Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, is the only sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court —  on five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape).

Yet this week, the government of Mahmoud Abbas, in its weekly cabinet meeting, announced:

 The Council welcomed the agreement between Mr. President, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir, on the establishment of a joint ministerial committee between the two countries. Four agreements were signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs with Sudanese officials: a political consultation agreement, a convention on the Joint Ministerial Committee, a protocol of political consultation and the Convention on General Education and the Convention on Cultural and Academic Cooperation in the field of higher education between the two countries, stressing that these signed agreements will lead to the strengthening of relations and increasing cooperation between the two countries for the benefit of the two brotherly peoples.

For some reason, this wasn’t considered to be newsworthy.

Even the “human rights” NGOs who are agitating to have Bashir arrested have nothing bad to say about Mahmoud Abbas treating him like a respected head of state.