UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed invited to Jerusalem

JERUSALEM/ DUBAI: Israel’s president on Monday invited the United Arab Emirates’ de facto leader to visit Jerusalem, praising his role in achieving a “noble and courageous” deal to normalise relations between Israel and the UAE, while the United states urged Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel..

Both countries announced on Thursday they would forge formal ties under a U.S.-sponsored deal whose implementation could recast Middle East politics ranging from the Palestinian issue to dealing with Iran, the common foe of Israel and Gulf Arabs.

“In these fateful days, leadership is measured by its courage and ability to be groundbreaking and far-sighted,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin wrote in a letter to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

“I have no doubt that future generations will appreciate the way you, the brave and wise leaders, have restarted the discourse on peace, trust, dialogue between peoples and religions, cooperation and a promising future,” Rivlin wrote. “On behalf of the people of Israel and (me) personally, I take this opportunity to extend an invitation to Your Highness to visit Israel and Jerusalem and be our honoured guest,” Rivlin said in the letter, which his spokesman released publicly.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country is preparing for direct flights, over Saudi Arabia, to the United Arab Emirates as part of its normalisation deal with the UAE. Netanyahu, briefed at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport on plans for expanding flight activity curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic, gave no time frame for the opening of an air link with the Gulf Arab country.

“We are currently working on enabling direct flights, over Saudi Arabia, between Tel Aviv and Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” Netanyahu told reporters, estimating flight time at “about three hours, just like to Rome”.

Saudi Arabia does not recognise Israel and its air space is closed to Israeli airliners. But in what was seen in Israel as a harbinger of warmer relations with Riyadh, Air India was allowed in 2018 to begin flying over Saudi territory on its New Delhi-Tel Aviv route. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump´s son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner said it would be in Saudi Arabia´s interest to normalise ties with Israel as the United Arab Emirates has agreed to do. It would also weaken their common foe Iran´s influence in the region and ultimately help the Palestinians, Kushner told reporters during a telephone briefing.

“It would be very good for Saudi business, it would very good for Saudi´s defence, and, quite frankly, I think it would also help the Palestinian people,” Kushner said. Jared Kushner said the United States will not consent to Israeli annexations in the occupied West Bank for “some time,” preferring to focus on the Israel-UAE normalisation deal and wider regional peacemaking. “Israel has agreed with us that they will not move forward without our consent. We do not plan to give our consent for some time,” Kushner told reporters in a telephone briefing. “Right now the focus has to be on, you know, getting this new peace agreement implemented.

The United Arab Emirates’ agreement to normalise ties with Israel was a “sovereign decision” that was not directed at Iran, UAE minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said on Monday.

The UAE on Sunday said it had summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Abu Dhabi and given him a “strongly worded memo” in response to a speech by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that the foreign ministry described as “unacceptable”. “The UAE-Israeli peace treaty is a sovereign decision not directed at Iran. We say this and repeat it. We do not accept interference in our decisions,” Gargash said on Twitter. The secretary general of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council on Sunday condemned “threats” by Rouhani and other Iranian officials towards the UAE over the accord.

Meanwhile, Israel is looking forward to cooperating with the United Arab Emirates on business fronts including commercial space and hi-tech, according to Israel’s Minister for Science and Technology.

“The timelines are quite immediate,” Izhar Shay said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “We now want to leverage those existing relationships and take them to the next steps,” he said, referring to quiet ties already in place.

Israel is already “aware of a good number of potential investors” in hi-tech, innovation, agro-tech, artificial intelligence among other sectors, Shay said. “We very much look forward to seeing involvement of Emirati investors in the Israeli economy.”

Meanwhile, Oman’s minister of state for foreign affairs Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah spoke to Israel’s foreign minister and in a separate call to an official from the Palestinian political group Fatah, Oman’s foreign ministry said on Monday.

Oman, which has maintained its neutrality in a turbulent region, has said it supports the United Arab Emirates’ decision on Thursday to normalise ties with Israel.

Speaking to Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Bin Abdullah said Oman supported a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East” and that negotiations on an Israel-Palestine peace process needed to resume.