Israeli annexation in West Bank is ‘red line’, says UAE

DUBAI: Israeli moves to annex parts of the occupied West Bank are a “red line” for the United Arab Emirates, one of the few Arab countries to recognise Israel, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Annexation in the West Bank would “severely undermine” the Abraham Accords that established ties in 2020, said Lana Nusseibeh, the foreign ministry’s assistant minister for political affairs.

Last month, Israel approved a major settlement project just east of Jerusalem that the international community has warned threatens the viability of future Palestinian statehood.

And on Wednesday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for annexation of swathes of the West Bank, after Belgium became the latest country to announce it would recognise Palestine as a state. “From the very beginning, we viewed the Accords as a way to enable our continued support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspiration for an independent state,” Nusseibeh said in a statement sent to AFP.

“The proposals to annex parts of the West Bank, reportedly under discussion in the Israeli government, is part of an effort that would, in the words of an Israeli minister, ´bury the idea of a Palestinian state´,” Nusseibeh added.

The UAE, Bahrain and Morocco recognised Israel under the Abraham Accords during US President Donald Trump´s first term in office, bucking the Arab consensus that there should be no ties without a Palestinian state.

“Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE,” Nusseibeh said.

“It would severely undermine the vision and spirit of (the) Accords, end the pursuit of regional integration and would alter the widely shared consensus on what the trajectory of this conflict should be -- two states living side by side in peace, prosperity and security.” Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law.

Critics and the international community have warned construction on the E1 site east of Jerusalem would undermine hopes for a contiguous future Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Smotrich, the far-right Israeli minister, has said the project was intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.On Wednesday, he said annexing large parts of the West Bank would “take the idea of dividing our tiny land and establishing a terrorist state at its centre off the agenda once and for all”.

Nusseibeh said: “We call on the Israeli government to suspend these plans.

“Extremists, of any kind, cannot be allowed to dictate the region´s trajectory.”