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The Late Sultan of Oman Was Determined to Befriend Israel
(Ha'aretz) Sigurd Neubauer - With the death of Sultan Qaboos Al Said of Oman, at the age of 79, Israel lost a long-time friend and strategic partner. Britain initiated diplomatic ties between Israel and Oman during the 1970s, when Oman was dealing with an invasion from Yemen into the southern part of the country. Following the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, Oman, along with Sudan, were the only Arab League members not to boycott Egypt over normalizing relations with Israel. In 1994, Qaboos hosted then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the first known trip by an Israeli leader to an Arab Gulf state. In 1996, Qaboos invited then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres to inaugurate an Israeli trade office and the Middle East Desalination Research Center in Muscat. He also introduced Peres to the then-Emir of Qatar. In 2018, Qaboos invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Muscat.