What has changed, a year after the Israel-Bahrain-United Arab Emirates agreements

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (left) and his UAE counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyane (right) on June 29, 2021 in Abu Dhabi.

AP - Shlomi Amsalem

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

On September 15, 2020, Israel normalized its relations with two Arab countries: the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

A year after this historic event, relations between Israel and its new Gulf partners appear to be one-sided.

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With our correspondent in Jerusalem,

Sami Boukhelifa

In the wake of this

standardization

, Israeli companies specializing in artificial intelligence and financial or medical technologies, in particular, set out to conquer the United Arab Emirates.

The Hebrew State, nicknamed the “Start-Up Nation”, shares with the wealthy Gulf State the same ambitions in these areas.

In one year, some 200,000 Israelis visited the United Arab Emirates, mainly Dubai, the most popular of the seven emirates.

This summer, Israelis and UAE respectively opened embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.

The representative of Bahrain has just presented his credentials to the Israeli president on Tuesday, September 14.

But if Israel immediately showed its enthusiasm for the UAE market, its Gulf partner seems much more cautious.

Abu Dhabi has certainly announced that it wants to invest $ 10 billion in Israel.

But for the moment, nothing has materialized.

► Also to listen: From Dubai to Bahrain, normalization with Israel seen from the Gulf

United States to reunite Israel, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, one year after relations normalize

Antony Blinken, the head of American diplomacy, announced on Tuesday (September 14th) that he will virtually reunite his counterparts from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco on Friday, to mark the first anniversary of the agreements to normalize relations between the Hebrew state and these Arab countries.

He wants, on this occasion, "to 

commemorate the first anniversary of the signing of the Abrahamic accords and to discuss ways of deepening relations and building a more prosperous region

 ".

After the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at first, Morocco and Sudan had in turn normalized their relations with Israel.

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