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Israel’s first commercial flight to the United Arab Emirates is underway, marking an important step in normalizing relations after the announcement of a peace agreement.
An Israeli El Al plane will make the three-hour trip, with a delegation of Israeli and American officials.
The flight is allowed to cross Saudi Arabian airspace, normally blocked for Israeli air traffic.
The United Arab Emirates became the third Middle Eastern Arab country to recognize Israel since its founding in 1948.
On Saturday, the United Arab Emirates repealed a law boycotting Israel that had been in place since 1972, and earlier this month the two countries opened direct telephone services for the first time.
The agreement to normalize relations, brokered by the United States, was made public in a surprise announcement on August 13.
Flight LY971, numbered to represent the UAE’s international dialing code, carries delegates including Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and Israel’s national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat.
image copyrightReutersKushner led secret talks that resulted in the agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The joint teams will meet with Emirati representatives to develop areas of cooperation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The return flight will have the number LY972, after the Israel international dialing code.
In a tweet in Hebrew, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the advent of the flight as an example of “peace for peace,” alluding to his long-standing disbelief in the notion that only trading in occupied lands will bring peace between Israel and the Arab countries. .
While it was well received by much of the international community, the UAE’s recognition of Israel without the precondition of the creation of a Palestinian state was denounced by the Palestinians as a betrayal of their cause.
In exchange for official relations with the United Arab Emirates, Netanyahu agreed to suspend controversial plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state of their own.
Before the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan were the only other Arab countries in the Middle East to officially recognize Israel, after signing peace treaties in 1978 and 1994 respectively.
Mauritania, a member of the Arab League in northwestern Africa, established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, but severed relations in 2010.
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United Arab Emirates
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