Top aides to U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the United Arab Emirates on a historic flight from Tel Aviv on Monday to finalize a pact marking open relations between the Gulf nation and Israel.
Even before discussions start in Abu Dhabi, the delegates made aviation history when the Israeli commercial airliner flew over Saudi territory on the direct flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital.
"That's what peace for peace looks like," Netanyahu tweeted, hailing what he termed a historic flight and describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.
Announced on August 13, the "normalization" deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalyzed largely by shared fears of Iran.
Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE's move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory - and acceptance of Palestinian statehood - in return for normal relations with Arab countries.
A flight crew member stands in front of the Israeli flag carrier El Al's airliner bearing the Arabic, English and Hebrew word for "peace" and which will carry Israeli and U.S. delegations to Abu Dhabi for talks meant to put final touches on the normalization deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, August 31, 2020. /Reuters
Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O'Brien head the U.S. delegation. The Israeli team is led by O'Brien's counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defense envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.
Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a Washington signing ceremony, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November. In Jerusalem on Sunday, Kushner said the deal was a "giant step forward."
The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel. The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, has signaled it is not ready.
But in what could presage a more relaxed posture by Riyadh, the El Al plane on Monday will be allowed to overfly Saudi territory to cut flight time.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Kushner and his team were "scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible" to give Trump an election boost.
"They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region," she said.