US’ Schenker: ‘Government efforts needed to achieve people-to-people normalisation’

US Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker asserted on Tuesday that more government efforts are required in order to attain people-to-people normalisation.

In a special briefing with journalists via telephone, Schenker recognised that the Israeli peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan have brought governments closer, but could not achieve the same effect between the two Arab countries and Israel.

Commenting on the potential actions of the US to help the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-Israel deal achieve this end, Schenker indicated: “We still have the Camp David Peace Treaty from 1978, and there is not a great deal of people-to-people connection between the Israelis and the Egyptians.”

“We have since 1994 the Wadi Araba, which is a great strategic relationship also between Amman and Jerusalem. And yet, we haven’t seen the type of normalisation between peoples that we would have liked to have seen,” Schenker continued.

He stressed that the US is working on this through promoting private business ventures in Egypt, Jordan and Israel, noting that Egyptian and Jordanian workers benefit from this: “But we haven’t seen that sort of level of tourism.”

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Schenker clarified: “I think that’s going to take a real government effort in these countries and in the Gulf. We’re seeing that the UAE is pushing forward for a whole bunch of commercial investments.”

“We’re seeing that they’re moving ahead with the direct flights… and they appear to be really genuine about having what would look like at a real people-to-people peace. We will look at areas in which we can promote that,” Schenker expressed.

Regarding annexation in the UAE-Israel deal, he notes: “The agreement says that there’s no annexation right now. So I think that’s suitable for the Emiratis to move ahead and my guess is that it will be suitable to have other countries in the region move ahead with establishing relationships with Israel.”