the security files pending between the two countries.

He explained that among the security files is the issue related to Sudan hosting - during the era of the ousted President Omar Al-Bashir - a global conference, which included people wanted by Israel who lived in Sudan.

It is noteworthy that among the files with a security dimension to Israel, its plans to return about 6 thousand Sudanese illegal immigrants to Khartoum.

From a previous demonstration in Khartoum condemning the Israeli occupation (Reuters)

Economic cooperation

The head of the preliminary committee of the Sudanese-Israeli People's Friendship Association, which started to form since last May, confirmed that he did not expect an Israeli delegation to visit Sudan for 6 months beforehand.

It is mentioned that after tangible progress has been made in the security files, economic cooperation can begin in areas related to agricultural technologies and others, which is what the association is preparing for through specialists and projects that have begun to be prepared.

It is also noteworthy that entities have been formed against normalization, including the popular forces to resist normalization, which includes parties, civil society organizations, and religious currents.

In the context, Hassan Rizk, head of the Popular Forces for Resisting Normalization, considered that the transitional government in Sudan’s management of the file of normalization in secret is the greatest evidence that it is a "scandal."

Possibilities of relapse

Hassan Rizk indicated that no democratic state can take a decision to normalize relations with Israel, because this decision has long been taken by totalitarian regimes in the region, either by royal or military rule.

He considered that "Al-Burhan's decision to initiate normalization is not one of its tasks, but rather of the competence of the Council of Ministers, and what happened cannot happen in a democratic country like Pakistan."

He stressed that "normalization in Sudan will not continue because the three no-nos here are like the revealed Qur’an, and part of a history to be proud of in the face of a racist state such as Israel, which has no known boundaries to be recognized, with the distinction between peaceful Jews and occupying Zionists, and between Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a state."

Israelis perform their prayers at the Jewish cemetery in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum pic.twitter.com/jSOeS2zFcM

- Independence Newspaper (@alestiklal) November 16, 2020

Underground

On the other hand, the head of the preliminary committee of the Sudanese-Israeli People's Friendship Association believes that the popular mood in Sudan supports normalization based on the fact that the number of members of the society when it was announced two months ago was about 350 members, but today it has reached about 10,000.

And he considered that the association’s goals mainly depend on ensuring the rights of the Sudanese Jews who practice their religious rites in secret in a secret synagogue in the Khartoum 3 neighborhood.

He explained that the association counted about 150 Jewish families in Sudan, one of which was a family of 307 people in Khartoum, Al-Abyad "west" and Atbara "north".

But these families - according to the association's president - conceal their religious identity except for a person called "Ahmed" who chose to sacrifice himself, to pave the way for the exit of the Jewish families to the public in Sudan.

Activists on social media recently shared a video clip showing Jews praying at a grave in a cemetery for Jews in Khartoum.

Before decisions to nationalize the former president, Field Marshal Jaafar Nimeiri, in 1969, there were about 250 Jewish families living in Khartoum working in trade, import and export.