Three members of the United Arab Emirates’ Federal National Council visited Israel’s parliament, becoming the first Emirati delegation there since the US-brokered normalisation of ties in 2020.
“When we talk about Abraham Accords agreements, we want you to look at the big picture,” Ali Rashid al-Nuaimi, chairman of the council’s defence, interior and foreign affairs committee, said at the Israeli foreign and defence committee on Monday.
“It’s not a political agreement only, it’s not an issue related to security and defence issue. No, it is an agent of change for the whole region,” Nuaimi said, advocating “full engagement in all sectors”.
Prior to the visit to the Knesset, the Emirati delegation visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
The UAE was among four Arab countries that joined the so-called Abraham Accords, a series of diplomatic pacts with Israel brokered by the Donald Trump administration. Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco followed suit in formalising ties with Israel.
The deals enraged the Palestinians, who felt a betrayal of their national cause. Palestinian leaders saw it as an abandonment of a longstanding commitment in the Arab world that calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries.
Nuaimi said that after the 11-day 2021 Israeli assault on the besieged Gaza Strip – which killed at least 260 Palestinians – “people were questioning what will happen to the Abraham Accords”.
“I want everyone to know there is no way back, we are moving forward, we are not repeating history, we are writing history,” he said.
Ram Ben Barak, head of the Israeli foreign and defence committee hosting Nuaimi as well as fellow Federal National Council members Sara Falaknaz and Marwan Almheiri, called his guests “neighbours and brothers”.
“There’s a misconception, as though the normalisation agreement was based on just one element, of shared threats and challenges, but that’s the smallest part of the deal,” he said.
“Israel is committed to the agreement and plans on enhancing and expanding it in all fields.”
Since the normalisation of ties between the two countries, Israel’s top leadership, including the prime minister and president, have visited the UAE as the two countries have struck deals on trade, security and tourism.
Normalisation with Israel remains a contentious issue for much of the larger population in the respective Arab countries. For instance, opposition groups in Bahrain had rejected the normalisation deal, while dozens of Sudanese people rallied against the decision in Khartoum in October 2020.
