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Israel: UAE Accord Transcends Security-Centered Ties with Arab Nations

Natalie Liu

   WASHINGTON - A senior Israeli official on Wednesday expressed hope that
   Israel's relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), now secured
   in a peace accord, could serve as a model for engagements with Arab
   nations beyond the security domain.

   "Some dates, you just remember," the Embassy of Israel in the United
   States wrote on Twitter this week, with pictures marking the three
   peace deals Israel has secured with its Arab neighbors -- Egypt in
   1979, Jordan in 1994 and UAE in 2020.

     1979 ð®ð±ð¤ðªð¬
     1994 ð®ð±ð¤ð¯ð´
     2020 ð®ð±ð¤ð¦ðª
     Some dates, you just remember. [1]#PeaceFlight0971
     [2]pic.twitter.com/5y4s4gKRIt
     -- Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) [3]August 31, 2020

   Addressing a virtual online news conference from Jerusalem, Eliav
   Benjamin, director of the Coordination Department of the Israeli
   Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said his country holds each peace
   agreement "very close," then described the accord with UAE as more
   full-fledged, citing seven working groups the two countries have
   recently established to "put content into the relationship."

   Although trade, investments and delegations going back and forth have
   been missing from Israel's relations with Egypt and Jordan, many of
   those activities were "already happening" with UAE, Benjamin said
   Wednesday at the briefing. "We were just all waiting for this to be
   public."

   In addition to helping "companies that want to do business and tourists
   who want to travel," Benjamin said Israel and UAE will work together to
   combat COVID-19 as well as future pandemics.

   While the U.S.-brokered Israel-UAE accord was a surprise when it was
   announced last month, Benjamin said his country had worked on the deal
   for two decades, most intensively in the past four years during which
   two events were significant.

References

   1. https://twitter.com/hashtag/PeaceFlight0971?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
   2. https://t.co/5y4s4gKRIt
   3. https://twitter.com/IsraelinUSA/status/1300441274315661313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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