UAE says Israeli annexation of occupied West Bank a 'red line'

The UAE has said any move by Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank would be a "red line" for the Gulf state, as Israel ramps up discussions about the move.

The warning is notable because the UAE has emerged as one of the few Arab states to position itself alongside Israel despite its onslaught on Gaza, which human rights groups and experts say is a genocide.

"Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE," said Lana Nusseibeh, the foreign ministry's assistant minister for political affairs, in a statement. "It would severely undermine the vision and spirit of the [Abraham] Accords."

The UAE is a signatory to the 2020 Abraham Accords, along with Morocco and Bahrain, which saw the Arab countries establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. The move was condemned by Palestinians and their supporters.

Israel's genocide in Gaza has created tensions between it and other Arab states, but the UAE has preserved ties with Israel. For example, earlier this year, Israel's foreign minister visited the UAE - one of his only public visits to an Arab state in the last 22 months.

The UAE's ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, also said on the record that Abu Dhabi saw no "alternative" to US President Donald Trump's plan announced in February to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza.

Middle East Eye previously revealed that the UAE has been lobbying the US against an Arab League plan for Gaza and was supportive of Israel displacing Palestinians there to Egypt.

However, there are some signs that the UAE is growing frustrated with Israel.

An analyst familiar with the thinking of Emirati officials told MEE that the UAE was upset by Israel's unilateral attack on Iran earlier this year. Whereas the UAE has long been at odds with Hamas, it has tried to influence the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governance in the occupied West Bank. 

'Israeli regional supremacy'

In a paper that has circulated widely among diplomats in the region and the US, Emirati analyst Mohammed Baharoon said that Gulf states "fear Israel is becoming [a] Goliath".

"Where once Israel might have been viewed as David battling a Goliath-like Arab world, today the roles appear reversed. Israel, empowered by unchecked military might and unwavering US support, is increasingly seen not just as a regional power but as a US-backed regional hegemon," the paper said.

It warned that Gulf leaders are reassessing the Abraham Accords because "long-standing assumptions about American deterrence and Israeli restraint" had been shattered by the war on Gaza and Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

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"Gulf leaders," the paper said, "are reassessing the Abraham Accords. Originally pitched as a framework for promoting peace and stability, the accords now risk legitimising Israeli regional supremacy."

The UAE was created in 1971, after the 1967 war that saw Israel occupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip, taking control from Jordan and Egypt respectively.

The UAE is an oil-rich Gulf state home to 10 million people, of whom only 10 percent are Emirati nationals - the rest being foreign workers and expats. A free-wheeling international business hub, political discussion there is tightly controlled and the ruling family brokers no dissent.

In a podcast last month, US envoy Tom Barrack - who enjoys close ties to Emirati leaders - said UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed "ran" to the Abraham Accords because he had a small country governed by a "monarchy".

The UAE and Israel, like Morocco, enjoyed covert security and economic ties for decades. Still, the UAE framed its decision to enter the Abraham Accords as a move to prevent Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank.

"The reason it happened, the way it happened, at the time it happened was to prevent annexation," Otaiba said in 2021.

That posturing potentially puts pressure on the UAE in the wider Arab and Muslim world as Israel ramps up talk about annexing the occupied West Bank.

The region's biggest country, and increasingly a competitor to the UAE, Saudi Arabia told the US to keep talk of expanding the accords during Trump's visit to the region off the agenda, MEE revealed. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has publicly labelled Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel's finance minister and de facto "governor" of the West Bank, Bezalel Smotrich, unveiled a controversial plan to annex the vast majority of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Smotrich proposed absorbing 82 percent of the occupied West Bank into Israel, a move that would effectively eliminate the prospect of a future Palestinian state.

Israel has threatened to annex the territory in response to moves by Western countries, including France and Canada, to recognise a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly in September.

Israel continues to press ahead with its land grab in the territory. Last month, the Israeli government advanced the so-called E1 settlement plan that would split the occupied West Bank in two.