On Friday, President Trump announced a normalization agreement between Sudan and Israel. Amnon Lord surveys the history of the African country’s relationship with the Jewish state—beginning with the former’s independence in 1956, when its government wished to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, but was pressured not to by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Considering the current state of the region and the policy mistakes of the recent past, David Pollock and Robert Satloff outline a strategy that is “both virtuous and realistic” for defending human rights and encouraging democratization in a region plagued by autocracy, chaos, and brutality. They argue that “in the long run, more democratic, tolerant, and inclusive governments are likely to be better at defending themselves, and more reliable and effective security partners for the United States.”