Refuting Israel, Emirati Scholar: War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu Not Welcome on UAE Soil

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ABU DHABI – Emirati scholar Abdulkhaleq Abdulla described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal” who is utterly unwelcome in the United Arab Emirates. The statement was made after the country’s foreign ministry issued a denial that Netanyahu had ever visited UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Netanyahu, through his office, claimed to have made a “secret” visit to the UAE in March, amid the US-Israel war against Iran. “There is no welcome at all for a war criminal and murderer of Gaza’s children on the sacred soil of the Emirates,” wrote Abdulla, a non-resident researcher at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, on X on Thursday. “The visit Netanyahu is talking about is a fabrication from his sick imagination, and it is well known that he is a master liar who spreads these lies to serve opportunistic electoral purposes.” In a statement, the UAE Foreign Ministry said that the UAE’s relations with Israel are public and conducted within the framework of the well-known and officially announced Abraham Accords. Relations are not based on opaque or unofficial arrangements. Both Israeli and Arab sources told Middle East Eye that a meeting between Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed took place on 26 March in Al-Ain, an oasis city on the border with Oman. On 27 March, a day after the meeting, Avi Scharf, Haaretz’s open-source intelligence and national security editor, posted on social media that two Israeli business jets, sometimes used for special VVIP flights, had landed in Al-Ain and flown back to Israel four hours later, on the night of 26 March. Further flight tracking confirmed that two business jets had flown from Tel Aviv to Al-Ain, departing from the Israeli city in the afternoon and returning that night. The UAE was the first Gulf state to sign the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, under the first Trump administration, and shares numerous military and intelligence projects with Israel and the US. Since 28 February, the US-Israel war against Iran has increasingly strengthened ties between the UAE and Israel, while tightening relations.