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UAE calls on Israel to stop threatening to annex West Bank 

June 2, 2020 at 11:36 am

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, 19 June 2018 [WAM]

A unilateral move by Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank would be a serious setback for the Middle East peace process, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs warned yesterday.

“Continued Israeli talk of annexing Palestinian lands must stop,” Anwar Gargash said in a Twitter post.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said that his government would start on 1 July discussions over his plan to extend Israeli sovereignty over areas in the occupied West Bank.

“Any unilateral Israeli move will be a serious setback for the peace process, undermine Palestinian self-determination, and constitute a rejection of the international and Arab consensus towards stability and peace,” Gargash added.

Over the past few years the UAE has increasingly come under criticism for normalising relations with Israel to the detriment of the Palestinian cause. In 2017, Wikileaks revealed that normalisation between the UAE and Israel was ongoing via secret and public channels and through the Emirati Ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba. Adding that ties between the two states had improved since the opening of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi in 2015.

Netanyahu: ‘We will annex 30% of the West Bank area to Israel’

The Emirates has also seen to be backing US President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘deal of the century’ which outlines his vision for peace in the Middle East. The plan has been rejected by Palestinians has giving Israel everything it has asked for and eradicating Palestinian rights.