Chad and Israel Resume Diplomatic Relations

American Thinker: Chad, a small, impoverished, landlocked nation just south of Libya and west of Sudan, at the advice of Libya, broke off relations with Israel 47 years ago.  However, that is about to change, as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu will be flying to Chad at which time diplomatic relations will be restored. This is a landmark renewal because Chad is a Muslim majority nation (about 55% Muslim and 45% Christian and animist), and thus this event may be a turning point in the united rejection of Israel by the Muslim world.  This trip will come on the heels of a visit to Israel by Chad’s President Idriss Déby and a month following an invitation for an Israeli diplomatic visit by Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

This small shift in the Muslim galaxy of nations has important consequences for geopolitical realignment, but to understand it, it might be wise to go back to 2015 and the P5+1 Iran deal which the Obama administration underwrote, as well as Bibi’s speech before Congress in that year.  In that speech, Bibi uttered that fascinating and timeless statement, “The enemy of my enemy is… my enemy.”  Here, he was referring to the 1000+ year enmity between the Sunni Muslims and the Shiite Muslims, but his statement was taken in the context of repudiating the proposed deal that had been worked out between the U.S. and Iran under the sage negotiations of the pompous, condescending twins President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Clearly, while Israel was not friends with the Sunni Muslim world (most Muslim states are predominantly Sunni), Bibi announced his enmity towards Shiite Iran, the “enemy of his enemy.”  The Iran deal presented an existential threat to Israel as well as providing Iran with unacceptable economic benefits, which had been denied Iran since 1979.  It represented a dangerous and unhealthy rapprochement between the great powers of the world — especially the U.S. — and the country backing Israel’s sworn terrorist enemies, Hamas and Hezb’allah, not to mention the Revolutionary Guard units of Iran itself.  MORE HERE