ISRAEL - UAE PEACE AGREEMENT
Global News
Leah Levin
On August 16, 2020 Israel achieved a major political and global milestone. The UAE, America and Israel signed the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE. This agreement established full diplomatic relations between the two countries. For Israel, this agreement has been a strategic goal for a long period of time and allows Israel to have relationships with other middle eastern countries so they are no longer isolated. The UAE claims this will halt the annexation of the West Bank and give them military and diplomatic leverage in the Middle East.
The Abraham Accords Peace Agreement provides Israel and the UAE with huge economic opportunities. The agreement helps both Israel with oil supply and the UAE with oil sales. Israel currently buys its oil from Iraq, which travels through Turkey. Israel cannot depend on Iraq or Turkey because of these two countries’ unfriendly relations with Israel. With the UAE selling oil to Israel, Israel has a reliable source of oil and Dubai’s oil revenues would improve.
Additionally, Emirati students will be able to study at Israeli universities. Providing the students with education would help boost the economy of the UAE. Israelis enjoy travelling, and the agreement would mean that UAE would become a very popular Israeli tourist destination. Likewise, Emiratis are now able to travel to Israel. The mutual tourism will be helpful to the economies of both these countries, especially in the aftermath of the coronavirus, which had a large negative impact on the travel industry.
Israel’s startup economy and cutting edge technologies give the UAE, which is an oil driven economy, the chance to become involved in something new and different to allow them to become less dependent on oil.
The Abraham Accords Peace agreement has many positive economic initiatives in store for Israel and the UAE. Both countries will have a new opportunity to build and expand their economies, which is especially crucial because of the pandemic.