Netanyahu Nabs Invite to UAE for COP28 Conference
Invitation is not for an official visit, which would have focused much ceremonial pomp and circumstance on the Israeli prime minister
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was invited to visit the United Arab Emirates as Israel’s head of government on Monday—a first for the newly restored PM. However, instead of an official visit, the PM—alongside Israel’s head of state, President Isaac Herzog—was invited to attend November’s global climate summit COP28.
Many world leaders have refrained from inviting Netanyahu and his top ministers for official visits since January 2023, when Netanyahu regained his premiership as head of a far-right and ultra-Orthodox coalition government. Officials from several governments have expressed discomfort with members of his coalition.
Israel and the UAE first established official diplomatic relations during Netanyahu’s previous premiership. The 2020 Abraham Accords were seen as a triumph. The UAE and fellow Gulf state Bahrain became the first Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel in more than two decades. In 1994, Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel. Following the UAE and Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan joined the accords.
After the accords were signed, Israel nosedived into a period of political instability. The country held five elections in less than three years. During that period, and after Netanyahu resumed office in January 2023, he made several attempts to be invited on an official visit to the UAE as Israel’s prime minister but had no success.
While Netanyahu was heading the opposition, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett visited Abu Dhabi in June 2022. Yair Lapid succeeded Bennett as part of the coalition agreement and visited the Emirates in September 2022.
According to Dr. Shaul Yanai, a Gulf specialist, and lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Netanyahu has not been officially invited because his partners in government and their ideologies are offensive to many in the Arab world and the international community.
In January 2023, the Prime Minister’s Office announced an official trip to Abu Dhabi, which was later postponed after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, an act condemned by several Arab countries, including the Emirates.
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After Netanyahu regained his position in the 2022 elections, Yanai told The Media Line that the Arab countries, not just the Emirates, expressed their concern for his far-right government, mainly with [Bezalel] Smotrich and Ben Gvir as senior ministers.”
“You can understand that they would not be welcome in the Emirates,” he added.
It is, in a way, a signal that they are not ready to receive him in the way he had wanted, as an official visit by a leader of the state
Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum, Gulf expert at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, told The Media Line that inviting Netanyahu to COP28 can be seen as an “in between,” move by the UAE.
“It is, in a way, a signal that they are not ready to receive him in the way he had wanted, as an official visit by a leader of the state. But they’re not boycotting him and he’s invited to attend, along with many world leaders, to discuss issues of climate change,” Teitelbaum said.
He noted that the invitation is part of a general trend in Middle Eastern countries to end regional conflicts, citing the negotiations in Sudan, and of course, Assad being invited to the Arab League Summit.
“They are in a mood of reconciliation in the Arab world, and there didn’t seem to be a reason to not have Netanyahu come to this conference on climate change, which basically everyone is invited to,” he said.
Netanyahu is the most experienced politician in Israel, and he knows what it is to be welcomed on an official visit
Yanai believes that Netanyahu will only attend if he knows he is meeting the UAE’s top government officials during the visit. Netanyahu is aware, Yanai says, that he is not overwhelmingly welcomed in the Gulf country.
“Netanyahu is the most experienced politician in Israel, and he knows what it is to be welcomed on an official visit,” he said.
