"Today we are making history that will last for generations," said Benjamin Netanyahu, Tuesday, October 20, during a short speech on the tarmac of Tel Aviv Ben-Gurion airport.
For this first visit to Israel since normalization with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last September, the Israeli Prime Minister was surrounded by the UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs, Obaid Al-Tayer, and the US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin.
"We will remember this day as a glorious day for peace," he added.
After this speech, Israeli and Emirati representatives signed four agreements, including visa exemption.
"We exempt our nationals from visas," continued Benjamin Netanyahu.
Emiratis are now the only nationals of an Arab country who can travel to Israel without a visa.
The other texts concern the protection of investments, aviation and scientific cooperation.
Normalization of Israel-Bahrain relations
The Emirates and Israel signed on September 15 in Washington, under the leadership of US President Donald Trump, the normalization agreement.
Bahrain signed a similar agreement the same day.
These two Gulf States are the first Arab countries to normalize relations with the Hebrew state, since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. On Monday, the UAE government ratified the agreement, validated last week by Parliament Israeli.
The Palestinians denounced these agreements between Arab countries and Israel as a "betrayal", while the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had until then been seen as a sine qua non for normalization between Israel and the Arab states.
With AFP and Reuters
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