Abu Dhabi: Yair Lapid Diplomat for Israel opened the First Embassy of the Jewish State in the Gulf while traveling to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, nine months after they signed a normalization agreement.
He met his Emirati partner, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, tweeting the picture they both shook hands shortly after the embassy opening.
Lapid also tweeted his photo and UAE Noura Al-Kaabi minister cut the ribbon in blue and white from the Israeli flag.
US Secretary Antony Blinken welcomed the gap as “historic”.
Lapid visits and the opening of the first Israeli embassy in the bay of “significant for Israel, UAE, and a wider region”, he said in a statement.
The Minister of Israel had previously visited the UAE, but the newly appointed Lapid was the most senior Israel to travel, and the first on the official mission.
“Israel wants peace with his neighbor.
With all his neighbors.
We are not everywhere.
The Middle East is our home.
We are here to stay.
We called all countries in the region to acknowledge it.
And to come talk to us,” Lapid said during the opening ceremony.
Lapid and his UAE partners signed an agreement on economic and trade cooperation, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said later in a statement.
The agreement, subject to approval from both government and renewable every five years, also concerns cooperation in the exhibition and exchange of delegates, he added.
Because the normalization agreements of their intermediaries were signed last September, Israel and the UAE have signed assemblies from tourism to flights and financial services.
During a two-day visit, Lapid will meet “Lima (Emirati) minister in less than 30 hours”, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiiat.
Lapid, who will become Israeli prime minister in two years as part of the coalition government agreement, also because of inaugurating the consulate in Dubai.
Lapid journey came almost a year after the nations moved to normalize bonds, and follow a series of visits by Israeli officials who planned to cancel the problem including covid pandemics and diplomatic jumps.
In March, the official visit planned by Israel Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was canceled because of the “dispute” with Jordan for the use of airspace, according to Israeli officials.
Netanyahu, was replaced as Prime Minister by Jewish Nationalist Naftali Bennett in the coalition government cut by Lapid a few weeks ago, has delayed February’s visit to the UAE and Bahrain on the restriction of the Coronavirus trip.
According to The Jerusalem Post Daily, Netanyahu tried to prevent his foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi made an official visit to the UAE, to prevent him from stealing the spotlight in front of the March election.
In August 2020, former White House Advisor Jared Kushner and Israel National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat made history by flying to Abu Dhabi on El Ara plane from Israel.
It was captured by both sides as a breakthrough in peace efforts in the Middle East, marked by El Al Jet touching the word “peace” in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
Normalization according to Israel crashed into last year with the UAE and then also with Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan had been condemned by Palestine.
The agreement broke out with Arab League policies without relations with Israel to peace with Palestine.
Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the Palestinian Hamas Islamic Movement that regulates Gaza, said the opening of the embassy showed the UAE “insisted” in the “sin” to apply the normalization agreement.
Also on Tuesday, Bahrain appointed his first ambassador to Israel.
Lapid is a former preser of television that can be moved with a hammering team with the new Israeli coalition, ending Netanyahu’s tenure for more than a decade as prime minister.
He has tried to break away from his rival policy, saying Monday that the Netanyahu government has taken “terrible betting” by focusing only on relations with the Republican Party in Washington.