THE Israeli prime minister’s reported secret visit to Abu Dhabi last Sunday has reinforced the growing nexus between the UAE and the Zionist state. It was not the first time that Benjamin Netanyahu had made an unannounced trip to the Gulf country. In March this year, at the height of the Iran war, he travelled there to meet UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

During the same period, the head of Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence agency, made two trips to the country to apparently coordinate military operations. And last week, while 77 nations boycotted the Israeli prime minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly, the UAE delegation remained seated — a clear show of solidarity with the Zionist state.

Since joining the Abraham Accords in 2020, the UAE has not only established diplomatic relations with Israel but has gone much further, elevating the relationship into a de facto alliance — even as the Israeli state was carrying out a genocidal war in Gaza. That relationship deepened as the US, along with Israel, imposed an unprovoked war on Iran.

The extraordinary relationship between the two countries marks a developing unholy alliance in a rapidly changing regional order, as America’s war on Iran drags on. The UAE has reportedly carried out its own strikes on Iran and has also borne the brunt of retaliatory strikes — with devastating effect — despite the deployment of the Iron Dome air defence system, run by Israeli military personnel.

Its close military cooperation with Israel has drawn the UAE directly into the war on Iran.

It is the first time........

© Dawn