A senior adviser to the United Arab Emirates president said Wednesday that “maximalist” views on the Palestinian issue are no longer valid, stressing the need to balance Israel’s security with the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said during the Reuters NEXT Gulf Summit in Abu Dhabi that both sides must move away from entrenched positions. “Are we going to continue with this sort of maximalist views on how to address the Palestinian issue, for example, by the Israeli right, which has to understand that this is not going to go away?” he said. “Direct confrontation has not yielded results for Israelis or Palestinians.”
Gargash said that any Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories would be considered a “red line” for the UAE. “We are very adamant about any annexation in the Palestinian territories,” he said, adding that normalization with Israel “gave us leverage on the issue of annexation.”
He said the UAE would increase humanitarian assistance for Gaza, noting, “There is a lot to do on the humanitarian side in Gaza and we will scale up.” Discussions are ongoing, he said, about “sending people on the ground in Gaza.”
Gargash emphasized that the Palestinian Authority’s role “is still central,” but said the UAE has “sometimes been a lonely voice in the call for reform.”
He also highlighted Washington’s continuing influence, saying U.S. leadership “has been critical in affecting the Gaza ceasefire” and that “the U.S. role will continue to be critical.”
Gargash said recent regional developments had changed how Gulf states view their security. “The Israel strike in Qatar changed how we see Gulf security — Gulf security is connected,” he said. He noted that “Qatar has the largest U.S. base in the Gulf, but concepts about Gulf security are changing,” adding that the U.S. “remains essential” to the region’s stability.
Gargash, who served as the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs from 2008 to 2021, played a key role in the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel, the UAE and several Arab states in 2020.