A flight lasting only a few hours will end on Monday a boycott that has lasted nearly 50 years. An Israeli aircraft is scheduled to take off from Ben-Gurion International Airport for Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The three hours of the flight will carry historic meaning.
First, a prominent Arab country has left the circle of hatred and is making peace with Israel. Second, the delegation traveling to that country will do so on a plane that proudly displays the Israeli flag, and which will also be the first Israeli aircraft to cross the airspace of Saudi Arabia, the strongest and most stubborn of the Sunni bloc. Third, El Al will finally be operating a commercial flight, which is worthy of note in this era of coronavirus.
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The flight will be carrying a delegation of high-ranking Israeli officials, under the leadership of National Security Council leader Meir Ben-Shabbat. He and various directors of government ministries are slated to meet with their Emirati counterparts to work out agreements for bilateral cooperation. Senior officials in the Trump administration, who organized the flight and will be on it, have overcome obstacles.
"Best man" Jared Kushner expressed justifiable pride on Sunday at the Abraham Deal he has helped broker. Kushner did what many in the White House have failed to do – bring peace. That could be seen in the picture the White House sent out all over the world on Sunday, of Israeli and Emirati representatives sitting together around the same table.
After two decades of hints, slivers of information, and behind-the-scenes contact, the ties will be made public. Israelis will no longer have to travel to the Persian Gulf in secret. They will no longer have to use foreign passports to enter the UAE. Emirati citizens who come to Israel will no longer have to disguise themselves. No more tricks and games intended to hide what everyone knew. From now on, everything will be out in the open, public and official.
Israel and the UAE will stop keeping their friendship quiet. Starting Monday afternoon, they'll be able to tell everyone.
And something no less important: This is expected to be a true friendship, actual cooperation between the two peoples. Unlike Egypt and Jordan, where peace is formal and exists only at the level of the national leadership, peace with the Emirates started from the bottom.
For years, there has been cooperation in the fields of business, technology, health, and apparently defense, and both sides have been pleased. Now they are simply coming to light and receiving seals of approval, which will likely give the cooperation a big boost. News out of the Emirates points to great excitement there over official relations with Israel. The Emiratis, according to an Israeli official who is in contact with them, want the ties no less than we do.
And so, after it was nearly lost from the Israeli vocabulary, the word "peace" is suddenly back on our lips. True, the United Arab Emirates was never an enemy state and has never attacked Israel. The two countries have no common border, and it's doubtful whether Israel's Military Intelligence has ever added it to the "vital reports" list. Nevertheless, it is a Muslim kingdom that espouses Sharia law and is a member of what used to be the Arab League.
Now the UAE has made a choice that echoes. Instead of Iran's murderousness, radicalism, and violence, the Emirates are embracing friendship with Israel. They are turning on the light to cast out the darkness. Courageously and wisely, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed and his people are keeping their faith while adding progress, science, technology, tolerance, and peace. This is a model that will influence the entire Middle East, and maybe even farther.
This historic breakthrough is taking place after decades in which it has been explained to us that without a peace deal with the Palestinians, it will not be possible to make peace with other Arab countries, and that "territory for peace" is the only formula under which that will happen. And now – we have a peace deal without having conceded an inch. In effect, one of the main catalysts for the Abraham Deal was actually the Trump plan. The famous vision announced in January 2020 is, without a doubt, the most comfortable one ever offered to Israel, and includes the daring idea of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, a step that both Kushner and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have mentioned in the past few days. The Emirates was satisfied with the declaration of sovereignty being postponed, rather than canceled, and no one knows how long the postponement will last.
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This in itself is a historic change, and only someone who has closely followed diplomatic developments in the last 10 years can really understand its significance. "The wandering chorus," as Netanyahu calls the diplomatic correspondents who have been following him since 2009, was in the Oval Office when he and former US President Barack Obama traded cold looks and preached at each other.
That "chorus," of which I am a member, was at the Bahrain Conference last year, the first time Israeli journalists were allowed into an Arab state on passports bearing the Star of David. When we dared visit the kingdom's small synagogue, the idea of being allowed to pray in another Arab country was something I could only imagine. And now it's happening, and we'll do it again.
