DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Phone calls began on Sunday between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, marking the first concrete step of a diplomatic deal with US presidents between the nations demanding Israel to stop plans for land sought by the Palestinians to annex.
However, anger over the deal continued, with protesters in Pakistan criticizing the UAE and Iran over new threats over the agreement, making the Emirates only the third Arab nation to currently recognize Israel. The UAE responded by calling on the Iran’s Chargé d’affaires to criticize earlier statements by the Iranian president who described it as threatening.
But for the small expatriate Jewish community of Dubai, which has been offering for years in an unmarked villa in this city-state, the talks represented so much more than just the convenience of being able to call directly experienced in Israel.
“There’s a sense of miracle upon miracle because all these hardships fall away and people can finally come together and start chatting,” said Ross Kriel, president of the Emirate’s Jewish Council to The Associated Press.
Direct calls have been blocked in the Emirates, a US-allied federation of seven sheikhs on the Arabian Peninsula, since its inception in 1971. This supports the current position of Arab nations that Israel must first grant concessions to the Palestinians before they are recognized – one of their few levy points.
Since Thursday’s announcements, Associated Press journalists have tried unsuccessfully to hold talks between the nations. But at 13:15 on Sunday, AP journalists in Jerusalem and Dubai were able to call each other from both landline and mobile phones registered with Israel’s country code +972.
About an hour later, Emirati officials acknowledged that Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan had named his Israeli opponent Gabi Ashkenazi. The Israelis later acknowledged the call as well, saying the block from the Emiratis side had been lifted.
Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel issued a statement expressing “congratulations to the United Arab Emirates for removing the blocs.”
“A lot of economic opportunities will now open up, and these confidence-building steps are an important step toward advancing the interests of states,” Hendel said.
Also on Sunday, Israeli news websites previously blocked by UAE authorities, such as the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and YNet, could be obtained without using means to circumvent Internet filtering in the Emirates.
In the UAE, a recorded message in Arabic and English would typically play out prior to Sunday, saying that calls to + 972 numbers could not be connected. With the advent of internet troop, people were able to circumvent the ban, although these were also often interrupted.
Some in Israel use Palestinian mobile phone numbers with +970 numbers, which can be dialed by those in the UAE.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on Thursday that they would establish full diplomatic relations in the US-broken agreement. The historic deal provided a major victory for foreign policy to President Donald Trump as he seeks re-election, and reflects a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely taken over traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.
Palestinians like to reach a fair resolution of the conflict in the Middle East even further. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Sunday that the agreement with the UAE shows that Israel does not need to withdraw from occupied land sought by the Palestinians to have diplomatic ties with Arab states.
Deals between Israel and the UAE are expected in the coming weeks in such areas as tourism, direct flights and embassies. Earlier Sunday, the state-run WAM news agency of the Emirates announced that a UAE company had signed an agreement with an Israeli company for research and study of the coronavirus pandemic.
The move has sparked outrage among some who see it as a betrayal of years of efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state. In Pakistan on Sunday, hundreds of Islamists rallied to address the deal with Emirati-Israel. The Jamaat-e-Islami party shouted slogans against the United States and burned down Trump’s fighting. They also put American and Israeli flags in the battle.
Those protests mirror others by Palestinians who have seen, burned, removed and trampled images of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. That surprises some in the UAE, a nation of autocratic rulers where speech is strictly controlled. Emiratis online encourages citizens to critically report comments about the country by law enforcement.
The deal has also scared Iran and Turkey, regional rivals to the UAE.
On Sunday, Iran’s army chief of staff called the UAE’s decision a “disaster”. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri urges Abu Dhabi to “review” the position if the Iranian military takes a different approach to the nation. He did not elaborate on what that approach would mean.
“If an incident occurs in the Persian Gulf and the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran separates, even a little bit, and we see it from the UAE, we will not tolerate it,” Bagheri said.
On Sunday, the WAM news agency also reported that the Emirates had called on Iran’s top diplomat in the country to complain about speeches by officials in Tehran, who said “were unacceptable and inflammatory and had serious consequences for security and stability in the Gulf region. ”
The UAE reminded Iran of its duty to protect its embassy in Tehran, where Protestants had gathered the day before. Diplomatic posts have been overwritten in Iran in the past, including during the US Embassy’s hostage crisis in 1979.
For the small but growing Jewish foreign population in Dubai, the UAE’s move towards diplomatic ties represents a new achievement. Alex Peterfreund, a community office official, read a passage from the Torah before visiting AP journalists.
“To start from the beginning is quite exciting, to know that you are starting a community where in those centuries there were virtually no Jews, it motivates you too,” Peterfreund said. “We feel (like) pioneers.”
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Associated Press writer Malak Harb in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; and Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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