Peace, the main message of the historic flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates
The secret of moving forward is to start. The formalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has begun to take shape with the arrival in Abu Dhabi on Monday of a US-Israeli delegation. The mission, headed by Jared Kushner, chief adviser to the US president, is also made up of the US National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, and Meir Ben-Shabbat, National Security Adviser and head of Israel's National Security Council. This representation will meet with Emirati officials to design the roadmap that will allow full normalisation of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
On 13 August the US president, Donald Trump, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Emirati sheikh, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, crown prince of Abu, agreed to the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. "This historic diplomatic breakthrough will promote peace in the Middle East region [...] The three countries face many common challenges and will benefit mutually from today's historic achievement," they said in a joint statement.
The pursuit of peace and stability has been the focus of the country's discourse chaired by Donald Trump, who has been attempting to persuade other states in the region to follow the same example as the United Arab Emirates. For the time being, nations such as Oman, Bahrain and Sudan have shown their willingness to normalise relations with Israel, according to the digital Arab News.
This delegation - which will arrive on board the first Israeli commercial aircraft to land in the United Arab Emirates - includes the sectors of investment, finance, health, aviation, foreign policy, diplomacy, tourism and culture. The aim of this meeting is to examine ways of developing relations in these areas and to promote joint action and opportunities for cooperation, in accordance with the statements collected by the WAM news agency. The visit comes at a historic moment for the region and is part of trilateral efforts to normalise diplomatic relations with the aim of achieving peace, stability and support for bilateral cooperation.
Israel's national airline will be responsible for the first flight between the two nations. "The AI (name of the Israeli airline) is making history. The airline will operate the first flight from Israel to Abu Dhabi this Monday morning. Members of the Israeli and American delegations will travel from Ben Gurion Airport to Abu Dhabi to begin talks to promote the peace agreement and the normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates", said the Israeli company on its official Twitter account, where it has also posted images of the Boeing 737-900 aircraft that it will take to the delegates, and on which the word peace is inscribed in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
Flight LY971 is scheduled to take off at 10:30 A.M. in Tel Aviv and will arrive at 3:05 P.M. (local time) in Abu Dhabi. The return flight, LY972, will take off on Tuesday morning, according to the information available to Arab News, which has also explained that the flight numbers are a wink to the respective country codes: +971 for the United Arab Emirates and +972 for Israel.
The visit comes barely a week after Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, decided to end his tour of the Middle East on Emirati territory. The US diplomat expressed his enthusiasm for visiting the Gulf country through the social network Twitter, where he stated that the UAE-Israel agreement is the most important step towards peace in the Middle East in over 25 years. During this meeting he also showed his willingness and hope to take advantage of the momentum of this diplomatic agreement to achieve regional peace.
With the announcement of 13 August, the United Arab Emirateshas become the third Arab country to have relations with Israel in addition to Egypt and Jordan. Since then progress has been fast. Among the latest measures adopted to formalise diplomatic relations is the repeal by the Emirates this Saturday of a federal law boycotting Israel, which established sanctions for anyone doing business with the country. This decision was applauded by Israel, which has stressed that the repeal of this law "is an important step towards peace that will bring about significant economic and commercial achievements" for both countries. This regulation implies that UAE citizens and companies will be able to do business and sign commercial or financial agreements with Israeli organizations and individuals.