Jared Kushner takes first commercial flight from Israel to UAE
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Jared Kushner led a delegation of senior US and Israeli officials on to the historic first flight between Tel Aviv and the United Arab Emirates on Monday.
The move comes after the UAE agreed to formally establish diplomatic relations with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so after Egypt and Jordan.
En route to Abu Dhabi the plane made aviation history by being the first commercial Israeli airliner to cross Saudi airspace.
Jared Kushner led a delegation of US and Israeli officials on to the first flight from Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates on Monday
Flight 971 of Israel’s national carrier El Al took off for Abu Dhabi after the UAE signed a pact to officially establish relations with the Jewish state
The word ‘peace’ was written above the cockpit in Arabic, Hebrew and English as Kushner said the pact showed that ‘so much peace is possible in this region’
‘While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond,’ Kushner said shortly before boarding.
‘The future does not have to be predetermined by the past. This is a very hopeful time, and I believe that so much peace and prosperity is possible in this region and around the world.’
Flight 971 of Israel’s national carrier El Al then took off from Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, bound for Abu Dhabi.
The word ‘peace’ was painted on the plane’s cockpit in Arabic, English and Hebrew.
Jared Kushner (center), US national security Adviser Robert OBrien (right) and Israel’s national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat (left), board the flight in Tel Aviv
‘That’s what peace for peace looks like,’ Netanyahu tweeted, describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.
Announced on Aug. 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalysed largely by shared fears of Iran.
Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE’s move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory – and acceptance of Palestinian statehood – in return for normal relations with Arab countries.
Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O’Brien head the U.S. delegation.
The Israeli team is led by O’Brien’s counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defence envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.
‘I prayed yesterday at the (Western) Wall that Muslims and Arabs throughout the world will be watching this flight, recognising that we are all children of God, and that the future does not have to be pre-determined by the past,’ Kushner told reporters on the tarmac at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport.
Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a Washington signing ceremony, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Presidential adviser Jared Kushner (center) and National Security Adviser Robert OBrien (fourth left) pose with members of the US-Israeli delegation to the UAE
That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November.
The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel.
The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, while opening its airspace to the El Al flight, has signalled it is not ready.
In Abu Dhabi, several people were injured on Monday in an explosion that was likely caused by gas lines in a restaurant, police said.
Abu Dhabi-owned the National daily reported that the blast hit KFC and Hardees restaurants.
In a second incident, one person was killed when a gas cylinder exploded in a Dubai restaurant, local media reported.
The flight came amid Kushner’s tour of the Middle East which saw him hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left)
While in Israel, Kushner – who is Jewish – also visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem (above)
With the word ‘peace’ printed in Arabic, English and Hebrew above a cockpit window, the El Al Boeing 737 took off for Abu Dhabi from Tel Aviv, a flight of about 3 hours and 20 minutes, the pilot announced to passengers.
Like all El Al 737s, the aircraft was equipped with an anti-missile system, an Israeli spokesman said, and carried security agents of the U.S. Secret Service and the Israeli Shin Bet to guard the delegations.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, said Kushner and his team were ‘scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible’ to give Trump an election boost.
‘They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region,’ she said.
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