AVA - UAE official accuses Palestinians of ‘ungratefulness’ after criticism of Israel ties

UAE official accuses Palestinians of ‘ungratefulness’ after criticism of Israel ties

A high-ranking United Arab Emirates (UAE) official has accused Palestinians of “ingratitude” and “lack of loyalty” after Ramallah’s envoy to France harshly criticized the Persian Gulf state and Bahrain over signing normalization agreements with the Israeli regime.

“I was not surprised by the statements made by the Palestinian Ambassador to Paris [Salman El Herfi], and his ungrateful discussion of the Emirates,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.
“We have grown accustomed to the lack of loyalty and the ingratitude. We proceed toward the future confident in all our actions and beliefs,” he added.
Earlier, El Herfi told French magazine Le Point in an interview that UAE and Bahrain “have become more Israeli than Israel” itself and are violating the Charter of the United Nations.
‘UAE dictator playing with fire’
The Palestinian diplomat said that the UAE had long abandoned the Palestinian cause and that he wasn’t surprised by Abu Dhabi’s decision to normalize with Tel Aviv.
“The only new thing was the formalization of this relationship. I thank them (UAE officials) for having revealed their true face,” he said.
“The truth is that the Emirates were never at the Palestinians’ side,” El Herfi went on, noting that the UAE froze aid for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) back in 1985.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is merely “a little dictator who wants to become known, and he’s playing with fire,” the veteran Palestinian diplomat said.
The UAE’s de facto leader “surrendered to Israel without a fight,” El Herfi added.
He said the UAE and Bahrain violated a long list of Arab League and UN resolutions by normalizing ties with Israel.
The Palestinian ambassador also denounced the two deals as “pure propaganda,” saying they had neither parliamentary approval nor public support.

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“And with all due respect, how many Emiratis are there in the world, 800 thousand? And Bahrainis, 500 thousand? There are 340 million Arabs,” he said.
“In fact, these two countries have come more Israeli than the Israelis. But we have full confidence in the fact that their people will not accept this over the long term,” El Herfi pointed out.
Relations between the UAE and the Palestinians have soared ever since the Emirates and Israel agreed as part of a US-brokered deal to establish formal relations on August 13.
Emirati officials have described the normalization deal with the Tel Aviv regime as a means to stave off annexation and save the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians, however, dismiss the claims, saying the deal had long been in the works in the course of secret contacts between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.
Israeli leaders have lined up to reject the UAE’s bluff that Israel’s annexation plans were off the table. Netanyahu has underlined that annexation is not off the table, but has simply been delayed.

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Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, view the deals as a betrayal of their cause and say they run counter to a long-standing Arab consensus over a “two-state solution” along the 1967 borders.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the agreements will be fruitless as long as the United States and the Israeli regime do not recognize the rights of the Palestinian nation and refuse to resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees.