UAE president congratulates Netanyahu on forming a government

The new Israeli prime minister also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

By JNS

United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on forming a government, according to a statement released Saturday night by Netanyahu’s office.

Bin Zayed repeated his invitation for Netanyahu to make an official visit to Abud Dhabi, which the two leaders agreed would happen soon.

Netanyahu was prime minister in Sept. 2020 when Israel normalized relations with the UAE and Bahrain as part of the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords.

Last month, Israeli President Isaac Herzog traveled to both Gulf states to mark the two-year anniversary of the historic agreements.

“The Abraham Accords are a national consensus in Israel on all sides of the political spectrum,” Herzog said at the time, adding: “Now we have to … upgrade ties between us even more, to strengthen them and to bring more nations [on board].”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s office also said that he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. While the statement noted that Kyiv on Friday decided not to vote in favor of an anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations, it added that there was “no comment on the diplomatic discussions that were held.”

While Zelenskyy has been pressing Israel to supply Kyiv with weapons, Jerusalem has to date shied away from arming the country over fears of upsetting Russia, the leading player in Syria, where the Israeli military has in recent years carried out hundreds of aerial strikes aimed at curbing Iran’s military entrenchment and the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah there and in Lebanon.