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Yossi Mekelberg

Israel and the UAE show they mean business

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US-Israeli delegation lands in Abu Dhabi on historic flight

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US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien delivers a speech, as part of an Israeli-American delegation, in the first-ever commercial flight from Israel to the UAE, on August 31, 2020. (AFP)
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US Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner, center, US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, right, and Head of Israel’s National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat aboard Flight LY971 to Abu Dhabi. (AFP)
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US Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner, center, US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, right, and Head of Israel’s National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat board El Al’s flight LY971 to Abu Dhabi. (AFP)
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US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and US President Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner prepare to board a flight with an Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi. (Reuters)
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Above, a screen displaying the flight number of Israeli flag carrier El Al which will carry Israeli and US delegations to Abu Dhabi at Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv on August 31, 2020. (Reuters)
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A seat cover reading in Arabic, English and Hebrew ‘making in history’ inside Israeli flag carrier El Al’s Flight LY971 to Abu Dhabi in the UAE. (Reuters)
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A passenger aboard the historic Flight LY971 shows a facemask with the #UAE and #Israel flags emblazoned on it, as well as a ‘peace swag.’ (Twitter: @RaphaelAhren)
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A passenger aboard the historic Flight LY971 shows what he describes as a ‘peace swag.’ (Twitter: @RaphaelAhren)
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Updated 31 August 2020
AFP
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US-Israeli delegation lands in Abu Dhabi on historic flight

  • Jared Kushner: ‘While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond’
  • “Peace” was written in Arabic, English and Hebrew on the cockpit of the El Al flight
Updated 31 August 2020
AFP

ABU DHABI: A US-Israeli delegation led by White House adviser Jared Kushner arrived Monday in Abu Dhabi, on the historic first commercial flight from Tel Aviv to mark the normalization of ties between the Jewish state and the UAE.

The word “peace” was written in Arabic, English and Hebrew on the cockpit of the El Al flight that landed at the VIP terminal in the Emirates capital where US flags flew alongside the Star of David banner.

“While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond,” Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key architect of his Middle East policy, said before boarding.

“The future does not have to be predetermined by the past. This is a very hopeful time.”

The landmark direct flight by Israel’s national carrier, numbered LY971 in a nod to the UAE’s international dialing code, is due to return on Tuesday with the number 972, matching Israel’s dialing code.

The agreement to normalize ties was announced by Trump on Aug. 13, making the UAE the first Gulf country and only the third Arab nation to establish relations with Israel.

Unlike Egypt, which made peace with its former battlefield enemy in 1979, and Jordan, which followed in 1994, the UAE has never fought a war with Israel.

Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, who was also on the flight to the UAE, said “our goal is to achieve a joint working plan to advance relations in a very broad range of areas.

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“This morning, the traditional blessing ‘go in peace’ receives special meaning for us,” he was quoted as saying in an English-language government statement.

The talks in Abu Dhabi aim to boost cooperation between the two regional economic powerhouses in areas including aviation, tourism, trade, health, energy and security.

An Israeli government statement said there would be “working meetings of joint teams on a range of issues ahead of the signing of cooperation agreements in the civil and economic spheres.”

The visit will also include a meeting between Kushner, Ben-Shabbat and UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed, it said.

Israel’s health ministry had late Sunday updated its list of “green countries” with low coronavirus infection rates to include the UAE and eight other countries.

The change meant the Israeli officials and journalists traveling to Abu Dhabi would be exempted from a 14-day quarantine upon return.

Since the agreement between the UAE and Israel was unveiled, there have been phone calls between their ministers, and on Saturday the Emirates in a new milestone repealed a 1972 law boycotting Israel.

PICTURE GALLERY: Take a look at photos of the historic Flight LY971

“It will be permissible to enter, exchange or possess Israeli goods and products of all kinds in the UAE and trade in them,” read a decree issued by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking alongside Kushner in Jerusalem on Sunday, praised “the swift pace of normalization” between his country and the UAE.

Noting the UAE’s move from Saturday, Netanyahu said it “opens the door” for “unbridled trade, tourism, investments, exchanges between the Middle East’s two most advanced economies.”

“You will see how the sparks fly on this. It’s already happening,” he said, predicting that “today’s breakthroughs will become tomorrow’s norms. It will pave the way for other countries to normalize their ties with Israel.”

“There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said without naming any countries.

As part of the normalization agreement, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexations in the occupied West Bank, although Netanyahu quickly insisted the plans remained on the table in the long run.

The Palestinians dubbed the UAE’s agreement with Israel a “stab in the back” as it opens parts of the Arab world to the Jewish state while their own conflict remains unresolved.

Saudi Arabia, in keeping with decades of policy by most Arab states, says it will not follow the UAE’s example until Israel has signed a peace deal with the Palestinians establishing an independent Palestinian state.

* with Reuters

Topics: UAE-Israel relations Israel US

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Village in southern Lebanon buries a child and father killed in Israeli drone strike

Updated 7 sec ago
AP
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Village in southern Lebanon buries a child and father killed in Israeli drone strike

  • Hassan Jaber, a police officer, and his 3-year-old son, Ali, were on foot when the strike hit a passing car in Yanouh on Monday
  • The car’s driver, Ahmad Salami, was also killed. The Israeli military said Salami was an artillery official with Hezbollah
Updated 7 sec ago
AP
YANOUH: Mourners in southern Lebanon on Tuesday buried a father and his young son killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a Hezbollah member.
Hassan Jaber, a police officer, and his child, Ali, were on foot when the strike on Monday hit a passing car in the center of their town, Yanouh, relatives said. Lebanon’s health ministry said the boy was 3 years old. Both were killed at the scene along with the car driver, Ahmad Salami, who the Israeli military said in a statement was an artillery official with the Lebanese militant group.
It said it was aware of a “claim that uninvolved civilians were killed” and that the case is under review, adding it “makes every effort to reduce the likelihood of harm” to civilians.
Salami, also from Yanouh, was buried in the village Tuesday along with the father and son.
“There are always people here, it’s a crowded area,” with coffee shops and corner stores, a Shiite religious gathering hall, the municipality building and a civil defense center, a cousin of the boy’s father, also named Hassan Jaber, told The Associated Press.
When the boy and his father were struck, he said, they were going to a bakery making Lebanese breakfast flatbread known as manakish to see how it was made. They were standing only about 5 meters (5.5 yards) from the car when it was struck, the cousin said.
“It is not new for the Israeli enemy to carry out such actions,” he said. “There was a car they wanted to hit and they struck it in the middle of this crowded place.”
Jaber said the little boy, Ali, had not yet entered school but “showed signs of unusual intelligence.”
“What did this innocent child do wrong, this angel?” asked Ghazaleh Haider, the wife of the boy’s uncle. “Was he a fighter or a jihadi?”
Attendees at the funeral carried photos of Ali, a striking child with large green eyes and blond hair. Some also carried flags of Hezbollah or Amal, a Shiite party that is allied with but also sometimes a rival of Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, of which the child’s father was a member, said in a statement that the 37-year-old father of three had joined in 2013 and reached the rank of first sergeant.
The strike came as Israel has stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon.
The night before the strike in Yanouh, Israeli forces launched a rare ground raid in the Lebanese village of Hebbarieh, several kilometers (miles) from the border, in which they seized a local official with the Sunni Islamist group Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group in English. The group is allied with Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The low-level conflict between Lebanon and Israel escalated into full-scale war in September 2024, later reined in but not fully stopped by a US-brokered ceasefire two months later.
Since then, Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild and has carried out near-daily strikes in Lebanon that it says target Hezbollah militants and facilities.
Israeli forces also continue to occupy five hilltop points on the Lebanese side of the border. Hezbollah has claimed one strike against Israel since the ceasefire.

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