Abu Dhabi (Web Desk): Top aides to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday arrived in the United Arab Emirates on a historic flight from Tel Aviv to finalise a deal marking open relations between the Gulf power and Israel.
Even before discussions start in Abu Dhabi, the delegates made aviation history when the Israeli commercial airliner flew over Saudi territory on the direct flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital.
“That’s what peace for peace looks like,” Netanyahu tweeted, describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.
Announced on August 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalysed largely by shared fears of Iran.
Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE’s move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory — and acceptance of Palestinian statehood — in return for normal relations with Arab countries.