UAE warns Israel that West Bank annexation could derail Abraham Accords
Far right members of the Netanyahu government are increasingly pressing for large parts of the West Bank to be annexed
The United Arab Emirates has warned Israel that annexation of the West Bank would effectively destroy the Abraham Accords, with a senior UAE diplomat describing annexation as “a red line” that “would end the vision of regional integration.”
In an interview with Times of Israel, Emirati special envoy Lana Nusseibeh said that “when Hamas tried to derail the Abraham Accords vision of regional integration with the October 7 terror attacks, we were firm in our response.” The UAE immediately condemned the attack and recognised Israel’s security concerns.
However, she said “we are worried that all of us in the Middle East are moving toward a point of no return…The Abraham Accords’ tenets of prosperity, coexistence, tolerance, integration and stability have never looked more under threat than [they are] today.”
Far right members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition have been increasingly strident in their demands for Israel to annex a large portion of the West Bank. This week, Bezalel Smotrich announced a plan which would see 82% of land in the West Bank – almost all of the terrain outside key Palestinian cities – annexed by Israel.
In a joint statement with Israel Ganz, leader of the Yesha Council of West Bank settlements, Smotrich said: “The broad consensus for sovereignty is a direct result of a deep understanding that we can never allow an existential threat to establish itself among us, and after decades of hesitation, it is time to state this clearly and act accordingly.
“It is time to apply Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and remove once and for all the idea of dividing our small land and establishing a terrorist state in its heart.”
In 2020, Netanyahu announced his intention to annex a large part of the West Bank, later dropping the idea. Abandonment of that plan was widely seen as an important step towards the creation of the Abraham Accords, which began with the normalisation of ties between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, subsequently including countries such as Sudan and Morocco.
Nusseibeh was clear that Israel’s stance on annexation was a key indicator as to whether the Abraham Accords would continue to grow or would instead collapse.
“For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel is going to take that off the table,” she told Times of Israel.
The Abraham Accords was unquestionably the biggest diplomatic triumph of Donald Trump’s first term as President, with the United States playing a key role in its creation. Nusseibeh, who most recently served as the UAE’s ambassador to the UN, told TOI that “we believe that President Trump and his administration have many of the levers to lead the initiative for a wider integration of Israel into the region…We trust that President Trump will not allow the Abraham Accords tenet of his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or derailed by extremists and radicals.”
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