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Tel Aviv / Abu Dhabi (dpa) - Six months after the establishment of diplomatic relations, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the first time today.
There he would meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sajid al-Nahjan, reported the Israeli media unanimously.
It would be the first official visit by an Israeli head of government to the Gulf state at all.
Netanyahu is making the trip in the middle of the election campaign.
A new parliament will be elected in Israel in just under two weeks.
The 71-year-old wants to become head of government again.
The visit was reportedly planned for some time, but has been postponed several times.
There was initially no official confirmation for the trip.
The exact program was also unclear.
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Israel signed diplomatic relations agreements with Bahrain and the Emirates in Washington in September.
Observers saw it as a historic treaty and classified the rapprochement as a foreign policy success for Netanyahu, but also for the then US President Donald Trump.
Until then, only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, had diplomatic contacts with Israel.
Morocco and Sudan have since signed similar agreements with the Israeli government.
The Gulf States thus moved away from the decades-long line of Arab governments to refuse relations with Israel as long as the conflict with the Palestinians is not resolved.
In return, Israel announced that it would suspend the annexation of areas in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinians claim for their own state.
Their leadership and other Arab states sharply criticized the agreement and spoke of "treason".
In the Israeli media, the trip was seen as an election campaign maneuver.
According to a report by the news magazine "Walla", representatives of Israel were trying to get Netanyahu to visit the Emirates before the vote.
Emirati circles have expressed concerns that this could be viewed as interference in the election campaign.
Ultimately, the Emirates would still have agreed.
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According to the latest polls, Netanyahu's Likud is likely to become the strongest force.
At the same time, the right-wing conservative party may have difficulties forming a government.
Netanyahu tried very hard to win over the Arab Israelis in the election campaign.
Above all, Israel and the Emirates forge an alliance against their common arch enemy Iran, by which they see themselves threatened.
But they also expect economic benefits from their rapprochement.
They have deepened their contacts on many levels, including in the health and high-tech sectors.
In Israel, the population received this with great approval.
Many Israelis were on vacation in the Gulf state until the flight connection was suspended again for the time being due to allegedly high numbers of corona infections.
The Emirates have been represented with an ambassador in Israel for the first time since the beginning of March.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210311-99-772574 / 3