Israel’s new Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, on Tuesday, made the highest-level official visit to the United Arab Emirates since the two countries signed a peace agreement last year. He inaugurated Israel’s embassy in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
“This is an historic moment, and a reminder that history is written by human beings. It is written by people who know history, but who are willing to change it. It is written by people who prefer the future to the past,” Lapid said at the ceremony.
Lapid said the agreements they would sign today would not be end of the peace process but the beginning.
“Israel wants peace with its neighbors — with all of its neighbors. We are not going anywhere. The Middle East is our home. We are here to stay, and we call on all countries of the region to recognize this, and to come and talk to us,” Lapid said.
“Peace is not a compromise. It is the most determined decision we can make. Peace is not a weakness, but rather, embodies within it the power of the human spirit. War is a capitulation to all that is evil within us, while peace is the victory of all that is good within us,” he said.
Former President Trump mediated the deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that became known as the Abraham Accords. It was the first peace agreement between Israel and Arab nations in more than 25 years.
Trump and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considered it one of their greatest achievements. Netanyahu had hoped to make a quick trip to the UAE while still in office but wasn’t able to do it. But Lapid honored both Netanyahu and Trump.
“I want to thank, on behalf of us all, Israel’s former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was the architect of the Abraham Accords and who worked tirelessly to bring them about,” Lapid said.
“I want to thank former US President Donald Trump and current US President Joe Biden for their uncompromising support,” he added.
Many analysts said the catalyst for the Israel-UAE agreement was the threat posed by their common enemy Iran. But since the agreement was signed, Israel has established several hundred million dollars with of trade agreements with the UAE and more than 200,000 Israeli tourists have visited there.
Israeli Ambassador to the UAE Eitan Na’eh told CBN News on a recent trip to Abu Dhabi that it’s important to recognize that countries in the Middle East are in “a different place.”
“This is a new place for all of us and we ought to open our eyes and our ears and to brace ourselves and to bless ourselves that we have such relations and to nurture them,” Na’eh said.
Na’eh said at the time that business with the UAE “creates a model” whereby other countries can be a place where Israeli companies “bring magical technology.”
On Monday, Biden told visiting Israeli President Reuven Rivlin that the US “fully supports normalization of relations between Israel and Middle Eastern countries.” And that the US looks forward to building “a wider plot of peace and stability.”
Lapid is due to inaugurate an Israeli consulate in the UAE Emirate of Dubai on Wednesday and visit the Israeli pavilion at the site of the World Fair’s Expo in Dubai that will open in October. He will also meet with members of the expatriate Jewish community there.
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