By Evgenia Filimianova
The United Arab Emirates said on Sept. 3 that annexation of the West Bank would be a red line for Abu Dhabi and would seriously undermine the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati diplomat, said on X that the UAE was sending a clear message that peace through a two-state solution must remain the way forward.
In the X post, Gargash shared a Times of Israel article quoting another Emirati diplomat, Lana Nusseibeh, who warned that annexation would prevent any chance of lasting peace. She said it would “foreclose the idea” of regional integration and be a “death knell of the two-state solution,” according to the newspaper.
Gargash’s statement was reposted on X by the UAE Mission to the United Nations and the UAE Embassy in the United States.
The West Bank has been under Israeli military control since 1967, when Israel captured the territory from Jordan during the Six-Day War. Israel maintains that it has the right to settle its citizens there.
The Palestinian Authority regards the West Bank and Gaza as part of its territory and views East Jerusalem as its capital.
The UAE’s warning followed comments by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who, on Sept. 3, unveiled a map proposing annexation of most of the West Bank, leaving six Palestinian cities with limited autonomy.
Smotrich urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “make a historic decision to apply Israeli sovereignty to all open areas in Judea and Samaria,” according to the Times of Israel.
In a joint statement with Israel Ganz, chairman of the Yesha Council, Smotrich said that there is a national consensus against allowing what he called “a terrorist state in the heart of the country.”
Smotrich said that Israel must apply sovereignty to about 82 percent of the territory while phasing out the Palestinian Authority in favor of what he called “regional civilian management alternatives.”
The United States, which recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, maintains that a Palestinian state can only be established with Israel’s consent.
The remarks by UAE officials come as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) proceeds with an operation to take control of Gaza City to push Hamas terrorists into submission, having declared Gaza City a combat zone.

Israeli officials have said most of Hamas’s leadership has been killed since the group launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and abducting 251 people.
About 50 hostages are still being held in Gaza, and Israel believes about 20 of them are alive.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 64,000 people have been killed since the start of the war. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in the count. The Epoch Times cannot verify the accuracy of the figure.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office issued a Sept. 4 statement outlining five conditions for ending the war: the release of all hostages, disarmament of Hamas, the Gaza Strip’s demilitarization, continued Israeli security control, and the creation of a civil administration that rejects terrorism.
Abraham Accords
The United Arab Emirates was a driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords, brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump, which established formal diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.
Washington is working to expand the accords and has sought to include Saudi Arabia and Syria. Riyadh maintains that normalization is contingent on concrete steps toward establishing a Palestinian state, a condition Israel’s current government rejects.
UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Sept 3.
Gargash said the two countries are “working together to promote peace and stability in exceptional circumstances.”
“For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel is going to take that off the table,” Nusseibeh said, according to the Times of Israel.
She added that the UAE trusted that Trump would not allow the Abraham Accords, a central part of his legacy, to be derailed.
Israel has not officially responded to the Emirati statements.