ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — As an Israeli delegation prepared to depart the United Arab Emirates Tuesday after completing a first official visit, a senior Emirati official said that his government had received “assurances” that Israel will not advance its plan to annex large parts of the West Bank.
“We cannot speculate on future Israeli actions. We have assurances from the US on this, and through our trilateral dialogue,” Jamal al-Musharakh, the director of the Emirati Foreign Ministry’s policy planning department, told Israel-based reporters at a briefing at Abu Dhabi airport, on the matter of annexation.
Asked if the normalization with Israel would fall apart if Israel were to annex in a few months, he said that it would not. However, the UAE’s Foreign Ministry later said he had misspoken, without clarifying what its position on the matter was.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the plan will still be carried out.
Al-Musharakh stressed that the “halting of annexation was a prerequisite” to the normalization deal announced last month.
Jamal al-Musharakh, director of the Emirati Foreign Ministry’s policy planning department, in video April 7, 2020 (Screen grab)
“We remain with the Arab consensus and Arab resolutions,” he told The Times of Israel in response to a question on Abu Dhabi’s position on the Arab Peace Initiative, which offered Israel full normalization with the entire Muslim world after a peace agreement is reached with the Palestinians based on the 1967 lines.
“What we did was halt the annexation. The ultimate end solution is to find a sustainable solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” al-Musharakh went on.
“We have not backed down one step, or one millimeter, from our position” in support of the Palestinian cause, he added. READ MORE
