DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United Arab Emirates and Israel agreed to identify full diplomatic relations as part of an agreement to finalize the annexation of occupied land that Palestinians seek for their long-term status.
The announcement makes the United Arab Emirates the first Arab Gulf state to do so and the third Arab country to have active diplomacy with Israel.
Trump tweeted from the countries, recognizing the deal. He then told reporters in the Oval Office that it was “a historic moment of fact.”
“Now that the ice has been broken, I hope more Arab and Muslim countries will stay in the United Arab Emirates,” he said.
This popularity gives Trump a rare diplomatic victory before the November election, as his efforts to see the end of the war in Afghanistan have yet to materialized, while efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians have progressed.
For Israel, the announcement comes after years of boasting through Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his government has closer ties to Arab nations than is publicly acknowledged. Netanyahu sought to build settlements on sought-after lands through the Palestinians and pursued a proposal through Trump that would allow him to annex giant portions of the occupied West Bank while granting Palestinians limited autonomy in other areas.
In the case of the United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai dotted with skyscrapers and Abu Dhabi’s rolling oil-rich sand dunes, they are tuning their crusade abroad to be noticed as a beacon of tolerance in the Middle East, even if they are ruled by autocratic leaders. It also places the United Arab Emirates first in a regionally popular race among the gulf’s neighboring Arab states.
And for the Palestinians, who have long depended on the Arabs in their struggle for independence, the announcement marked a victory and a setback. While Thursday’s agreement halts Israeli annexation plans, Palestinians have continually suggested Arab governments not normalize relations with Israel until a peace agreement is reached that builds an independent Palestinian state.
A strong signal from the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Israel aired without delay after Trump’s tweet. Delegations would meet in the coming weeks to signal agreements on direct flights, security, telecommunications, energy, tourism and physical care. The two countries will also request forces to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
“The opening of direct ties between two of the most dynamic societies in the Middle East and an advanced economy will make the region stimulate economic growth, gain better technological innovation, and forge closer relationships between people,” Trump, Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed said. bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the day-to-day leader of the UAE. He said the leaders had a three-way verbal exchange to talk about the deal.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed the agreement.
“This is a remarkable achievement for two of the world’s most complex and technologically complex states, and reflects their shared regional vision of an economically incorporated region,” he said in a statement. “It also demonstrates its commitment to addressing non-unusual threats such as small but strong nations.”
He added: “Blessed are the peacemakers. Mabruk and Mazal Tov.”
Netanyahu tweeted an Israeli flag with a message in Hebrew: “Historical Day.”
Of the Arab countries, only Egypt and Jordan have active diplomatic relations with Israel. Egypt reached a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Mauritania identified Israel in 1999, but ended its relations in 2009 due to Israel’s war in Gaza at the time.
In addition to Trump, the most sensitive American mediators for the deal were the senior and law-and-besensitive adviser to President Jared Kushner, Middle East special envoy Avi Berkowitz and David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel.
The United Arab Emirates is an allied federation of seven sheikhs of the Arabian Peninsula in the United States. Formed in 1971, the country, like other Arab nations at the time, recognized Israel for its profession of Palestinian land.
“Arab oil is no more expensive than Arab blood,” said the founding leader of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, when he accepted a boycott of oil for the U.S. military’s help to Israel in the 1973 war in the Middle East.
The United Arab Emirates relied on Palestinian administrative staff to create their nation. He eventually maintained his position that Israel would authorize the creation of a Palestinian state on earth that had taken over the 1967 war.
But in recent years, ties between the Gulf Arab countries and Israel have developed silently, in part because of their shared enmity toward Iran and the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah. Prince Mohammed also builds Israel’s distrust of Islamist teams such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the militant Hamas organization that controls the Gaza Strip.
The news firm WAM, led by the United Arab Emirates, declared the agreement, presenting it only as a gesture that is helping the United Arab Emirates and Israel, but also as a gesture that also has benefits for the Palestinians.
It is unclear what prompted Israel and the United Arab Emirates to make this announcement now. In June, the U.S. Ambassador to the United States warned in an Israeli newspaper editorial that Israel’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley and other parts of the occupied West Bank would “disrupt” Israel’s efforts for relations with Arab nations.
The deal gives Netanyahu a national condiment at a time when Israel’s fragile coalition government faces infighting and faces the option of early elections in the coming months. Netanyahu has noticed its popularity plummeting as the country grapps with a new coronavirus epidemic and rising unemployment following past lockout measures.
Netanyahu also delivered a valuable diplomatic achievement to his friend, Trump, before the U.S. election.
However, by abandoning the annexation plan, Netanyahu can hedge his bets against an imaginable replacement of the White House. Joe Biden, the alleged Democratic nominee, has made it clear that he will oppose any movement through Israel to unilaterally redraw the map of the Middle East and annex the lands sought through the Palestinians.
Netanyahu also risked complaining within his own extremist party, the Likud, whose members strongly supported the annexation. Netanyahu turns out to be that Likud members, and the small but influential settler motion, will agree that the peace agreement brings more benefits than unilateral annexation. Opinion polls have shown that annexation is not a majority of the Israeli public’s main precedent.
Abandoning his annexation plan fits little on the ground. Israel already has the West Bank in general and continues to expand its settlements there, while granting Palestinians autonomy from a number of disconnected enclaves. Some 500,000 Israelis now live in the expanding settlements of the West Bank.
Next year, Israel will participate in the delayed Expo 2020 of the United Arab Emirates, with the global fair to be held in Dubai. A secret synagogue also attracts practicing Jews to Dubai. The United Arab Emirates also announced its goal of building the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, which will house a mosque, a church and a synagogue.
Israelis traveling with Western passports enter the United Arab Emirates without any problem, although a phone call cannot yet be made between the two countries. Israelis also paint in the gold and diamond industry in Dubai.
Emirati officials also allowed Israeli officials to do so and the Israeli national anthem was played after an athlete won gold at a judo tournament in Abu Dhabi. Israel also has a small project that represents its interests at the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi.
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Lee reported from Bled, Slovenia and Federman reported from Jerusalem. The editors of Associated Press Aamer Madhani in Washington and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to the report.