Bahrain and Israel’s shared threat perception of Iran’s growing regional influence has driven Manama’s quiet outreach to the Jewish state over the past year. However, the rage from populations across the greater Arab and Muslim world due to US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has hindered the prospects of formalized Bahraini-Israeli diplomatic relations.

Like the other five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, Bahrain, whose leadership frequently invokes the Palestinian cause, has never held formal diplomatic relations with Israel. While Bahrain, unlike Qatar and Oman, has never permitted Israel to open a trade office in their country, Manama’s unofficial contacts with the Jewish state date back to the mid-1990s.

Earlier this year, Bahraini-Israeli ties reached a watershed when two American rabbis — Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper — spoke during an event at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in California, where they relayed the king of Bahrain’s opposition to the Arab boycott of Israel, as well as his call for Bahraini and Israeli citizens to have the right to travel freely between the two countries. Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa was in attendance, leading pundits to speculate about Bahrain's soon becoming the first GCC member to establish official diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.

On Dec. 9, three days after Trump announced his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, This is Bahrain, a 24-member Bahraini interfaith delegation, arrived in Israel to discuss normalizing Bahraini-Israeli relations. Bahraini political and religious figures — albeit none from the country’s small Jewish community — comprised the delegation, which sought to showcase the Arab Persian Gulf country’s commitments to religious tolerance and pluralism.