The United Arab Emirates has released an unexpected condemnation of Israel criticizing recent unrest in occupied East Jerusalem. The two states signed a normalization deal last year while the antagonism in diplomatic and democratic disciplines lingers on.
During the past week, far-right Jewish supremacist groups attacked Palestinians in east Jerusalem while cursing and abusing Palestinians.
In the statement, UAE emphasized that “the United Arab Emirates has expressed concern over the acts of violence committed by right-wing extremist groups in the occupied East Jerusalem, which have resulted in injuries among civilians.” The statement, nevertheless, made no direct reference to the leading Israeli extremists groups.
Hundreds of Jerusalem residents were wounded when ultra-right-wing Israelis marched shouting “death to Arabs,” prompting the UAE’s call. The riot did not get wide coverage from the mass media, while recordings of “bloodcurdling” attacks on Palestinians were widely posted on social media.
The UAE Statement added that the Abu Dhabi “called upon the Israeli authorities to assume responsibility toward de-escalation and putting an end to all aggressions and practices that perpetuate tension and hostility.” “The necessity of preserving the historical identity of the occupied city of Jerusalem” was also stressed in the statement.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an independent institute active on humanitarian issues, shared a video on twitter in which Palestinian children were screaming in fear of Israeli mobs who rushed into their houses.
JVP captioned the video as ” HAPPENING NOW: Armed far-right Israeli civilians attack a Palestinian home while children cry. These are the kinds of acts of blood-curdling violence that Israelis are committing en masse in Jerusalem tonight. Keep your eyes on and your hearts with the Palestinians there.”
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has issued few, if any, condemnations and preferred to remain silent. To stay in power, the embattled Prime Minister is hardly in need of the assistance of hard-liner Zionist parties.
His absence, on the other hand, has sparked an uproar. Thousands of people marched outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem condemning his continued leadership despite facing a corruption trial and blasting him for silence, or support, over the city’s far-right extremist unrest.
Peace Now and Free Jerusalem, two left-wing anti-extremism groups, also accompanied the demonstrations against Netanyahu.
Since Ramadan started on April 13, thousands of Palestinians have gathered on the flashpoint region nightly to condemn the policy, which has seen the basin outside Damascus Gate packed with hundreds of police divider barriers.
The policy was scrapped by the Police and hundreds of Palestinians gathered outside the Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City to mark the end of the divisive policy.
Late last Thursday,105 Palestinians were injured after an outbreak of clashes with police forces who found themselves in the midst of Arab protesters and Jewish extremists. The abusive Jewish mob shouted “Death to Arabs,” “May your village burn.”
The United Arab Emirates and Israel signed an unprecedented normalization deal on August 2019 brokered by the then US president Donald Trump. Since then, the two countries made attempt to reach a shared strategic policy in the region.
The two countries, however, made rare accomplishments on a diverse range of issues ranging from security to economy, diplomacy and regional policy. The Emirati officials have also been severely criticized at home for betraying the Arab world in launching official relationships with Israel. The former US government devised the plan, widely called “deal of the century” to normalize Arab world relationship with Israel. Observers believe the plan was Trump’s desperate endeavor to attract more votes in local election. With the change in the White House resident, Trump’s Arab-Israeli program was put on hold. The Normalization deals, having no clear framework to go on with, has also gone through unofficial obliteration.
