Category Archives: United Arab Emirates

Israel’s pact with the UAE is not about peace. It’s a business deal | Sami Abu Shehadeh

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Palestinian homes are still being demolished and illegal settlements expanded. That’s why tomorrow I’ll be voting against the agreement in the Knesset

Tomorrow, the Israeli parliament will be voting on the agreement to normalise relations with the United Arab Emirates. A large majority will approve a hugely favourable step towards the Israeli government’s goals: perpetuating its systematic violations of international law and of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights. Those parliamentarians who believe in justice and equality are going to vote against this agreement. I’m afraid, though, that we are a tiny minority.

This week, we were given copies of the agreement, which I read in the three languages (Arabic, Hebrew and English) and figured out a few things. First of all, those who wrote it in different languages tailored it to their audiences. While in English and Hebrew, they repeated the word “normalisation” several times, it is not even mentioned in Arabic. This is a business deal that merely establishes diplomatic relations, and not a peace agreement. The word “annexation” (of occupied Palestinian territory) is not even mentioned.

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‘They have to be punished’: the mothers trapped in the UAE by ‘love crimes’

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Single migrant women left destitute by Covid can’t leave until they have served sentences for sex outside marriage – but virus restrictions mean prisons won’t accept them

When Reyna* took a taxi to Al-Awir prison in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, she was hoping to turn herself in and be admitted as an inmate. The former domestic worker from the Philippines had brought her three-month-old son along with her.

Reyna lost her job during the pandemic; she can no longer pay for their rent or food and wants to return to her homeland. But in order to be permitted to leave the UAE she must first serve a jail sentence for having sex outside marriage, which is illegal under the country’s Islamic laws.

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Turkey and UAE openly flouting UN arms embargo to fuel war in Libya

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Guardian joint investigation finds both sides send military cargo planes to region, in blatant violation of agreement to end conflict

Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are carrying out regular and increasingly blatant violations of the UN arms embargo on Libya, fuelling a proxy war that is evading political solutions, a joint investigation by the Guardian has found.

Flight data and satellite images show both nations using large-scale military cargo planes to funnel in goods and fighters to forces or proxies inside Libya, routinely violating the 2011 UN arms embargo despite political promises to abstain.

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Saudi heir and Jared Kushner inch kingdom towards deal with Israel

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Saudi Arabia’s interventions could result in seismic shift in region’s geopolitics

As the UAE and Bahrain prepared to sign a deal to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel this summer, Saudi Arabia – the regional heavyweight – was quietly urging them on.

For several months before the deals were signed at the White House, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been laying out his rationale for a pact that would overturn regional policies towards a long-term foe.

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Trump’s pre-election diplomatic offensive glosses over awkward realities

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The ‘Abraham accords’ merely make public once-furtive friendships between Israel and Gulf monarchies, while bigger problems remain

The White House was festooned with the flags of four nations. There were trumpet blasts, multiple signatures on various pieces of paper, and much weighty talk about blood and history – everything you might expect from a peace deal.

And not just any peace deal. The agreements signed in Washington on Tuesday were titled the Abraham Accords, implying a epochal reconciliation between Judaism, Islam and Christianity, three faiths with shared Middle East ancestry.

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‘It’s going to be peace in the Middle East’: Trump on historic accords – video

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A historic agreement signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at the White House will, according to Donald Trump, ‘be peace to the Middle East.’

They signed agreements to establish formal relations, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy as power and priorities shift in the region.

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UAE, Bahrain and Israel sign historic accords at White House event

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Trio establish formal relations at ceremony viewed as image boost for Trump and Netanyahu

Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have signed agreements to establish formal relations, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy as power and priorities shift in the Middle East.

“Today’s signing sets history on a new course,” Donald Trump told a crowd outside the White House where the deal was signed. “This an incredible day for the world,” he said.

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Turkey threatens to suspend UAE ties over deal with Israel

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‘The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,’ says Erdoğan

Turkey has threatened to suspend its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and recall its envoy, a day after the Gulf state announced it would become the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel.

“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Friday.

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‘It’s a game and we lost’: Palestinians decry Gulf moves towards Israel

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Israel’s relationship with neighbours is no longer defined by occupation, Palestinians say

Shortly after Donald Trump announced he had brokered a “huge breakthrough” deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the White House published a list of bullet points detailing what it had achieved.

Only at the bottom, just after “expanded business and financial ties between these two thriving economies”, did the very last sentence blandly mention what had previously been the key regional issue: the fate of the Palestinians.

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Israel-UAE deal: Israelis and Palestinians react to historic agreement – video

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Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced an agreement on Thursday that will lead to a full normalisation of diplomatic relations between the two states, a move that reshapes the order of Middle East politics from the Palestinian issue to Iran. However, cracks in the deal became quickly apparent, with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there was 'no change' to his annexation plans, while the UAE insisted that it 'immediately stops annexation'. The agreement was rejected by Palestinians, with some calling it a conspiracy.

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Israel signs historic deal with UAE that will ‘suspend’ West Bank annexation

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Trump hails US-brokered pact as ‘peace agreement’ but cracks quickly appear as Netanyahu denies change of plan

Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties in a historic Washington-brokered deal under which Israel will “suspend” its plans to annex parts of the Palestinian territories.

However, cracks in the deal became quickly apparent after its announcement on Thursday, with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying there was “no change” to his annexation plans, while the UAE insisted that it “immediately stops annexation”.

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Foe of a foe – the shared interests that make UAE a ‘friend’ of Israel

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Common ground rests on a ‘peace plan’ aided by splintered Arab solidarity over Palestine

The peace deal that few saw coming had been gathering steam in plain sight. Even before the election of Donald Trump, Israel and the UAE had been inching closer, drawn together by three factors – enmity with Iran, a loathing of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a mutual belief that the agreed formula for peace with Palestinians was no longer working.

More than anything else, combating Iran became the conduit for the two sides. The adage of a foe of a foe becoming a friend has rarely been more apt. Tehran’s determination to acquire a nuclear weapon, its extensive reach into the Arab world, potential to shut off the Strait of Hormuz, and Shia Islamic revolutionary zeal, provided enough common ground for both sides to sharply deepen intelligence links to strategic levels over the past four years.

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Israel and UAE agree to ‘historical peace agreement’, says Donald Trump – video

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Donald Trump has said the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state. US officials described the agreement, to be known as the Abraham Accords, as the first of its kind since Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. It also gives Trump a foreign policy success as he seeks re-election in November

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Juan Carlos, Spain’s disgraced former king, may be in Abu Dhabi, reports suggest

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A week after going into exile, the scandal-hit former monarch is said to be staying in a $12,000-a-night suite in the Emirates palace hotel

At first it was Portugal, then the Dominican Republic, but now Abu Dhabi is firming as the most likely place of residence for Spain’s scandal-hit former king Juan Carlos.

On Saturday, Spain’s NIUS media group published an image that showed a man with at least the likeness of Juan Carlos in a face mask, descending from a plane.

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Scandal-hit NMC Health on verge of liquidation

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Administrators outline position of UAE’s largest healthcare provider which faces multiple investigations

Joint administrators for NMC Health, the holding company of the UAE-based healthcare provider NMC Group, have said the company will probably be dissolved or put into liquidation.

Administrators from the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal Europe were appointed in April to oversee the hospital operator, after an application from one of its biggest creditors, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

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‘I’m trapped’: the UAE migrant workers left stranded by Covid-19 job losses

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In debt, unable to earn and refused repatriation over coronavirus fears, many migrant workers face an uncertain future

Each night, Bipul* is kept awake by the fear of loan sharks hounding his parents for the money he owes. Five months ago, the 25-year-old Sri Lankan borrowed $1,400 (£1,120) to pay recruiters to take him to the United Arab Emirates, where he got a job as cleaner at a five-star hotel. But since the coronavirus outbreak there are no longer any guests, so he no longer has work and the loan is going unpaid.

“I really need a job so I can repay it,” he says. “I also need to earn money to help my family. This is such a big problem.”

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Migrant workers bear brunt of coronavirus pandemic in Gulf

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Rights groups say host countries should offer foreign workers same protections as citizens

Crammed into work camps, stood down from their jobs, facing high rates of infection and with no way home, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, migrant advocates and diplomats say.

Such workers’ risk of exposure to Covid-19 is so high, rights groups say, that host countries need to offer the same protections granted to their citizens or face the threat of a rampant outbreak that proves ever more difficult to contain.

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Clashing UAE and Saudi interests are keeping the Yemen conflict alive

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As the fifth anniversary of the Saudi and Emirati coalition intervention dawns, the prospect of peace is further away than ever

Aisha al-Temmimi, 21, has never adjusted to the dust and heat of the Yemeni desert city of Marib. Her family are from the lush green highlands of Hajjah in the country’s north, but were forced to leave after fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and government forces reached their village two years ago.

Marib, already rich in oil and gas reserves, has become something of a boom town since Yemen’s war broke out, a place where those displaced by violence elsewhere in the country have found relative safety. Even Marib’s stability, however, has proven fragile after fierce new battles to the north and west of the city.

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Sheikh’s daughter called UK police after kidnap, lawyer claims

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Revelation fuels calls for investigations into Cambridgeshire force and Foreign Office after high court bombshell

There are demands for independent inquiries into the roles of the Foreign Office and Cambridgeshire police after an investigation into the abduction of a princess on a British street was allowed to lapse.

Princess Shamsa Al Maktoum of Dubai was snatched two decades ago by men working for her father, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, the billionaire ruler of Dubai, who is a friend of the Queen.

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