Official Israeli statistics have revealed that the trade exchange between the UAE and Israel has exceeded $1.5 billion since the beginning of this year, despite the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza and the West Bank.
A recent report from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics highlighted growth in trade volume between Israel and the UAE during the first half of 2024. Global media outlets, citing the “Abraham Accords Peace Institute,” reported figures from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics showing that trade between Israel and the UAE reached $271.9 million in June 2024.
This figure marks a 5% increase compared to the same month last year, bringing the total trade between the two countries in the first six months of the year to $1.66 billion, reflecting a 7% growth compared to the same period in 2023.
The Abraham Accords Peace Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit American organization dedicated to supporting and expanding peace agreements between Israel and Arab states. It was launched by Jared Kushner, former Senior Advisor and son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump, in September 2021, marking the first anniversary of the signing of four peace agreements between Israel and Arab nations.
The Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, are agreements for open normalization between the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel, signed in August 2020, with Morocco joining later.
The unfolding events reveal no ambiguity or hesitation in the UAE’s policy towards Israel. The rulers, known as the “sons of Zayed,” have long made their stance clear: they are unequivocally aligned with Israel and the crushing of Hamas and all Palestinian resistance factions. In fact, they are more enthusiastic about what is termed “completing the mission” than Israel itself.
According to Lebanon’s “Al-Akhbar” newspaper, the UAE is unabashed in directly investing in Israeli crimes. Just this week, two significant events occurred on this front.
The first was the announcement of an Israeli company “Rafael” opening a branch in Abu Dhabi to convert Emirates aircraft into cargo planes. The second was the financial rescue of the Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi, who was facing financial difficulties, by injecting a billion dollars into his auction house, Sotheby’s, after being shunned by Qatar due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Drahi owns Israel’s HOT cable network and i24 news channel, both staunch defenders of Israeli massacres in Gaza.
Since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020, hardly a week passes without a new investment in Israel or in collaboration with it, even though announcements of figures reflecting the growth of commercial relations between the two sides have decreased during the war.
The most recent announcement was by Israel’s ambassador to the UAE, Amir Hayek, who stated in mid-2023 that trade with Israel had reached $1.29 billion in the first five months of the year, excluding software trade for which no figures were disclosed.
As for the UAE’s “Gallant Knight” initiative to aid Gazans, with three editions so far, it bears no resemblance to gallantry or nobility. These virtues would first require boycotting the enemy oppressing the Palestinians, not directly investing in its machinery of oppression.
Moreover, the aid provided by the Gulf state to Palestinians in Gaza pales in comparison to what is channeled to Israel through a corridor opened via Saudi Arabia and Jordan, supplying Israel with all it needs from UAE ports after the Ansar Allah movement successfully imposed a blockade on Israel’s Eilat port in the Red Sea.
Who said this token aid isn’t part of a soft war tool parallel to Israel’s extermination war on Gaza? The reality is that it has dubious goals that ultimately serve the role that the “sons of Zayed” regime could play in post-war Gaza.
This role is in high demand by Israel, hence Abu Dhabi’s ability to establish a field hospital in the Gaza Strip that is not bombed, while all Palestinian hospitals there are being leveled to the ground.
Similarly, the UAE can set up bakeries in Gaza that remain untouched, while no stone remains standing in any other bakery. In the same vein, the UAE can evacuate a thousand wounded Gazans and treat them in its hospitals, while other wounded people die because they are not allowed to leave.
The UAE is leading the plans for managing post-war Gaza
The UAE played a key role in facilitating the entry of aid through Cyprus before it was halted after the Israelis noticed that Gazans might be getting their first full meal since the start of the war.
In all the scenarios laid out by the Americans and Israelis for post-war Gaza management, you will find the UAE, faithfully executing its role as the “Gallant Knight,” at the forefront.
Through all this, the UAE, albeit on a small scale for now, and possibly on a larger scale later, provides what it and the U.S. and Israel hope will be an alternative to Hamas’ administration of Gaza, whether in distributing aid now or potentially managing the Strip later. Notably, Abu Dhabi has even a security tool for this mission, namely Mohammed Dahlan and his faction.
Additionally, there are other goals related to internal UAE matters. These aid efforts can mislead many ordinary Emiratis into viewing them as humanitarian acts done in their name for the benefit of Palestinians, especially since Israeli crimes in Gaza have generated a suppressed public outrage in the UAE due to the nature of the relationship their country maintains with the enemy.
Thus, given that Israel’s real goal is the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza or their expulsion, the role of the “Gallant Knight” Emirati becomes one of feeding the sacrificial lamb before it’s led to slaughter.
What the UAE can do for Israel, no one else can, and the failure of the U.S. sea bridge is a clear example of that.
The newspaper concluded that the UAE is “an Arab-speaking country, able to communicate with the Palestinians in the Strip, and capable of influencing them by being, in some cases, the only channel through which anything can enter their mouths and stomachs amid hunger.”
Yet, the UAE’s role has not yet reached the point of provoking the resistance, which is concerned with the arrival of even a little aid to Palestinians, even if through the devil.
