"Ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates are 'blossoming,'" a senior official traveling with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters last month.
Blossoming is, perhaps, an understatement. Since the 1978 Camp David Accords, Israel has "normalized" relations with Egypt, Jordan (1994), Mauritania (1999), and most recently, the UAE and Bahrain. Last month Israel and Sudan also signed an agreement to normalize ties.
Yet never has the process of normalization been so fast, and pursued with such mutual enthusiasm, as between Israel and the UAE. And it goes beyond that. The UAE appears to have dropped, in practical terms, any objections to Israel's occupation of Arab lands.
The Emirates last month hosted a group of Israeli settler leaders from the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 war with Jordan, Syria and Egypt.
In October, it also allowed the import of wine produced by Israeli companies in the Golan Heights, also occupied by Israel since 1967.
The UAE will also finance with the US and Israel a project to "modernize" Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank used to control and monitor the movement of Palestinians.
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