Israeli minister visits UAE ahead of Netanyahu trip

• Israeli minister made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates.
• First visit to the UAE by an Israeli minister.
• Israel and the UAE normalized relations in 2020.

According to Israeli media, an Israeli minister made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s possible visit to the Gulf state.

Ron Dermer, Israel’s strategic affairs minister, visited Abu Dhabi on Sunday and met with senior officials.

Tzachi Hanegbi, National Security Adviser, accompanied Dermer.

This would be the first visit to the UAE by an Israeli minister since the new Israeli government took office at the end of December.

Netanyahu had planned to visit the UAE soon after assuming the prime ministership, but the arrival of his provocative national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in January forced the cancellation of the trip.

The UAE issued a public condemnation of Ben-Gvir’s actions at the time.

During his visit to the UAE, Dermer attempted to assuage some of the UAE government’s concerns about Ben-Gvir and other far-right members of the Israeli government.

Israel and the UAE normalized relations in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, which were brokered by the US, and have since strengthened their ties, including by signing a free trade agreement in May.

When the agreements were signed, Dermer was Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

Naftali Bennett, a right-wing politician who will succeed Netanyahu as Prime Minister in 2021, was the first Israeli leader to visit the UAE in December of the same year, before returning for talks in June of the following year.

Despite Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory and near-daily raids in the occupied West Bank, which have already killed 17 Palestinians this month, the UAE is central to Israel’s strategy of normalizing relations with Arab governments.

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