(Newswire.net— August 15, 2020) — Until recently, one couldn’t visit Dubai if one’s passport reveals he previously went to Israel, even as a tourist, but now the two countries are establishing a working diplomatic relationship, which wasn’t greeted in Palestine, Turkey, and Iran, but the US president is already taking credit for this.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a historic peace agreement, which will lead to the complete normalization of relations between the two Middle Eastern countries, and the mediator in reaching the agreement was US President Donald Trump.
Under the agreement, Israel has pledged to suspend sovereignty over areas of the West Bank that are the subject of annexation, White House officials said, Reuters reports.
“Everybody said this would be impossible,” Trump stated. “Now that the ice has been broken, I expect more Arab and Muslim countries will follow the United Arab Emirates’ lead,” Trump added.
After 49 years, Israel and the United Arab Emirates will fully normalize diplomatic relations. They will establish diplomatic missions and start cross-border cooperation, Trump said.
It is the first agreement of its kind signed since the 1994 agreement between Israel and Jordan, and according to the British agency. It is also a feather in Trump’s hat regarding foreign policy ahead of the presidential elections that will be held on November 3.
Among others, the agreement gives Muslims greater access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, as well as flying from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv, while the UAE and Israel will expand and speed up co-operation in treating and developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus.
A joint statement from the United States, the UAE, and Israel said the delegations would meet in the coming weeks to sign agreements on direct flights, security, telecommunications, energy, tourism, and health care. The two countries will also cooperate in combating the coronavirus pandemic.
The agreement followed Thursday after a telephone session attended by US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Abu Dhabi Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed.
Thus, the United Arab Emirates will become the first Gulf state and only the third Arab state besides Jordan and Egypt to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
Egypt reached a peace agreement with Israel in 1979, and with Jordan in 1994. Mauritania recognized the state of Israel in 1999 but ended relations with that country in 2009 due to events in the Gaza Strip.
The United Arab Emirates is an Arab ally of the United States. The United Nations accepted it as a member in 1971. Like other Arab nations, it did not recognize Israel because of the part of the territory it holds under its control – which Palestine claims to have sovereignty over.
What opponents of the agreement say?
“Normalisation is a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and it serves only the Israeli occupation,” stated Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Palestinian militant organization Hamas.
“Abu Dhabi’s behavior has no justification, turning back on the Palestine cause. W/ that strategic mistake, #UAE will be engulfed in Zionism fire,” tweeted Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, a special adviser to Iran’s parliamentary speaker.
Turkey has condemned its regional rival, the United Arab Emirates, for deciding to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel on the basis of an agreement mediated by the United States, accusing the Gulf country of betraying Palestinian interests. The peoples of the region “will never forget and will not forgive that hypocritical behavior” of the UAE, Turkey State department said in a statement.
How the UAE justifies the move?
The United Arab Emirates, which has never been at war with Israel and has been improving relations with the country in silence for years, and said the agreement halted Israel’s plans to unilaterally annex parts of the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians consider central to their future state.
However, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs assessed that the UAE does not have the authority to negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians or to “make concessions on issues of vital importance to the Palestinians.”
Israel, the UAE, and the Gulf countries have nurtured close relations for years. All of them consider Iran a regional threat.
US President Donald Trump predicts that other countries will follow the UAE after the agreement with Israel, which will tide the notch to Iran.