The deal signed between Israel and United Arab Emirates is perhaps the most significant news coming out of the Middle East for years. Efforts by various media outlets to downplay the significance of the peace deal being signed Tuesday between Israel and the UAE ignore the facts on the ground, and their momentous ramifications for the entire region.
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Massive Trade Increase
Since the announcement of the peace agreement last month, significant developments have already transpired.
While it is true that there has been secretive trade between the two countries for years, normalization of relations between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi will take commerce to new levels.
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Israel’s Economy Ministry projects that annual trade between two countries will rise from the estimated $300,000 that it is now, to between $300 million and $500 million. Jon Medved, the CEO of OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based VC fund, reports that his email is being inundated with businessmen from the UAE asking to meet with him. Similarly, the Gulf Israeli Business Council has been established to assist with the new commercial ties between Israel and the UAE.
Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest bank, has already signed an agreement with the National Bank of Dubai, allowing Israeli clients to conduct direct transactions in the UAE and vice versa. As Shayne Nelson, CEO of National Bank of Dubai explained, the agreement “will open new business and trade opportunities or our clients.”
Coming Together To Combat COVID-19
Immediately after the deal was announced, APEX National Investment, a UAE company, signed “a strategic commercial agreement” for joint research into COVID-19 with the aim of developing a virus testing device.
In addition, Israel’s Sheba Medical Center signed an agreement with APEX to allow for significant medical tourism from the UAE to Israel. This is a major benefit for UAE citizens who have had to pay far more money to travel to Europe and the United States for their medical needs. The deal will also catalyze Israeli doctors to travel to the UAE to help with local medical challenges.
Meanwhile, the UAE will begin to adopt technologies developed by Sheba to treat the coronavirus, including telemedicine solutions and the establishment of field hospitals. The United Arab Emirates will also seek to replicate Sheba’s ARC Innovation Center, which offers health-related startups the opportunity to collaborate with the hospital.
Kosher Food at UAE Hotels, Weekly Flights From Israel Through Saudi Arabia
Regular tourism between the two countries is expected to explode in the wake of the peace agreement. Aviation Links, an Israeli tourism agency, has already signed a deal with the Rixos luxury hotel chain that owns hotels in the UAE. They are planning a massive marketing campaign in Israel that will promote a five day family package costing just $1,389 per person, which will include the flight and a stay at a Rixos hotel in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
Quite remarkably, due to the expected skyrocketing of Israeli tourism to the UAE, the country’s Department of Culture and Tourism has asked all its hotels to make arrangements for certified kosher food.
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Two Israeli airlines, El Al and Israir, are hard at work preparing for flights between the countries. El Al announced weekly cargo flights beginning September 16 – a day after the signing of the normalization agreement at the White House – that will transport agricultural and hi-tech equipment from Israel to the UAE.
Israir has already jumped on the new relations between the countries, reserving slots for eight round trip flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai during October 2020. Saudi Arabia has already agreed to allow all these flights to fly through its airspace, in response to a request from the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority.
Collaborating on Artificial Intelligence Research, Grooving to Omer Adam
Various education initiatives between the two countries are also developing in the wake of the peace announcement. The Mohamed Bi Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) has signed a partnership agreement with the Israeli Weizmann Institute of Science.
The signed agreement seeks to “advance the development and use of artificial intelligence as a tool for progress.” The two universities also seek to collaborate on conferences and academic exchanges. A delegation led by Weizmann Institute President Prof. Alan Chen will be travelling to Abu Dhabi to finalize the details of the agreement.
LeapLearer, an Israel-based K-12 coding education company, is bringing 200,000 Israeli and Emirati students together to partner on developing Python-based apps.
And talks are already underway for Israeli singer Omer Adam to travel to the UAE to perform.
As such, the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is much more than a mere declaration. Based on what has taken place between the two countries in the one month since the deal was announced, with close relationships being built to further develop the hi-tech, tourist, and medical industries of both countries, normalization will change both Israel and the UAE for the better and show the entire region the benefits of cooperating with Israel, rather than attempting to isolate it.
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