President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates, spoke Thursday and agreed to the full normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE. Delegations will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, and the establishment of reciprocal embassies.
As a result of this diplomatic breakthrough and at the request of President Trump, Israel will suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President's Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.
(White House)
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Shifting Dynamics of the Mideast Pushed Israel and UAE Together - David M. Halbfinger and Ronen Bergman
At least since 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been insisting, against conventional wisdom, that Israel could build full diplomatic and trade relationships with Arab countries in the Middle East without settling the Palestinian conflict first. When he sealed a deal to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates this week, what had changed was the dynamics of the region.
(New York Times)
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Notion of Middle East Peace Has Shifted - Anne Gearan and Souad Mekhennet
The surprise U.S.-brokered agreement last week to establish normal ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates was a powerful example of how the very notion of Middle East peace has shifted. Arab states are increasingly willing to leave aside the Palestinian question to seek a variety of relationships with Israel, the region's dominant military force and economic powerhouse.
(Washington Post)
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After decades of dominating and defining tensions across the Middle East, the Palestinians are no longer a pressing priority; they also seem increasingly irrelevant to the region's trendlines. Their brethren are abandoning them. "The conflict is decidedly less important to leaders in the region," Natan Sachs, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, told me.
(New Yorker)
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UAE Deal Gives Israel Long Overdue Legitimacy - Dave Sharma
The announcement that the United Arab Emirates and Israel will establish diplomatic ties and normalize relations is hugely significant for the Middle East. Though it has taken decades longer than it should have, Israel is finally becoming accepted as a legitimate stakeholder in the Middle East and part of the regional furniture.
Building ties between the two most economically dynamic parts of the Middle East will provide big commercial and trade opportunities. Direct flights and access between Israel and the UAE will link Israel's technological prowess with the financial, logistics and investment hub of the region.
The writer, a former ambassador to Israel, is a member of the Australian Parliament.
(Sydney Morning Herald-Australia)
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Israel-UAE Deal Is Win-Win-Win, Palestinians Included - Ghaith Al-Omari
Israel and the UAE should be commended for this courageous act. The international community needs to capitalize on its momentum, and Arab and international friends of the Palestinians need to urge them to use this opening to explore ways of resuming Palestinian-Israeli talks within a wider regional context.
The writer, a senior fellow in The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team in 1999-2006.
(NBC News)
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