A senior diplomat from the United Arab Emirates cautioned Israel this week that moving ahead with annexation of the West Bank would cross a “red line” and dismantle any hopes for regional cooperation, issuing the warning just days before Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was set to meet with his ministers on whether to pursue the controversial step.
“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace. It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” said Emirati special envoy Lana Nusseibeh in an interview with The Times of Israel at the UAE Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi.
The warning from the Gulf state was particularly striking as it came just before the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords. The UAE was the first Arab nation in more than 25 years to formalize relations with Israel, opening the door for a wave of regional ties.
Until now, Emirati leaders have stressed that normalization was a carefully considered and essentially permanent strategic choice. Against that backdrop, Nusseibeh’s comments underscored how deeply the UAE opposes Israel reconsidering annexation.
For the first time since the Abraham Accords were signed, the UAE delivered a direct and on-the-record statement that annexation would amount to a “strategic loss.” Netanyahu was preparing to deliberate the issue with a small circle of ministers on Thursday, as several leading Western nations prepare to formally recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations later this month, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.
The approach recalled an earlier intervention by Emirati officials. In 2020, just weeks before normalization was signed, UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Otaiba took the unusual step of publishing an op-ed in a leading Israeli newspaper to send a clear message to the Israeli public.
At that time, too, the Netanyahu government was threatening to apply sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank. Abu Dhabi put forward a stark choice: annexation or normalization.
“Recently, Israeli leaders have promoted excited talk about normalization of relations with the UAE and other Arab states. But Israeli plans for annexation and talk of normalization are a contradiction,” Otaiba wrote in June 2020.
That message resonated with Israelis, with polling showing broad support — around 80 percent — for shelving annexation in favor of diplomatic ties. The piece helped pave the way for the Abraham Accords.
Netanyahu ultimately dropped annexation plans in exchange for normalized relations with Abu Dhabi, in a deal brokered by President Donald Trump’s first administration.
However, The Times of Israel later reported that the UAE had only secured a temporary pledge from Washington not to back annexation until the end of Trump’s term. Without American support, Netanyahu did not move forward.
That U.S. commitment lapsed when the Biden administration came to power. Biden returned Washington’s policy to firm opposition to annexation and support for a two-state outcome.
With Trump back in the White House, Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners argue that now may be the ideal time to move. They believe the administration is at best neutral and perhaps supportive of annexation.
Some of those figures point to recent announcements from France, the UK, Canada, Australia, and Belgium about recognizing a Palestinian state as a moment to act. Viewing those moves as a “reward” for Hamas’s October 7 assault, Israel is considering its response. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday called for annexing 82 percent of the West Bank and pressed Netanyahu to move ahead.
Nusseibeh’s warning also seemed to carry an indirect message for Washington, with which the UAE has cultivated especially warm ties.
“We believe that President Trump and his administration have many of the levers to lead the initiative for a wider integration of Israel into the region,” said Nusseibeh, who serves as assistant minister for political affairs and special envoy for UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.
Nusseibeh, who until recently was the UAE’s ambassador to the UN, is a seasoned diplomat with close links to the ruling family.
“We trust that President Trump will not allow the Abraham Accords tenet of his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or derailed by extremists and radicals,” she added.
Like Otaiba before her, Nusseibeh seemed to be aiming her remarks at ordinary Israelis, not just the government, noting that the current coalition represents only a minority of public opinion.
She argued that pushing annexation would be tantamount to tearing up the Accords, and “that choice should be put directly to the Israeli people.”
At the same time, Nusseibeh emphasized that Israel stands to gain if it steps back from annexation. She noted that Arab states — including Saudi Arabia — still hold the door open to normalization.
But those opportunities hinge on Israel not only shelving annexation but also laying out a serious and irreversible plan toward Palestinian statehood. She stressed that Arab capitals had not entirely closed the door, even amid fierce opposition to Israel’s nearly two-year war against Hamas.
“For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel is going to take that off the table,” Nusseibeh said.
She added that this position was not reached hastily.
“When Hamas tried to derail the Abraham Accords vision of regional integration with the October 7 terror attacks, we were firm in our response,” Nusseibeh said, pointing out the UAE’s swift condemnation of the assault, acknowledgment of Israel’s security needs, and simultaneous coordination to provide Gaza with more aid than any other nation.
“Over the last two years… our view was that the vision of the Abraham Accords remains pertinent — that you can’t let extremists set the trajectory of the region,” she said.
But now, with Israel entrenching its presence deeper in both the West Bank and Gaza, she warned, “we are worried that all of us in the Middle East are moving toward a point of no return” and stressed the urgency of speaking directly to Israelis before relations are “irreparably damaged.”
“The Abraham Accords’ tenets of prosperity, coexistence, tolerance, integration and stability” have “never looked more under threat than [they are] today,” she said.
Even so, Nusseibeh concluded with a note of hope. “There is an outstretched hand, despite all of this misery, in the region to Israel. But, annexation would withdraw that hand,” she said.
{Matzav.com}
