OCCUPIED JERUSALEM —
UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba said Wednesday, September 13, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is engaged in a process of de facto annexation of the West Bank, and that it may be up to other countries weighing normalization with Israel to stop it.
اضافة اعلان
Appearing on a panel during a Washington event marking the three-year anniversary of the
Abraham Accords, Otaiba was asked for Abu Dhabi’s perspective of the hardline Israeli government and its policies in the West Bank, which critics have referred to as “de facto annexation,” The Times of Israel reported.
During a press event in Washington, Otaiba was asked for Abu-dhabi’s perspective on Israeli policy in the
West Bank, which many have referred to as “de facto annexation”. His reply was “It’s tough because it is happening, and I think it’s happening in a way that is not visible and is going to make coming back to a two-state solution even more challenging,” Otaiba said.
Worsening conditions
Opponents of the government point to its advancement of a record number of settlement homes for construction, its moves to legalize roughly a dozen wildcat settler outposts, its streamlining of the settlement approval process, and its transfer of control over civilian authorities in the West Bank to far-right
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as examples of a broader effort to annex the West Bank in practice even if Israel doesn’t formally implement such a move.
The countries involved in the Abraham Accords did not publicize it at the time, but Netanyahu’s commitment to not annex the West Bank was limited in duration. Days after the normalization agreement was announced in September 2020, three sources familiar with the negotiations told The Times of Israel that then-US president Donald Trump gave the UAE a commitment that Washington would not recognize any Israeli annexation move until 2024 at the earliest.
US intervention
Days after the normalization agreement was announced in September 2020, sources said that
US President Donald Trump gave the UAE a commitment that Washington would not recognize any Israeli annexation until 2024 at the earliest.
The UAE focused on negotiations with the US and not Israel due to its lack of trust in Netanyahu and through understanding Netanyahu’s dependence on the US and their support.
They explained that the 2024 deadline was used because it gave the US another four years to advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal if Trump won re-election in 2020. If he lost, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden was sure to oppose an Israeli move toward annexation anyway.
Otaiba, who spearheaded the normalization talks for the UAE, appeared to be one of the first government officials involved to publicly speak of the finite nature of Israel’s agreement to shelve annexation plans.
“Our deal was based on a certain time period, and that time period is almost done, and so we have no ability to leverage the decisions that are made outside of the period that was what the Abraham Accords was based on,” Otaiba said.
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