JERUSALEM (Reuters) – In a historic first across a Persian Gulf nation, a delegation from the United Arab Emirates arrived in Israel on Tuesday to consolidate the standardization agreement signed last month.
U. S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other U. S. officials accompanied the delegation aboard an Etihad Airways plane from Abu Dhabi to Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.
They were greeted on the red carpet through Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Finance Minister Israel Katz.
“We are writing the story in a way that will last for generations,” Netanyahu said.
“I think that of such a high-level delegation of the UAEArray . . . will show our peoples, the region and the world the advantages of friendly, non-violent and general exchanges. “
In September, the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf of Bahrain state were the first Arab states in a quarter of a century to signal agreements to identify formal relations with Israel.
The agreements, negotiated through U. S. President Donald Trump, were largely forged on the basis of the usual fears of Iran and Washington, and their allies said they would herald regional peace and stability, but have provoked the wrath of the Palestinians.
Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on Tuesday called the UAE “disgraceful. “
Speaking in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, he said this came amid Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“The bilateral agreements that were announced and the delegations that come and go, all this gives the profession a force to accentuate their aggression and crimes against the Palestinians and increases their intransigence and arrogance,” he said.
In Gaza, Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the Islamist organization Hamas, said: “This will only inspire the profession to continue the slow annexation of West Bank lands,” he added.
The five hours would be limited to the airport near Tel Aviv due to coronavirus problems, Israeli organizers said.
“This is a historic moment for the country of the United Arab Emirates and Israel and we look forward to the matrix of salaam (peace) . . . in the region,” said one of Etihad’s pilots in a video posted on Twitter via U. S. Middle East envoy Ari Berkowitz.
Berkowitz and U. S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin accompany the Emirati delegation, headed by U. S. Economy Minister Abdullah bin Touq al-Mari, and Minister of State for Financial Affairs Obaid Humaid al-Tayer to a spokeswoman for the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
U. S. officials had joined an Israeli delegation in Bahrain on Sunday to hold a rite of signature to formalize relations.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have already signed several industrial agreements since mid-August, when they first announced that they would identify full relationships.
Israeli officials said either party will have to sign a mutual visa waiver agreement, Israel’s first with an Arab country.
(Report through Lisa Barrington, Dan Williams and Ghaida Ghantous; edited through John Stonestreet, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Philippa Fletcher)