According to American and Israeli media, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was surprised to hear the Emirati public “warning” over plans to annex most of the West Bank. The proposal was taken off the Israeli cabinet meeting agenda last week.
Extremist members of the cabinet like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have been pressing for annexation for a while. The Netanyahu government saw a ripe moment for the move as a response to many Western countries’ announcements they would recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly this month.
Last week, Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE foreign minister’s assistant for political affairs and special envoy, told Reuters and The Times of Israel in two separate interviews that annexing the West Bank would involve crossing a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration”.
The UAE also used what media reports described as “back channels” to convey its warning, most likely not only to the Israelis but to the Americans as well.
This is a rare public statement of this kind from the Emirates and the first since it signed a normalisation deal with Israel in 2020, part of the Abraham Accords that also included Bahrain and Morocco.
The Washington Post quoted an Israeli official as saying that the warning from the Emirates, one of the Arab countries most supportive of integrating Israel and its economy into the Middle East, caught Netanyahu’s government off guard. “The Emirates have expressed concerns about [annexation] before through other channels, but the statement came as a surprise... It’s very unusual,” the Israeli official said.
An Emirati source told Al-Ahram Weekly that his country is totally against extremists of all kinds as extremism contradicts its strategic goals of tolerance, stability, and prosperity. He referred to the peace deal in 2020, and how it stopped the Netanyahu government annexing parts of the West Bank at the time: “When militants attacked Israel on 7 October, we condemned the attack. Now we can’t accept extremists in the Israeli government pushing for annexation and rendering the ‘two-state’ solution unachievable.”
Despite the Emirati warning, some Israeli officials are pressing ahead with the annexation, considering Donald Trump’s presidency a golden opportunity. Smotrich unveiled a plan to annex 82 per cent of the West Bank last week. He told reporters, “the time has come to remove once and for all from the agenda the idea of dividing our tiny land and establishing a terror state in its centre.”
It is not clear if Trump would recognise the annexation if it happened, as he did with the annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in his first term. The Gulf shift in its position towards Israeli actions would be taken into consideration in Washington. Though the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio might not have a problem with whatever Israel does, the White House is unlikely to risk derailing the Abraham Accords.
Trump is also concerned about the prospects of brokering a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Reports in the Israeli media this week noted that the UAE might freeze the peace accord with Israel, and Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be willing to normalise relations with Israel if Israel went ahead with the annexation of the West Bank and displaced Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
A report by Kan News outlet said the issue was discussed during a recent meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, who met in Riyadh last week. It quoted a Saudi official source saying “the two countries agreed that a pullback from the Abraham Accords would be a realistic option should moves towards annexation be made”.
Days before, the Emirati president had visited Egypt and met with President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. Israeli commentators are concluding that the Gulf is now “fully coordinating” with Egypt and reaching a unified position on annexation and displacement.
As Egypt condemned Netanyahu’s statements on opening the borders for Gazans to transfer into Sinai, the Gulf countries issued strong-worded statements supporting Egypt’s position and condemning Netanyahu’s statements. The official Saudi statement went further, calling the Israeli war on Gaza a genocide. The Emirati statement commended Egypt’s longstanding position of supporting the Palestinian cause.
Netanyahu used to claim that his war on Gaza is part of a campaign to uproot the Iran Axis in the region. But this claim is no longer persuasive to Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia is no longer in conflict with Iran and wants to improve relations with Tehran.
The UAE, which is vigorously fighting militant Islamism and considers Hamas part of the Muslim Brotherhood, is not buying the Israeli justifications either. As the world’s public opinion shifts and the world acknowledges that Israel’s war is not against Hamas or Jihad, but rather on Palestinians — children, women, medics and journalists — it is becoming difficult for Gulf countries to remain indifferent.
Annexing the West Bank and eliminating the Palestinian Authority, which is opposed to Hamas, along with “transfer” projects destabilising Egypt and Jordan, is not something Gulf leaders would swallow – even if they want Hamas and Iran defeated. It is becoming clear that Netanyahu and his extremist partners are intent on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population from what remains of occupied Palestine. Almost all Gulf media outlets highlighted Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty’s remark that “describing the displacement of Palestinians as voluntary is nonsense.”
As the war in Gaza intensifies and the Israeli army erases whole cities and kills scores of civilians by the hour, the mood among the ordinary population in the Gulf is no different to anywhere else: Anger against Israel and sympathy with the Palestinians. Emirati political scientist Abdul-Khaleq Abdullah said many in the UAE were already questioning the wisdom of normalising ties with Israel.
He told The Washington Post: “The sentiment in the UAE is: don’t take us for granted. We value peace and stability, but we won’t go along with this kind of imperial Israel that Netanyahu and Co are coming up with. It’s just not the kind of Israel that we want to be associated with. How long are we going to sustain this genocidal war and be by Israel’s side, with everybody accusing the UAE of being a participant? It’s really damaging.”
Some analysts have gone further in viewing Israel’s current isolation as “a gain for Gulf moderates, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia”, especially with the Americans. Whether that “gain” could be used as leverage to convince Washington to end its support for Israel in whatever it does is still an open question.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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