Israel to host historic summit with four Arab foreign ministers

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Israel will for the first time in its history host four Arab foreign ministers, in an event that highlights Israel’s new role as a public diplomatic player in the Middle East and will include the participation of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The event, known as the Negev Summit, will take place Sunday and Monday in Kibbutz Sde Boker, which was the home and is also the burial place of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

This will be a “historic summit,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid tweeted on Saturday night. He will be joined at the summit by his counterparts, Blinken of the US, Sameh Shoukry of Egypt, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullatif Al Zayani of Bahrain, and Nasser Bourita of Morocco. As of Saturday night, Jordan was not expected to attend.

The meeting comes after another historic parley, in which Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The meeting highlights Israel’s strengthening normalised relations with its neighbours under the rubric of the Abraham Accords. The UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco formalised diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020. Egypt has had a peace deal with Israel since 1979, with Jordan following in 1994.

The meeting of the Arab ministers is also seen as an important show of regional solidarity against the Iranian nuclear threat and regional aggression.

“The concept of new alliances comes from the fact that we need a long-standing stability regardless if the current American administration is good to us or mediocre,” a source in Abu Dhabi said.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-702409