Analyst: Embassy in Tel Aviv shows UAE disregard for plight of Palestinians

A media commentator says the United Arab Emirates’ recent move to open an embassy in Tel Aviv reflects the disregard of the unelected despots for the plight of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation.

Iqbal Jassat, an executive at the Johannesburg-based Media Review Network (MRN), a socio-political advocacy group that concerns itself with media and political analysis, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

Jassat said the UAE has “foolishly embarked on an abysmal route to disaster” by plunging into a formal diplomatic process with the occupying entity.

“It does so conscious of the fact that Israel is a belligerent enemy of international laws and conventions and to bolster its defiance requires pliant Arab dictatorships as partners,” he added.

On Wednesday, the UAE opened its embassy, situated in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, just two weeks after the inauguration of Israel’s mission in Abu Dhabi.

Palestinian resistance groups denounce opening of UAE embassy in Tel Aviv

Several Palestinian resistance factions condemn the inauguration of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embassy in Tel Aviv.

The UAE, along with Bahrain, signed normalization pacts with the Tel Aviv regime during an official ceremony hosted by former US president Donald Trump at the White House in September 2020. Palestinians slammed the deals as a treacherous "stab in the back" of their cause against the Israeli occupation.

Jassat said the UAE’s collaboration with Israel is an “affront” not only to the dignity of its own population and the wider Arab world, but also to the brave men, women and children’s daily resistance against the brutalities of occupation.

“Abject betrayal of Palestine's freedom struggle underlines UAE capitulation to the apartheid regime. It displays gross insensitivity and reprehensible disregard for the plight of Palestinians,” he noted.

“Formalization of diplomatic relationships has in effect provided Israel 'authorization' to continue perpetrating injustices flowing from implantation of illegal settlements as well as ongoing violent expulsions in Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah and other neighborhoods.”

The analyst also complained that the UAE's “treasonous conduct” to align itself with Zionism has given the occupying regime the green light to keep plundering and committing heinous crimes against the Palestinians.

“Given the brutalities and violence unleashed by Israel as it pushes mindlessly to annihilate all traces of Palestine, the UAE's decision to turn a blind eye to these war crimes by embracing the colonial regime, reflects an absence of policies founded on commitment to human rights,” he said.

“This is not surprising, for the UAE is an unelected tyranny of despots lacking any policies founded in respect of fundamental human rights.”

Jassat further rejected the UAE’s claim that normalization is in pursuit of "making peace,” saying it is a bizarre notion for the despots dictating the UAE's treacherous policies.

“Such outrageous claims neither resonate with public sentiments across the Arab world nor with Palestinians,” he said.

“The cultivation of ties with Israel by the UAE is in direct defiance of international demands by human rights organizations to isolate the settler colonial regime by imposing boycott, sanctions and divestment.”

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