Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office has disclosed that he has met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed at his private palace in Abu Dhabi.
This is the first official visit of an Israeli Prime Minister to the United Arab Emirates and is coming 15 months after the signing of a normalization agreement between the two countries.
Bennett had highlighted growing trade ties between his country and the UAE in an interview with WAM, the Emirates’ state-run news agency.
He did not however mention in the agency’s write-up of the interview tensions with Iran.
In addition to trade, the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the UAE, one of a series of such agreements inked between Israel and Arab states in the last months of the Trump administration, is also seen in Israel as having a strong regional security component to it, specifically, shared concerns over Iran.
But the interview made only the slightest possible nod in that direction, writing: ‘On the UAE’s efforts to enhance international cooperation for facing common challenges, the Israeli Prime Minister stressed, “the values of tolerance, peace and dialogue are common, and that is why the friendship that unites us developed at such a high speed.”‘
