Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday deepened ties with a historic flexible industrial agreement, the first of its kind between Israel and an Arab country, at a time of growing complaints about Israel’s remedy to the Palestinians. Israel and the United Arab Emirates tout the main economic benefits such an agreement may bring.
The UAE welcomed the agreement to raise price lists on 96% of goods, as well as its prospect of encouraging emerging sectors such as the environment, energy and virtual services. The Israeli government has said in the past that the deal will speed up the industry in products such as food and medicine, while expanding the festival in public procurement in both countries.
Israel and the UAE already expect the annual bilateral industry to achieve $10 billion in five years, more than 10 times the figure recorded in 2021. Around 1,000 Israeli businesses are also expected to open in Dubai by the end of this year.
“They crossed a barrier when they made the decision to sign the agreement,” says Dorian Barack, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, a base that promotes partnerships between the two countries and Israel and the wider Middle East. I think that mental barrier led a lot of other people, who were outside the Israeli market, to do things with the Israelis.
But experts are skeptical of the $10 billion figure. According to World Bank data, this amount would make the UAE one of Israel’s main trading partners. Questioning the data from regional governments, he said the prediction was exaggerated. “Look, if governments are the source, then they exaggerate. “
The industry deal comes two years after the Abraham Accords, in which Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Although the Israeli press defended Tuesday’s deal, the Emiratis strictly controlled the message of the deal through foreign media from the signing rite in Dubai. (Many local outlets are state-owned or controlled. )
It reminds us that, despite the headlines, the UAE’s nascent ties with Israel remain deeply debatable in much of the Arab world, especially as tensions between Palestinians and Israelis rise. extremist settlers” for storming Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
Weeks earlier, Shereen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera’s prominent Palestinian-American journalist, was shot dead in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to the maximum likely through Israeli soldiers, according to a CNN investigation. Israeli police then attacked the porters at Akleh’s funeral, prompting foreign condemnation. The incidents followed the arrest of two Palestinians suspected of killing 3 Israeli civilians with an axe.
Read more: Problems with Israel over the murder of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
Hasan al-Hasan, a Gulf expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), sees the trade deal as part of a broader Emirati strategy to deepen ties with Israel to protect against Iran, a common strategic enemy of the two countries. .
Abu Dhabi has been walking a tightrope since it sent its most sensible national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, to Tehran in December 2021. The scale was aimed at recalibrating diplomatic relations, which deteriorated in 2016 when Saudi best friend executed Shiite militants. It has been taken over by a typhoon, and has also strengthened cooperation on a number of shared economic issues with Iran. But if international relations fail, the UAE may turn to its relations with Israel to engage Iran’s regional influence, al-Hasan says.
“By signing this agreement [the Emirates] are saying that, despite our differences on the Palestinian issue. . . we can continue to do business on other unrelated issues,” al-Hasan added.
Elham Fakhro, a researcher at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Gulf Studies, said the trade deal is further proof that the UAE is determined to seek a warm peace with Israel, despite the wider damage to regional reputation caused by the unresolved deals. Palestinian conflict. Israeli conflict.
“It is transparent that Israel’s relations with the Palestinians will not follow the trajectory of relations between the two sides,” he told TIME.
Despite the depression in Palestinian-Israeli affairs, Tel Aviv may ensnare other Arab states to do business by highlighting the benefits of bilateral cooperation with Abu Dhabi. Although Israel has already established industrial relations with Western nations, its leaders must tap into those internal Middle Eastern markets to gain regional legitimacy from their neighbors, despite the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the local Gulf expert.
Egypt and Jordan, which have maintained a bloodless peace with Israel since 1979 and 1994, respectively, have already intensified their economic activity with Israel in months.
Last November, Cairo signed a memorandum with Tel Aviv to increase the export of Israeli herbal fuel through its pipelines. Two months earlier, Amman had signed an agreement that would allow it to supply blank power to Tel Aviv in exchange for desalinated water.
But a comprehensive bilateral pact between Egypt or Jordan with Israel is due to public opinion in the two Arab states.
Unlike the United Arab Emirates, whose citizens make up just over 10% of a varied population that is sometimes friendly to Israelis, Egypt and Jordan are populated almost entirely by their own people. Due to popular pressure, officials from any of the Arab countries will have to treat Israel from the United Arab Emirates.
“The UAE does not have a percentage border with Israel and has not engaged in wars and conflicts as the Egyptians and Jordanians did,” said Bader al-Saif, a Gulf expert at Kuwait University. interest in reaping benefits from the Israeli generation and expanding their visibility, leading to greater collaboration. “
Several Gulf Cooperation Council countries still operate with third countries from Israel, basically Jordan, Turkey or within the EU. With an indirect industry value of about $1 billion in 2018, those countries have less incentive to bear the home reputation costs that come with normalization. ties with Israel.
Analysts agree that Tel Aviv will remain unable to maximize Arab economies, a longer-term purpose for Israel, for the foreseeable future.
The local Gulf expert says that while most Arab countries ban Israeli products, the ban doesn’t hurt Israel’s economy too much. Israel still sells valuable items, such as military equipment and spyware to Arab countries, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Last year, an investigation through 17 media organizations found that 37 phones belonging to government officials, news hounds and activists were attacked through Israeli Pegasus spyware. The Defense Ministry, which approves all spyware export licenses, said it was meant to be legally used to fight crime. and terrorists.
The UAE has its own priorities when it comes to Israel. Al-Saif said Tuesday’s flexible industrial agreement should be interpreted as a component of a broader effort across the UAE to diversify its regional collaboration, for example by repairing ties with Qatar and deepening investment in Turkey.
The UAE also has a keen interest in Israel’s military hardware as it increasingly prioritises strengthening its defense functions due to what it perceives as U. S. fatigue. U. S. in the region. But al-Saif warns that there will be obstacles to Arab-Israeli cooperation until the end. The Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is resolved.
“Arab-Israeli agreements (such as the flexible industrial agreement) will not succeed in their full perspective without addressing the fundamental reasons for the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he said.