Free trade deal between Israel and UAE

In News: Israel signed a free trade deal with the United Arab Emirates its first with an Arab country, building on their U.S.-brokered normalisation of relations in 2020 i.e. Abraham Accords

• UAE-Israel trade will exceed $2 billion in 2022, rising to around $5 billion in five years, bolstered by collaboration in renewable, consumer goods, tourism and the life sciences sectors
• The UAE was the first Gulf country to normalise ties with Israel and only the third Arab nation to do so after Egypt and Jordan.
• The signing came two days after thousands of flag-waving Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s Old City during a nationalist procession marking Israel’s 1967 capture of east Jerusalem. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1980, a move never recognised by the international community. The UAE “strongly condemned” what it called Israel’s “storming” of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Abraham Accords

• Abraham Accords deal, sponsored by the US, was part of the country’s regional security agenda to counter Iran.
• As part of this security agenda — signed during the Trump administration — the US prioritised improving relations between Israel and the Gulf countries, something that the latter nations have been wary of because of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
• As part of the Abraham Accords, Israel agreed to stop further annexation of Palestinian territory.
• The accords were signed by the leaders of Bahrain, Israel and the UAE in September 2020.
• After Egypt in 1979 and Jordan is 1994, the UAE became the third Arab country to agree to formally normalize relations with Israel, as well as the first Persian Gulf country to do so.

Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Q.1) The term “two-state solution “is sometimes mentioned in the context of the affairs of (2018)

1. China
2. Israel
3. Iraq
4. Yemen

Source: The Hindu