Lapid Ends UAE Visit With Consulate Opening

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday concluded his two-day visit in the United Arab Emirates, inaugurating Jerusalem’s consulate general in Dubai alongside Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi. The ceremony also was attended by the Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz and the country’s first consul in Dubai, Ilan Sztulman. “We’re starting to get used to making history,” Lapid joked in his remarks, after he yesterday inaugurated the Abu Dhabi embassy and met with counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed. “This consulate isn’t symbolic. It’s a place of life, of tourism and business, of dialogue between two talented peoples who can and who want to contribute to one another. We’re standing here because we don’t accept reality. We create [it],” Lapid said. On Tuesday, the two countries’ top diplomats signed a landmark economic and trade cooperation deal, cementing the normalization accord reached between the Jewish state and Gulf nation in August.