Israeli and American officials arrived safely in Abu Dhabi while on a historic first El Al flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates while flying over Saudi Arabia on Monday morning.
What makes the flight historic? It is the first-ever direct commercial flight from Israel to the UAE and the first Israeli airline to fly over Saudi airspace.
The flight from Israel to the UAE took over three hours including a flyover Saudi Arabian air space that is normally blocked to Israeli air traffic.
The UAE has become only the third Arab country in the Middle East to recognise Israel since its founding in 1948.
The airline received a green light to fly over Saudi Arabia due to the American officials on board. The plane designated for the flight was adorned with the word “peace” in Arabic, Hebrew, and English in honor of the historic moment.
Among those be on the flight are White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner, US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, US Special Representative for International Negotiations Avi Berkowitz, US Iran envoy Brian Hook, an Israeli delegation led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, and top Israeli officials in the areas of tourism, trade, and energy.
On Saturday, the UAE also repealed a law in place since 1972 of boycotting Israel. The two countries earlier this month also opened direct telephone services for the first time.
The agreement to normalise relations – brokered by the US – was made public in a surprise announcement of a peace deal last August 13.
Speaking to media after landing in Abu Dhabi, Mr. Kushner described the deal between the countries as a “historic breakthrough” and said it was a “tremendous honour” to have joined the flight.
“What happened here were three great leaders came together and they started writing a new script for the Middle East. They said the future doesn’t have to be predetermined by the past,” he said
Kushner showed some understanding of his detractors, saying they had “the common perspective,” but he and his team “worked together to defy the odds and accomplish something few thought was possible.”
“We should take a moment to celebrate a historic breakthrough for peace,” Kushner said of Israel-UAE normalization. “It’s an accomplishment that does not happen often [and] did not happen easily.”
The Trump peace plan, he said, the formulation of which he led, “showed other people in the region that Israel was serious, which led to the breakthrough we had today.”
Kushner described a Middle East that was in turmoil three years ago, between the spread of ISIS and Iran having funds to ensure its proxies, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and others, were “basically flush with cash.” He credited Trump with reversing the trend and “writing a script for the new Middle East.”
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