United Arab Emirates-Israel: big push

The agreement between the Emirates and Israel offers new and hopeful prospects for the Middle East. Of particular relevance at this time of upheaval in international relations, in particular due to tension and confrontation in various regions of the Middle East, is the agreement to establish full relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Among the aspects that we can analyse in principle, we can highlight the demonstration that Arabs and Israelis are capable of overcoming historical problems and publicly express that their understanding has a political dimension, which is evident, but also decisive options for collaboration in economic and commercial matters and, what may be more transcendental, in research and new technologies. The long-standing cooperation between the Emirates and Israel in the fight against the coronavirus may lead to concrete achievements that could lead to a vaccine against the COVID-19, for example.

The Emirates' policy of providing international assistance to some 100 countries around the world by facilitating the work of more than 100,000 doctors and health workers in their fight against the pandemic is a global benchmark of the commitment of the Emirate's leaders at such a sensitive time. We must also add the measures that they have been adopting within their own borders, making an enormous effort at a time when their finances are being affected by the collapse of oil prices. The initiative to launch the Hope for Mars probe to explore and study its atmosphere contributes to demonstrating the Emirates' determined desire to invest in research, innovation and the development of new technologies and to show the world a fundamental path when it comes to facing a more than uncertain future due to all the changes that the pandemic is causing, affecting world geopolitics and the reordering of international relations as we know them after the end of the Second World War in 1945.

The challenge is crucial to the survival of a model based on the rights and obligations of individuals in the face of nationalism and populism that advocates a strong, hoarding state with a core of power centralized in the hands of a few unscrupulous leaders. The agreement between the Emirates and Israel has a clear objective of confronting the totalitarian threats of regimes such as that of Iran or the expansive war ambitions of the president of Turkey where it has already been rejected. At this time, it is also a warning to those who seek to turn Lebanon into a satellite country under the total domination of Hezbollah or to gain control in Syria or Iraq. Trump's intervention has an electoralist purpose, but it is essential to involve the United States more for the stability of the region.