Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

US bureau chief Jacob Magid joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today’s episode.

In an interview conducted in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, Emirati special envoy Lana Nusseibeh warned Israel that annexing the West Bank would cross a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration.” Today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meant to hold a major ministerial consultation on whether to advance the idea. Magid sets the scene and explains what Nusseibeh and the Emiratis are trying to get across to the Israeli public.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, in Doha, Magid spoke with Majed al-Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar’s lead negotiator, Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, and heard the backstory of their frustrations over the negotiation process. We reset the scene and delve into the role of Qatar as negotiator for the Gaza war — and other global conflicts.

The United States said on Friday it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to travel to New York next month for a United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state. A State Department official told Magid that a US visa ban on Palestinian officials planning to attend the United Nations General Assembly would cover Abbas along with 80 other PA officials. Magid explains the mechanism of withholding the visas and how it dates to a report written during the Biden administration.

Last week, Magid spoke with Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon about the impending slew of recognitions of a Palestinian state. Borschel-Dan notes that Danon’s remarks could be construed as dismissive: “These countries want to show that they are doing something, so they blow off steam by coming up with these declarative statements.” We hear Magid’s takeaways from the conversation.

Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates.

UAE warns Israel: Annexing West Bank is a ‘red line’ that would ‘end regional integration’

After US cools on phased Gaza deal, senior Qatari official laments ‘moving goalposts’

US says it will ban PA’s Abbas, 80 other officials from attending UN General Assembly

Israel’s UN envoy: Western leaders recognizing Palestinian state to ‘blow off steam’

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Amanda Borschel-Dan: Welcome to the Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing. Today is Thursday, September 4, day 699 of the war. Amanda Borschel-Dan here in our Jerusalem office with our US Bureau Chief, Jacob Magid. So great to see you. Hi, Amanda. Good to be with you again.

Jacob Magid: It is such a pleasure.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: In person. Amazing. Okay.

So I will clamp down on my enthusiasm because we have many serious things to talk about. And we’re going to speak about Jacob’s exclusive interview with Emirati envoy Lana Nusseibeh and her appeal against annexation of the West Bank. We will learn about Jacob’s interview this week with the spokesperson for Qatar’s lead ceasefire hostage release negotiator, and hear the Qatari frustration.

We’re going to speak about the looming United Nations General Assembly, where a slew of countries are intending to recognize the Palestinian state, and what Israel’s ambassador to the UN had to say about this. And we’ll hear about the background to the US’s decision not to grant Palestinian officials visas to the US for the General Assembly. So all of this and more when we’re back.

And we’re back. I am Amanda Borschel-Dan here with our US Bureau Chief, Jacob Magid in our Jerusalem office. Now, earlier in the week, in an interview conducted in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi, Emirati Special Envoy Lana Nusseibeh warned Israel that annexing the West Bank would cross a, quote, “red line that would,” quote, ‘end the vision of regional integration.’

So today here in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meant to hold a major ministerial consultation on whether to advance annexation. So obviously, the timing of your conversation and the report is not coincidental. But Jacob, before we delve into the content of the conversation, just set the scene for me.

I’ve never been there. So tell me, what was it like?

Jacob Magid: Sure. So this was in Abu Dhabi right now, not one of the top places you would maybe want to be in terms of weather, just a little bit over 100 degrees Fahrenheit over there. So we definitely tried to stay inside as much as possible.

I, because I tried to come to the region about twice a year during that time, in addition to coming to Israel and getting to see you in the office, I tried to make stops throughout the region as well and sought out a meeting in the UAE among those stops. Now, these are meetings that are often very difficult to get, especially in the UAE, even though they do have ties with Israel and oftentimes much more warm than a lot of the other countries in the region. On the press side, they’re very, very cautious of what they like doing in terms of their engagement with these with Israeli officials.

But even more broadly, I think it’s very difficult to secure an interview. So it took time to get them to come on board with this idea. But once they did, they really leaned into this opportunity and used this as a platform to try and issue this warning that you mentioned, because I think what had been happening behind the scenes in the days prior to this interview was warnings privately being messaged from Abu Dhabi to Jerusalem and to the US and Washington about growing concern of potential Israeli annexation of the West Bank. And my understanding is that simply the message wasn’t getting through. Netanyahu is still planning on, as you said today, to discuss this issue with ministers.

And therefore, the decision was taken by the UAE to issue this very hardline statement. And it was actually kind of similar to what they did five years ago. We’re actually coming up on this anniversary in a few weeks.

Before the Abraham Accords were signed, you had an op-ed that was written by the Emirati ambassador to the US in a major Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, on the front page warning that Israel had a choice to make. It was laying out a decision between annexation, which was also being considered at the time. Netanyahu had threatened by July 1 was that famous deadline of when he was going to be annexing by.

Or you could have that, or you could have the potential of normalization. We actually, before that op-ed, there wasn’t really credible reporting that this was something that was on the table. And I think this op-ed laid the groundwork that started those negotiations.

And what the UAE is now worried about is, yes, we’re really happy about how the relationship is going, but annexation, it takes everything backwards and could just break it all apart........

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