Israeli conflict: Experts pin hope on UAE's good offices

Dubai - The UAE condemned the violence in Jerusalem and called on the Israeli authorities to take responsibility for de-escalation and to end all attacks

Experts are pinning hope that the UAE could use its diplomatic might and new-found friendship with Israel to end the spiralling conflict with Palestine that has claimed more than 50 lives and injured hundreds.

Pinning the blame on Israel for its disproportionate retaliation, Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, professor of political science at the UAE University, said the current tension will be a litmus test for the Abraham Accords – the US-negotiated peace deal that normalised ties between the UAE and Israel in September 2020.

“We can see how the UAE and other Arab nations will leverage their new friendship to de-escalate the situation. It is the biggest test for the Abraham Accords on whether it can put the Israeli aggression on a leash,” said Prof Abdulla.

However, the Emirati professor said the UAE’s overwhelming support for Palestinians, despite its friendship with Israel, gives hope that the Palestinian cause remains the Arab world’s top priority.

“The normalising of relations with Israel has not deterred the UAE from throwing its full weight behind the Palestinian cause.”

He said Israelis have gone too far with their “land grabbing” and depriving Palestinians of their rights, as guaranteed by international law.

“They have the right to resist and self-defend. It is the universal right of any people who are living under occupation,” said Prof Abdulla.

The UAE condemned the violence in Jerusalem and called on the Israeli authorities to take responsibility for de-escalation and to end all attacks and practices that lead to continued tension.

“The UAE stands with the Palestinian right, with the end of the Israeli occupation, with the two-state solution, and with an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and this is a historic and principled position that does not budge,” Dr Anwar Gargash, UAE’s former minister of state for foreign affairs, tweeted.

The Arab League condemned the Israeli air strikes as “indiscriminate and irresponsible.”

“Israeli violations in Jerusalem, and the government’s tolerance of Jewish extremists hostile to Palestinians and Arabs, is what led to the ignition of the situation in this dangerous way,” Arab league chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement.

Rana Tomaira, lecturer and research scientist at New York University,Abu Dhabi, said the de-escalation can be done only through decolonisation.

“We have to address the root of the problem, which is a European settler colonial movement that settled in Palestine claiming religious rights. They want the land but not the people that are living there.”

She said the intensifying of clashes during the holy month of Ramadan has not come as a surprise. “Palestinian access to the mosque has always been hindered by the Israeli police force.”

She said the decades of conflict have fragmented Palestinians into different categories — those who have citizenship inside Israel, Palestinians in Jerusalem, in West Bank, those in Gaza, in West Bank, and those living in refugee camps and Palestinian diaspora.

“But the recent events have brought all these groups to the fore as one nation. All of a sudden the world is seeing that all of them are part of the same struggle for nationhood.”

Two people were killed after a rocket hit a vehicle in the area, Israeli media reported. Hamas said it fired 210 rockets towards Beersheba and Tel Aviv in response to the bombing of the tower buildings in Gaza City.