Israel-UAE Deal Could be Signed, Sealed & Delivered Within a Month

The UAE’s foreign minister sees a “warm peace” between his country and Israel ahead, with the Palestinians winners as well, if they would just “engage.”

By: Batya Jerenberg

Israel expects to begin direct talks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) starting this week, with officials saying that the peace deal could be finished within a month, Israel Hayom reported Sunday.

Such a quick accord would also please the Trump administration, which played a large role in getting the UAE to agree to normalized relations with the Jewish State, as it would mean that a well-covered signing ceremony could take place in the White House before the U.S. elections in November.

This could well give the president a lift in a race against former vice president Joe Biden that currently has the Democrat challenger ahead in many polls.

A senior Israeli official told the Hebrew daily that the elections are definitely playing a role in the accelerated timeline.

The talks will be overseen by Israel’s National Security Council head Meir Ben Shabbat and the director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Alon Ushpiz, a senior diplomat who has served as Israel’s ambassador to India. Ushpiz took up his post in June.

Abu Dhabi has already agreed to having small, professional groups representing both sides, with each group concentrating on a different field, in order to hasten the process. One point that is being pushed hard by the Israelis, said the report, is in the field of tourism.

Jerusalem is asking the UAE to convince Saudi Arabia to open its air space to direct flights from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi. This would be a financial boon to airlines and a significant time-saver for travelers, who currently have to skirt Arab airspace in order to fly eastward from Israel.

The UAE, meanwhile, is looking to cash in especially on Israeli expertise in health and agriculture, UAE State Minister for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told the Atlantic Council, an American international affairs think tank, in an interview on Thursday.

“We are very much interested in agribusiness, agriculture, food security… in medical, especially certain areas that Israel has done very well with, and even things like telemedicine can start very early, even as you build… the necessary arrangements and so on,” said Dr. Gargash.

  (World Israel News)

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