Ramallah, August 16 (RHC)-- Anger is boiling in the Middle East and elsewhere over a recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to normalize diplomatic relations, with Palestinian leaders describing it as a “stab in the back” by an Arab country.
Dozens of people raided the UAE embassy in the Libyan capital city of Tripoli on Saturday to express their outrage over the normalization pact between the Persian Gulf country and Tel Aviv. A number of protesters threw petrol bombs at the diplomatic mission, denouncing Abu Dhabi’s deal as “shameful.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian ambassador to the UAE is returning home, Secretary General of the Central Committee of Fatah movement Jibril Rajoub said. Essam Masalha has departed Abu Dhabi and will never go back to the Persian Gulf Arab country, he said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said on Thursday it had recalled its ambassador to the UAE. Rajoub said former member of Fatah central committee Mohammed Dahlan had helped broker the normalization pact, without providing any details.
Various Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip have roundly condemned the normalization deal between the UAE and the Tel Aviv regime.
Across the world, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn criticized the deal, suggesting Abu Dhabi was selling out the Palestinian cause and abandoning its Palestinian brethren.
“I think you can’t just let your own brothers down in order to pursue economic interests and perhaps also have more security for yourself,” Asselborn told German-language Deutschlandfunk radio station.
“The Palestinians, the Palestinian people, who are Arabs, are really caught between the ropes,” he added. The veteran statesman said there had been indications for a long time that solidarity with Palestinians was no longer a priority in the Arab world, especially in the Persian Gulf region.
The diplomat also dismissed the UAE's initial declaration that Israel would suspend its annexation of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank as part of the deal.
Kuwait emphasized on Saturday that the Persian Gulf kingdom will continue to uphold its firm stance against normalizing relations with Israel. The Arabic-language al-Qabas daily newspaper, citing informed government sources, reported that Kuwait would be the last to normalize relations with Israel, after a fair and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue was realized.
“Kuwait’s position is consistent with its foreign policy approach established for decades in support of the Palestinian cause. It is the Arab world’s issue, and accepts its resolution once the Palestinians do. This official stance is in line with the popular discourse rejecting normalization with the usurping Zionist regime, based on the decree of the late Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Salim al-Sabah,” the sources noted.
According to the officials, the rejection of normalization with Israel is enshrined in Kuwait's constitution, which was signed into law in 1962.
Major political parties in Kuwait have strongly denounced the agreement, terming it as an “act of treason” and “a crime against the Palestinian cause, its nation as well as Arab and Muslim peoples.”
