UAE official warns Israel West Bank settlement plans cross 'red line'

By Maha El Dahan

DUBAI (Reuters) -The United Arab Emirates warned Israel on Wednesday that annexation in the occupied West Bank would constitute a "red line" for Abu Dhabi that would severely undermine the spirit of the Abraham Accords that normalised UAE-Israeli relations.

The comments by the UAE, the most prominent of the three Arab states that signed the accords with Israel when President Donald Trump was first in office, amounted to Abu Dhabi's strongest criticism of Israel since the Gaza war erupted in 2023, when Hamas launched its cross-border raid from the enclave.

Trump has been seeking to expand the accords, but efforts so far to draw in others, including Saudi Arabia, hit the buffers amid growing international criticism in the Arab world, Europe and beyond of the way Israel has conducted the war.

In August, Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that work would start on a long-delayed settlement that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, a move his office said would "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, as well as allies and campaign groups condemned the project, calling it illegal and saying the fragmentation of territory would rip up any peace plans for the region. Smotrich has also called for annexing the West Bank.

Lana Nusseibeh, Assistant Minister for Political Affairs and Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UAE, told Reuters: "From the very beginning, we viewed the Accords as a way to enable our continued support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspiration for an independent state.

"We call on the Israeli government to suspend these (settlement) plans. Extremists of any kind cannot be allowed to dictate the region’s trajectory. Peace requires courage, persistence and a refusal to let violence define our choices."

'RED LINE'

Nusseibeh added that "annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE" as it would severely undermine "the vision and spirit" of the Abraham Accords and end

the pursuit of regional integration.

The Israeli prime minister's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UAE's remarks.

Under the Abraham Accords, signed during President Donald Trump's first term in office, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco normalised diplomatic relations with Israel following U.S. mediation.

In those accords, the biggest prize for Israel was the UAE, the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel. The UAE is a major global oil producer and a commercial and trade hub with diplomatic clout extending across the Middle East.

At the time the agreements were reached, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brimmed with optimism, arguing "this peace will eventually expand to include other Arab states".

He even predicted that "ultimately it can end the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all".

The accords were a triumph for Trump who, in his current, second term, hopes he can persuade pivotal regional power Saudi Arabia to also normalise ties with Israel and further ease the latter's isolation in the region.

But Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed over 62,000 Palestinians, demolished the heavily built-up enclave and created a humanitarian disaster, diverting attention away from Trump's efforts to extend Israeli-Arab normalisation.

(Reporting by Maha El Dahan; additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell; writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Ros Russell, William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)