Netanyahu shelves UAE trip following spat with Jordan

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pic) cancelled a historic visit to the United Arab Emirates, citing a disagreement with Jordan over crossing its airspace.

Israel normalised ties with the UAE last year and has been bound by a peace treaty with Jordan since 1994.

“His visit was postponed due to difficulties in coordinating his flight in Jordanian airspace,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

The statement said that the overflight row stemmed from the cancellation by Israel of a planned visit on Wednesday by Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein to the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Al-Aqsa mosque compound is Islam’s third holiest site and Jordan is the custodian of the compound, known by Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and as the Temple Mount by Jews.

The prince’s visit was called off following “a dispute over security and safety arrangements at the site,” the Israeli statement added.

Netanyahu later said he had spoken with UAE’s leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

“We agreed that we would meet very soon, ...and that the UAE would invest $10 billion in investments in Israel,” Netanyahu said.

The UAE said the $10 billion fund will “invest in and alongside Israel, across sectors including energy manufacturing, water, space, healthcare and agri-tech,” according to the UAE’s official news agency WAM.

Fund allocations “will derive from government and private sector institutions,” it added.

Netanyahu told reporters that the UAE trip “was not possible due a misunderstanding” with Jordan.

Jordan later cleared Netanyahu’s plane for travel, according to the premier’s office.

Commenting on the fracas surrounding the Al-Aqsa visit at a news conference in Paris, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said: “We had agreed with Israel on the arrangements for the visit.

“But we were surprised at the last moment that Israel wanted to impose new arrangements.”

The new arrangements Israel sought were “rejected,” Safadi told reporters, without commenting on the air space issue.  

Israel and the UAE established ties last year in a diplomatic coup for Netanyahu brokered by his staunch ally, the then US president Donald Trump.

The deal made UAE only the third Arab state to establish relations with Israel, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan subsequently reached similar US-brokered agreements with Israel.