Bahrain’s undersecretary for international relations at the Foreign Ministry, Dr. Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, took a dive in the Mediterranean Sea with Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz on Monday.
The two senior officials went diving at Rosh Hanikra, or Ras al-Naquora in Arabic, as Al Khalifa called it.
Ushpiz tweeted a video of himself and Al Khalifa waving their countries' flags underwater.
One knows it is a true friendship when your partner in peace is your diving buddy pic.twitter.com/jl6QEj2S5i
— Alon Ushpiz (@AlonUshpiz) August 9, 2021
“We took advantage of a rare chance for underwater diplomatic etiquette. One knows it is a true friendship when your partner in peace is your diving buddy,” Ushpiz wrote.
Al Khalifa, an avid diver, said the site had been on his “to-dive list.” He is a licensed scuba instructor who often goes deep-sea diving off Bahrain’s coast.
The Bahraini official is in Israel for the third time; this time on a four-day visit, which included meetings with President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Official diplomatic relations between Israel and Bahrain were announced on September 11, 2020, in the framework of the Abraham Accords, after years of mostly behind-the-scenes ties.
Al Khalifa and Ushpiz worked to prepare for an eventual meeting between Lapid and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, under the auspices of a steering committee for relations between Bahrain and Israel, which they lead.
He is also the chairman of the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (Derasat), which is signing memoranda of understanding with Israeli think tanks – the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Abba Eban Center – this week.
Al Khalifa also holds the positions of deputy secretary-general of the Supreme Defense Council and undersecretary for political affairs at the Foreign Ministry in Bahrain, and is in charge of the Israel portfolio at the ministry.
A full interview with Al Khalifa will be published in Thursday’s edition of The Jerusalem Post.