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Exclusive-UAE Plans to Maintain Ties with Israel Despite Gaza Outcry, Sources Say
Flags of United Arab Emirates and Israel flutter during Israel’s National Day ceremony at Expo 2020 Dubai, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 31, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Christopher Pike
The United Arab Emirates plans to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel despite international outcry over the mounting toll of the war in Gaza and hopes to have some moderating influence over the Israeli campaign while safeguarding its own interests, according to four sources familiar with UAE government policy.
Abu Dhabi became the most prominent Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel in 30 years under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020. That paved the way for other Arab states to forge their own ties with Israel by breaking a taboo on normalizing relations without the creation of a Palestinian state.
The mounting death toll from Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip – launched in retaliation for cross-border attacks on Oct. 7 by the Hamas militant group that governs the enclave – have stirred outrage in Arab capitals.
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan spoke last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. UAE officials have publicly condemned Israel’s actions and repeatedly called for an end to the violence.
In response to a request for comment for this story, an Emirati official said the UAE’s immediate priority was to secure a ceasefire and to open up humanitarian corridors.
The Gulf Arab power, backed by its oil wealth, wields significant influence in regional affairs. It also serves as a security partner of the United States, hosting American forces.
As well as speaking to Israel, the UAE has worked to moderate public positions taken by Arab states so that once the war ends there is the possibility of a return to a broad dialogue, said the four sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Sheikh Mohamed met in Abu Dhabi on Thursday with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, amid Qatari-brokered talks for the release of a limited number of hostages in return for a break in the fighting.
“The UAE and Qatar stand firm in urging the need to advance de-escalation efforts and secure a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the region,” Sheikh Mohamed said on social media after their discussions.
Despite closer economic and security ties with Israel forged over the past three years, Abu Dhabi has had little apparent success in reining in the Gaza offensive, which has led to the death of more than 11,000 people, according to Palestinian officials. Hamas killed around 1,200 people in its surprise attack on Israel and some 240 hostages were taken, Israeli authorities have said.
Amid the impasse, the UAE has grown increasingly frustrated with its most important security partner Washington, which it believes is not exerting enough pressure to end the war, the four sources said.
Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, said this week that Washington needed to end the conflict swiftly and initiate a process to resolve the decades old Israeli-Palestinian issue by addressing refugees, borders and East Jerusalem.
The UAE has publicly expressed concern that the war now risks igniting regional tensions and a new wave of extremism in the Middle East.
Speaking on Oct. 18 at the UN Security Council, where the UAE holds a rotating seat, ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said that Abu Dhabi had sought via the Abraham Accords with Israel and the United States to deliver prosperity and security in a new Middle East through cooperation and peaceful co-existence.
“The indiscriminate damage visited upon the people of Gaza in pursuit of Israel’s security risks extinguishing that hope,” she said.
A senior European official told Reuters that Arab states had recognized now that it was not possible to build ties with Israel without addressing the Palestinian issue. Israel’s foreign ministry declined to comment for this story.
NO BREAK IN TIES
The UAE continues to host an Israeli ambassador and there was no prospect of an end to diplomatic ties, which represented a longer-term strategic priority by Abu Dhabi, the sources said.
The accord was motivated, in part, by shared concerns over the threat posed by Iran, as well as a broader economic-driven realignment of Abu Dhabi’s foreign policy. The UAE sees Iran as a threat to regional security, although in recent years it has taken diplomatic steps to de-escalate tensions.
Israel and the UAE have developed close economic and security ties in the three years since normalization, including defense cooperation. Israel supplied the UAE with air defense systems after missile and drone attacks on Abu Dhabi in early 2022 by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen.
Bilateral trade has exceeded $6 billion since 2020, according to Israeli government data. Israeli tourists have thronged hotels, beaches and shopping centers in the UAE, which is an OPEC oil power and a regional business hub.
“They (UAE) have gains that they don’t want to lose,” said one of the sources, a senior diplomat based in the Middle East.
Even prior to the Oct. 7 attack, however, Abu Dhabi was concerned by the failure of Israel’s right-wing government to curb expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and repeated visits by right-wing religious Israelis to the compound that houses the Al Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. The compound, revered by Jews as a vestige of their two ancient temples, has long been a flashpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
None of four sources ruled out that the UAE could downgrade or sever its ties if the crisis escalated.
Sources said that the displacement of the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank into Egypt or Jordan was a red line for Abu Dhabi.
James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore, said the war in Gaza had discredited the notion that economic cooperation on its own could build a stable region. “The new Middle East was being built on very fragile ground,” he told Reuters.
DISTANCED FROM HAMAS
Israel has rejected international calls for an immediate ceasefire: Netanyahu has said there would be no halt to its attack until hostages are returned. His government has pledged to destroy Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
While criticizing Israel’s conduct of the war, Abu Dhabi has also condemned Hamas for its attack. The UAE sees the Palestinian militant group and other Islamists as a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond.
“Hamas is not their favorite organization,” said one of the sources. “It is Muslim Brotherhood after all.”
The UAE has led the charge against Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist organization in the Arab World.
It helped Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi topple Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in a military takeover in 2013 that followed mass protests against his rule. The UAE provided Egypt with billions of dollars in support following Mursi’s ouster.
Abu Dhabi also abandoned Sudan’s former Islamist president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019, ultimately leading to the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’s grip on power there after it had dominated Sudanese politics for decades. The UAE had previously pumped billions of dollars into Sudan’s coffers.
The post Exclusive-UAE Plans to Maintain Ties with Israel Despite Gaza Outcry, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
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Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term.
As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Asked how close Tehran is to a weapon, Trump said: “They’re too close.”
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has accused former President Joe Biden of failing to rigorously enforce oil-export sanctions, which Trump says emboldened Tehran by allowing it to sell oil to fund a nuclear weapons program and armed militias in the Middle East.
Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump‘s memo, among other things, orders the US Treasury secretary to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.
It also directs the Treasury and State Department to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran‘s oil exports to zero.” US oil prices pared losses on Tuesday on the news that Trump planned to sign the memo, which offset some weakness from the tariff drama between Washington and Beijing.
Tehran’s oil exports brought in $53 billion in 2023 and $54 billion a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. Output during 2024 was running at its highest level since 2018, based on OPEC data.
Trump had driven Iran‘s oil exports to near-zero during part of his first term after re-imposing sanctions. They rose under Biden’s tenure as Iran succeeded in evading sanctions.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency believes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other OPEC members have spare capacity to make up for any lost exports from Iran, also an OPEC member.
PUSH FOR SANCTIONS SNAPBACK
China does not recognize US sanctions and Chinese firms buy the most Iranian oil. China and Iran have also built a trading system that uses mostly Chinese yuan and a network of middlemen, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy, said the Trump administration could enforce the 2024 Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) law to curtail some Iranian barrels.
SHIP, which the Biden administration did not enforce strictly, allows measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of sanctions. Book said a move last month by the Shandong Port Group to ban US-sanctioned tankers from calling into its ports in the eastern Chinese province signals the impact SHIP could have.
Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran,” under a 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Trump‘s first term, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal. The Trump administration had also tried to trigger a snapback of sanctions under the deal in 2020, but the move was dismissed by the UN Security Council.
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready — if necessary — to trigger a snapback of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 when a 2015 UN resolution expires. The resolution enshrines Iran‘s deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Iran‘s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, has said that invoking the “snap-back” of sanctions on Tehran would be “unlawful and counterproductive.”
European and Iranian diplomats met in November and January to discuss if they could work to defuse regional tensions, including over Tehran’s nuclear program, before Trump returned.
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Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continued a halt to funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing it of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being “involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”
During Trump‘s first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The US is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under former President Joe Biden, the US served a 2022-2024 term.
A council working group is due to review the US human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement — also steps he took during his first term in office.
The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor — providing $300 million-$400 million a year — but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.
The US Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had a UNRWA job.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
The post Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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