Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1815893810-scaled

For the UAE and others, its business as usual with Israel

Tel Aviv's far-right government has caught flak across the Arab world, but Abu Dhabi has shown no interest in rolling back the Abraham Accords.

Analysis | Middle East

For the United Arab Emirates, it’s business as usual as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s newly formed government wastes no time in implementing hardline policies aimed at forcing Palestinians to give up on the notion of an independent state and accept Israeli rule.

The UAE made that clear as it welcomed an Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi this week to discuss security, energy, tourism, education, tolerance, and water security.

The 20-person delegation, representing different ministries and headed by Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz, was in Abu Dhabi to prepare for a second Negev summit scheduled for the spring in Morocco.

The Israelis flew to the Emirati capital days after a hardline member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir, paid a provocative visit to the Temple Mount or Haram ash-Sharif, a sacred place for Jews and Muslims and the third most holy site in Islam.

The first summit of foreign ministers of the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and Israel met last year in the Israeli Negev town of Sde Boker to identify joint initiatives.

Last week, the four Arab states condemned Mr. Ben-Gvir’s visit. The UAE, together with China, asked the United Nations Security Council to discuss the visit; and postponed rather than cancelled a visit to Abu Dhabi by Mr. Netanyahu.

The UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020, while Egypt became in 1979 the first Arab country to sign a treaty with the Jewish state.

The talks, which started the same day Israel slapped a travel ban on Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Maliki, signal that the UAE and other states are going through the motions with their protests rather than telling Israel there will be serious consequences.

Last month, Mr. Netanyahu formed a coalition of hardline nationalist and ultra-conservative religious parties with a government program that denies Palestinian rights and potentially could lead to the annexation of territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war. It could also lead to Judaising parts of pre-1967 Israel that have significant Israeli Palestinian communities.

The ban on Mr. Maliki was part of a package of sanctions that also included seizing tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and channeling them to Israeli victims of Palestinian violence, deducting from the revenues the equivalent of payments made to Palestinians accused of perpetrating violence and their families; and freezing Palestinian construction in much of the West Bank.

In addition, Mr. Ben-Gvir, who oversees the Israeli police banned the flying in public places of Palestinian flags “that show identification with a terrorist organization.”

Israel imposed the sanctions in retaliation for backing by the United Nations General Assembly of a Palestinian request for the International Court of Justice to give an opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Insisting that Palestinians have a right to oppose occupation, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh warned that the measures could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.

“Israel wants to prevent even the most non-violent way of fighting the occupation,” Mr. Shytayyeh said.

Israel collects some US$256 million every month for tariffs on services and goods intended for the Authority but deducts US$85 million for regular payments, commissions, and sums paid by the Palestinians to families of prisoners deemed terrorists by the Jewish state.

Ms. Shtayyeh said he would urge Arab states to live up to their commitment to providing the Palestinians with an economic safety net. "Only Algeria is fulfilling its commitments and transfers US$52 million a month,” Mr. Shtayyeh said.

The prime minister will likely attempt to exploit the willingness of the UAE to conduct business with Israel, as usual, to extract financial support as compensation. The question is whether the UAE and other states may seek Palestinian political concessions in dealing with the new Israeli government.

That would make things easier for Mr. Bin Zayed and other Arab leaders prepared to move forward in their strengthening of relations with Israel despite the policies of the Netanyahu government and Emirati and Arab public opinion.

According to a recent survey, the popularity of forging relations with Israel has plummeted in the UAE and Bahrain in the last two years.

In the UAE, support fell to 25 per cent from 47 per cent. In Bahrain, just 20 per cent of the population supports formal relations with Israel, down from 45 per cent in 2020.

Arab soccer fans demonstrated during last month’s World Cup in Qatar their opposition to normalisation of relations with Israel by refusing to interact with their Israeli counterparts and declining interviews with Israeli media. At the same time, Qataris and some athletes, including the Moroccan national team, wore pro-Palestinian armbands and waved Palestinian flags.

Popular sentiment is also reflected in tourism figures. More than 150,000 Israelis flocked to the UAE in the 2.5 years since the UAE and Bahrain established diplomatic relations with Israel, but only 1,600 Emiratis have visited Israel since it last year lifted coronavirus travel restrictions.

Mr. Bin Zayed sees relations with Israel as a hedge against Iran, particularly when he and other Arab leaders are uncertain about the United States' reliability as a regional security guarantor.

In addition, Mr. Bin Zayed hopes to benefit from Israeli technological prowess to position the UAE as a cutting-edge 21st-century knowledge economy.

Finally, relations with Israel posit the UAE as a beacon of Muslim moderation and earns it brownie points in key segments of Western public opinion, including influential Evangelists in the United States.

An announcement this week that the UAE would begin teaching the Holocaust in history classes in primary and secondary schools across the country drew immediate praise from the Biden administration.

"Holocaust education is an imperative for humanity, and too many countries, for too long, continue to downplay the Shoah for political reasons. I commend the UAE for this step and expect others to follow suit soon,” said Deborah E. Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. Ms. Lipstadt was using the Hebrew word for Holocaust.

This piece has been republished with permission from the Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.


(Shutterstock/ Leonid Altman)
Analysis | Middle East
President Trump with reporters
Top photo credit: President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Is Israel forcing Trump to be the capitulator in chief?

Middle East

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant Tuesday evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

keep readingShow less
Europe Ukraine
Top image credit: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, President of Ukraine, Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, and Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, emerge from St. Mary's Palace for a press conference as part of the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Kiev, May 10 2025, Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect

Is Europe deliberately sabotaging Ukraine War negotiations?

Europe

After last week’s meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris, 26 countries have supposedly agreed to contribute — in some fashion — to a military force that would be deployed on Ukrainian soil after hostilities have concluded.

Three weeks prior, at the Anchorage leaders’ summit press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Ukraine’s security should be ensured as part of any negotiated settlement. But Russian officials have continued to reiterate that this cannot take the form of Western combat forces stationed in Ukraine. In the wake of last week’s meeting, Putin has upped the ante by declaring that any such troops would be legitimate targets for the Russian military.

keep readingShow less
After bombing, time to demystify the 'Qatar lobby'
Top photo credit: The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, is standing third from the left in the front row, alongside the Minister of Culture of Qatar, Abdulrahman bin Hamad bin Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is at the center, and the Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth of Oman, Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham Al Said, who is second from the right in Doha, Qatar, on May 9, 2024. (Photo by Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto)

After bombing, time to demystify the 'Qatar lobby'

Middle East

On Tuesday, Israel bombed Doha, killing at least five Hamas staffers and a member of Qatari security. Israeli officials initially claimed the US green-lit the operation, despite Qatar hosting the largest U.S. military in the region.

The White House has since contradicted that version of events, saying the White House was given notice “just before” the bombing and claiming the strike was an “unfortunate" attack that "could serve as an opportunity for peace.”

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.