<p>CAIRO — Sudan on Monday abolished a decades-old law on boycotting Israel, part of efforts to establish normal ties with the Jewish state.</p>
<p>A bill was approved at a joint meeting of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council and Cabinet that annuls the 1958 law. The law had forbidden diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari said in a Twitter post.</p>
<p>Sudan is on a fragile path to democracy after a popular uprising led the military to overthrow longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The country is now ruled by a joint military and civilian government that seeks better ties with Washington and the West.</p>
<p>The Cabinet approved the bill that repealed the old law earlier this month. The Cabinet also affirmed Sudan’s endorsement of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as part of a two-state settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>
<p>Monday’s measure would allow Sudanese to do business with Israelis. It would also allow Sudanese to visit relatives living in in the Jewish state. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-israel-sudan-middle-east-tel-aviv-e991b4abaf0595b6139d158c9c5c7c96">There are at least 6,000 Sudanese in Israel.</a></p>
<p>Under the 1958 law, violators could be punished to up to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine.</p>
<p>The law mirrored pan-Arab politics in the 1950s and 1960 that largely supported the prohibition of dealings with Israel and Israelis.</p>
<p>But the situation in the Middle East changed in the late 1970s when Egypt, the Arab World’s most populous country, signed a peace treaty with Israel. Jordan also established diplomatic ties with Israel in the 1990s.</p>
<p>Sudan became the third Arab state to agree to normalize ties with Israel last year in a deal brokered by the Trump administration. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-abdel-fattah-el-sissi-condoleezza-rice-omar-al-bashir-egypt-6075c85c6ffc7183e9be584da428bad7">Khartoum signed the agreement on Jan. 6 during</a> a visit to Sudan by then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.</p>
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<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-bahrain-israel-united-arab-emirates-sudan-6bf51ca3924404b78d385b1cab41572b">Establishing diplomatic ties with Israel was an incentive </a> for the Trump’s administration to remove Sudan from the U.S.’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.</p>
<p>The Trump administration also announced diplomatic pacts last year between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Morocco also established diplomatic ties with Israel.</p>
<p>The agreements are all with countries that are geographically distant from Israel and have played a minor role, if any, in the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>
<p>The Israel-Sudan deal, however, is deeply symbolic. Khartoum hosted the historic Arab League summit after the 1967 Mideast War. The conference approved a resolution that became known as the “three no’s” — no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations.</p>
<p>Sudan also had close ties with Israeli enemies like the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups.</p>
