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Alex Peterfreund, co-founder of Dubai’s Jewish network and his singer, is preparing to read the Torah today in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Telephone service between the United Arab Emirates and Israel began to operate when the two countries opened diplomatic relations, as a component of a US-negotiated agreement that required Israel to finalize its questionable plan to annex West Bank land that the Palestinians sought for a long-term state. .
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Anger over the agreement also continued, however, with protesters in Pakistan criticizing the United Arab Emirates and Iran making new threats to the agreement, which will see the United Arab Emirates as the third Arab country to recognize Israel today. The United Arab Emirates responded by convening the Iranian business officer to criticize the Iranian president’s earlier comments, which they described as threatening.
But for Dubai’s small expatriate Jewish community, which has worshipped for years in an unnamed villa in this city-state, the calls were more than the convenience of calling their loved ones directly to Israel.
“There is a sense of miracle in a miracle in a miracle, because all those obstacles fall and others can, in spite of everything, combine and start talking,” said Ross Kriel, president of the Jewish Council of the Emirates. The Associated Press.
Direct phone calls have been blocked in the Emirates, a federation allied with the United States of seven sheikhs of the Arabian Peninsula, since its founding in 1971. This demonstrated the permanent position of the Arab nations at the time, that Israel will first have to grant concessions to the Palestinians. before being identified, one of its few lever points.
Since Thursday’s announcements, Associated Press reporters have tried to make calls between nations without success. But around 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, AP hounds in Jerusalem and Dubai were to call themselves from landlines and mobile phones registered with the Israeli country code, ‘972.
More than an hour later, Emirati officials declared that Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan had called his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi. The Israelis also later declared the call, that the blockade had risen on the Emirati side.
Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel issued a “congratulations to the United Arab Emirates for cutting the blocks.”
“Many economic opportunities will open up now, and those confidence-building steps are a step toward selling the interests of states,” Hendel said.
Also today, Israeli news websites that in the past had been blocked by UAE authorities, such as the Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post and YNet, can be accessed without means to circumvent Internet filtering in the United Arab Emirates.
In the United Arab Emirates, a message recorded in Arabic and English was sometimes transmitted before today, indicating that calls to 972 numbers may simply not be connected. The advent of online calls allowed others to circumvent the ban, even if they were interrupted.
Some in Israel used Palestinian cell phone numbers with 970 numbers, which those in the United Arab Emirates can simply call.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced Thursday that they are building full diplomatic relations under the U.S.-mediated agreement. The historic agreement was a key foreign policy victory for President Donald Trump in his quest for re-election, and reflected a conversionable Middle East in which shared considerations about Iran’s arch-enemy far outweighed classic Arabic for Palestinians.
The Palestinians say this puts even more out of reach a just solution to the Middle East clash. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the agreement with the United Arab Emirates showed that Israel did want to withdraw from the occupied lands that the Palestinians sought to have diplomatic relations with Arab states.
Agreements are expected between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in the coming weeks on areas such as tourism, direct flights and embassies. Earlier in the day, the official United Arab Emirates news firm WAM reported that an EMIRATi company had signed an agreement with an Israeli company for the studies and pandemic of coronavirus.
The resolution has provoked the anger of some who see it as a betrayal of long-standing efforts to identify an independent state of the Palestinians. In Pakistan, many Islamists joined in Sunday to denounce the Emirates-Israel agreement. The Jamaat-e-Islami chanted slogans opposed to the United States and burned Trump’s effigies. American and Israeli flags were also set on fire.
The protests reflect those of Palestinians who have noticed photographs of Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, burned, torn and trampled. This has angered some in the United Arab Emirates, a country of autocratic leaders where speech is strictly controlled. Emiratis online encouraged its citizens to report critical comments about the country to law enforcement.
The agreement infuriated Iran and Turkey, regional rivals of the United Arab Emirates.
Today, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran called the UAE resolution “disaster.” Mohammad Hossein Bagheri suggested abu Dhabi “review” its position, otherwise the Iranian army could bring another technique to the nation. He did not specify what this technique would entail.
“If an incident occurs in the Persian Gulf and violates the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran, even a little, and we see it from the United Arab Emirates, we will tolerate it,” Bagheri said.
On Sunday, news firm WAM also reported that the Emirates had summoned Iran’s most sensible diplomat in the country to complain about speeches through officials in Tehran who said they were “unacceptable and incendiary and had serious implications for security and stability in the Gulf region.” “
The United Arab Emirates reminded Iran of its duty to protect its embassy in Tehran, where the protesters had accumulated the day before. Diplomatic posts have been outnumbered in Iran in the past, adding the hostage crisis to the U.S. embassy in 1979.
For Dubai’s small, but developing Jewish expatriate population, the UAE’s movement toward diplomacy represents a new achievement. Alex Peterfreund, a singer of a network, read a passage from the Torah for ap journalists visiting.
“Starting from scratch is exciting, knowing that you’re starting a network where there were virtually no Jews in all those centuries, it also motivates you,” Peterfreund said. “We feel (like) pioneers.”
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