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Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s trip to the UAE is the first that an Israeli president has made to the country since the 2020 agreements. Bennet will meet this Monday, December 13, with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this Sunday, marking the first official visit by an Israeli leader to the Gulf monarchy. The visit aims to strengthen ties with the UAE, which normalized its relations with Israel in 2020.
Meanwhile, at a time of regional tension, world powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom – are negotiating the reactivation of the 2015 Nuclear Agreement with Iran; An agreement that Israel opposed at the time and was later abandoned by the United States under the Donald Trump Administration in 2018.
After his flight from Tel Aviv arrived in Abu Dhabi, the prime minister was greeted by an honor guard and by the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
HISTORICAL: The Prime Minister of #Israel 🇮🇱 Naftali Bennett left today for the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪
There he will meet with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed: “We will talk about the advancement of our cooperation in various areas”
📸Haim Zach / GPO pic.twitter.com/IUYcvaGUKC
– Israel in Spanish (@IsraelinSpanish) December 12, 2021
“What a wonderful reception. I am very excited to be here on behalf of my people (on the) first official visit of an Israeli leader here and we are looking forward to strengthening the relationship,” Bennett said.
Abraham Accords, the initiative that has normalized relations
The ties between Israel and the UAE have improved since August 2020 with the signing of an agreement that would seek the correlation of both nations. Since then Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have also normalized ties with Israel.
The initiative, sponsored by the United States under Donald Trump and known as the Abrahamic Accords – in honor of the Biblical patriarch revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims – was signed by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and approved by the current ruling coalition. in that country.
Since then, Bennett, a far-right politician who took office as head of a broad Israeli coalition government in June, has promoted joint defenses with the United Arab Emirates, which also share his concern about Iran’s nuclear activities. intensified this year as a breach of the 2015 Nuclear Agreement.
Despite this, the UAE has offered its help to Iran. On Monday, December 6, they sent their top national security adviser to meet with his Iranian counterpart and President Ebrahim Raisi in an effort to keep relations on good terms.
The so-called Abrahamic Accords have also given rise to similar pacts between Morocco and Sudan.
With the UAE’s search for economic, health and energy ties with its new ally Israel and with the protection of the agreement between these two nations, dozens of memorandums of understanding have been signed that allow the Gulf country to diversify its economy to depend less on the oil and focus its efforts on issues such as tourism, aviation and joint financial services.
The rapprochement in the Gulf has been condemned by the Palestinians as a “betrayal”.
With Reuters and AP
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