Abu Dhabi: Israel’s top diplomat Yair Lapid opened the Jewish state’s first embassy in the Gulf during a visit to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, nine months after they signed a normalization agreement. ‘The opening of the Israeli Embassy in Abu Dhabi with the Emirati Minister of Culture and Youth,’ he tweeted with a photo of himself and UAE minister Noura al-Kaabi cutting a ribbon in the blue and white of the Israeli flag.
Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, described the opening as ‘historic’.
In a statement, Lapid said that his visit and the opening of the first Israeli embassy in a Gulf state are ‘significant for Israel, the UAE, and the broader region’.
Several Israeli ministers have visited the UAE in the past, but newly appointed Lapid became the most senior Israeli to make the trip, and the first on an official mission.
‘Israel wants peace with its neighbors. With all its neighbors. We aren’t going anywhere. The Middle East is our home. We’re here to stay. We call on all the countries of the region to recognize that. And to come to talk to us,’ Lapid said at the opening ceremony.
Since their US-brokered normalization deal was signed last September, Israel, and the UAE have signed several deals ranging from tourism to aviation and financial services.
During his visit, Lapid will inaugurate a new consulate in Dubai.
Lapid’s trip comes nearly a year after the nation’s normalized ties, and it follows a string of visits by Israeli officials that were planned and then canceled over issues including the Covid pandemic and diplomatic scuffles.
In March, Israel’s then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled an official visit to Jordan due to a ‘dispute’ over its airspace, according to Israeli officials.
Netanyahu, who was replaced as prime minister by Jewish nationalist Naftali Bennett in a coalition government put together by Lapid weeks ago, had already postponed a February visit to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain because of travel restrictions.
Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen, now science and technology minister, reportedly had to cancel trips as well.
Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat set a new record by flying from Israel to Abu Dhabi on an El Al plane in August 2020. That was honored by both sides as an invention in efforts for peace in the Middle East, marked by the El Al jet touching down, decorated with the word ‘peace’ in English, Arabic, and Hebrew.
Palestinians have condemned Israel’s normalization agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan last year.
Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which rules Gaza, said that the embassy opening showed the UAE was ‘insisting’ on the ‘sin’ of executing the normalization agreement.
Bahrain also appointed its first ambassador to Israel on Tuesday.
Yair Lapid is a centrist former television presenter who hammered together Israel’s new coalition, ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s more than decade-long tenure as prime minister.
He has tried to break away from his rival’s policies, saying on Monday that Netanyahu’s government had taken ‘a terrible gamble’ by concentrating only on ties with the Republican party in Washington.
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