Daily Briefing Sept. 4: Day 699 – In Abu Dhabi, UAE tells ToI annexation is a ‘red line’

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.

For further reading:

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’

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Podwaves.

The following is a full transcript of today’s episode:

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 entirely.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: Right. As you said, five years ago, the UAE, which was the first Arab country to normalize relations with Israel in over a quarter century, they essentially stopped annexation. That I would have to say, looking back at that period, there wasn’t the same buzz.

There wasn’t the same feeling out of the Knesset in terms of legislation that could be drafted and the real practical steps of annexation that I’m feeling right now, meaning it was more, it felt to me, more rhetoric, more of a, hey, this is a potential stick coming over your heads, this annexation idea. Whereas right now, with the government that’s in power right now, there is a much stronger likelihood, I would say, of actual legislation being drafted and practical steps to, indeed, I think it was our Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who wants to annex 82 percent of the West Bank. So would you agree with that assessment that in terms of the practical steps, we are much closer to annexation than we were five years ago?

Jacob Magid: So to be honest, I would push back on that. I would say that we had, even at the time, a mapping committee, if you remember, that the US was involved in during the first Trump administration. David Friedman, the US ambassador at the time, a big proponent of settlement expansion and of annexation, Israeli sovereignty in these areas. He was actually a member of this mapping committee. They were trying to figure out exact parameters of this annexation. There was substantial meetings that had been taking place.

And I actually remember this was an election stunt. But Netanyahu himself also put together a map of the Jordan Valley around that time of talking about that was going to be the part of what they want to annex. In this case, yes, you have the Smotrich plan that was around 85 percent of these talking about annexing.

And he wants as soon as possible. And that was a pretty big statement that he made. And it conveniently coincided with our interview and going live.

But beyond that, we don’t really know which annexation that Israel is going to go with. Will it be as broad as Smotrich wants because he disagrees with the concept of differentiating between the settlement blocks that are closer to the Green Line and the more isolated communities and these hilltops and outposts? Or will they still take that more cautious, I guess you could say, approach, which will likely garner the same angry response from some of these countries, including the UAE.

But it’s possible that the US might be more comfortable with it. And that’s the big question, whether or not right now the US is willing to get behind it. Because if they don’t, the Israeli argument until now is that without US support and backing, this really doesn’t make a lot of sense to move forward. You had in the UAE decision or the deal, the normalization deal in 2020, basically what was there was an under the table agreement that we actually revealed at the time that there was a deadline for how long the US was willing to refuse to back Israeli annexation. And the deadline was basically the end of Trump’s first term. Give that time to try to negotiate a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

There was that the peace plan that Trump had put forward in 2020 in January. And the hope was that if those talks don’t go anywhere, then we can allow Israel to move ahead and annex. And once that deadline passed, what ended up happening is that we had Biden in office.

And then it was clear that the US was never going to back annexation. Now that it’s Trump again and you have either, I think, either indifference to this issue or even support from people like Mike Huckabee. I think Marco Rubio even seems to be okay with it.

He’s going, as Lazar (Berman) mentioned yesterday, to Ir (City of) David. That’s in East Jerusalem. That’s kind of a statement in and of its own regarding how the US views places beyond the green line. So I think there’s still a discussion in the US and that’s why the UAE made a point of voicing its concern. And actually, we can talk a little bit about what Lana said in the interview regarding the US position.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: So before we talk about what she said, tell us a little bit about her, which I mean, I don’t know if it’s anti-feminist to say, but I was surprised that she is the Emirati special envoy. So is there feminism in the UAE?

Jacob Magid: Yeah, I think they have many, several pretty prominent female diplomats. And she actually used to be the ambassador to the UN and when the UAE was actually on the Security Council. So that’s a pretty significant position.

And she actually shifted. There’s what’s called the Arab group at the UN and she was representing them at the Security Council and was very well respected. She’s also very close to the Royal Family.

So she stepped down and headed back to the UAE, but was still given this position. She has the rank of minister. She kind of is an envoy to the Foreign Minister, (H.H. Sheikh) Abdullah bin Zayed (Al Nahyan), who is one of the most influential, important figures in the UAE.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: OK, so let’s talk about the specifics of what she said beyond the broad strokes. This is a ‘red line’ in the ‘vision of regional integration.’ What is the nitty gritty of what she’s saying here?

Jacob Magid: I think another interesting thing is her message to the US. And I think they had a subtle messaging that also wasn’t so subtle. But basically what she said is we couldn’t even imagine the US wanting to lose what is such an important part of President (Donald) Trump’s legacy. And we’re certain that they’re going to use their leverage to stop this, almost like making it a foregone conclusion that the US agrees with them. That’s the strategy they’re using to go about it. Again, it’ll be interesting to see. I think the US has to make a decision. Trump, I think, if you recall, actually shortly after it was during the February Gaza takeover speech, Trump said in four weeks he’s going to have an answer regarding annexation. So I don’t think that answer ever came. Trump likes to throw different two weeks, four weeks that I think is just a timeline to push things off.

But there will have to be a discussion about how the US sees it. It’s interesting. My understanding actually specifically is that Steve Witkoff, the special envoy, someone who has to work a little bit more with Arab countries and needs their support, has been a little bit less into this idea of annexation concerning about what it’ll mean for specifically planning for the day after in Gaza, which is something that they’re trying to push forward at the White House.

They had that meeting last week. So I think what Lana Nusseibeh, in addition to very much using this interview to reach out to the Israeli public, it was also there was a message in there to the US. Yeah.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: And the language is just this amazing diplomatic feat of veiled threats, but also with a smile, I would imagine. Did you feel that way throughout the interview?

Jacob Magid: Yeah, it was very carefully crafted. A lot of it. She came very prepared with a set of points that she wanted to make.

Regarding mainly was annexation. That was kind of the probably their reason that they agreed to do the interview. And what was what I tried to do is get a little bit past some of the talking points and push on what they mean by the saying that this is will be the end of regional integration, because it’s not a hundred percent.

My understanding is that they’re saying actually not just end of regional integration, that this means the end of the UAE even agreements. But one could read it and just say, OK, it just will mean the end of the Abraham Accords, but we can still have Israeli UAE ties. And what they were very careful not to do was give a clear answer on that.

My understanding is that there really was a decision that for a long time there was this belief that this was a strategic decision made by the UAE to normalize with Israel and it was irreversible. That is now a decision was made with this interview to walk back that notion that this is irreversible, that this can be reversed. Whether or not they actually do reverse it is the question.

I think there’s still going to be dialogue, but I think they’re hoping that with this kind of messaging, that it won’t come to that and that the US, that Israel will walk back this plan.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: OK, Jacob, are you ready for a longer extended daily briefing? Because there’s so much more I want to cover. All right.

Jacob Magid: I’m around for, I guess, a couple more days.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: OK, great. So let’s continue on and talk about another interview that you conducted this week. On Monday in Doha (Qatar), you spoke with Majed (bin Mohammed) al-Ansari, who is the spokesperson for Qatar’s lead negotiator, and heard, seems to me, basically the backstory of their frustrations over what’s been happening in the negotiation process.

So let’s let’s again set the scene. I am imagining presidential palace kind of glamour.

Jacob Magid: Is it to that level? So unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to go to the foreign ministry. I’ve been other times, but this time we actually just met in the hotel, which also the hotels there are quite, quite nice in Doha, similar to the UAE.

It’s quite lovely when you’re inside, not so much in the summer when you’re outside. But yes, there was a very long conference hall room that we were sitting in, a whole stack of advisers with him and then just me. So a little bit outnumbered, but it was a real cool experience this whole week.

Bouncing from these different capitals has been very unique. And I would say privileged to have this job.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: I think we’re privileged to have you as well, Jacob. So let’s go on and talk about what was said specifically. So who is he speaking for exactly?

Jacob Magid: So in addition to being a senior adviser to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister also serves as the Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed (bin) Abdulrahman (bin Jassim) Al Thani. And what his other role, Majed al-Ansari’s role as the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson. So very much speaking for the government, how they view what’s happening in negotiations and more broadly.

And I think he was this opportunity to really express frustration and go a little bit further than what they’ve been doing in the past. I think there was still more caution regarding how they addressed their frustration with the US, but even that was a little bit more honest and further than they have in other places. I think they still Majed still in this interview, Dr. Ansari very much focused on Israel and their decision. But if we look at what he talks about, there’s also clearly a feeling that what he says is the moving of the goalposts that’s been happening that the US is involved in, he says. Basically, if you take us back to July 24, Hamas at the time came back to the table with a response to what was considered the Witkoff proposal. It’s kind of what has been dubbed, but really largely all the mediators, if not more so, Egypt and Qatar put that together.

Jacob Magid: And the response that Hamas issued on July 24 was unacceptable to both Israel and the US. And Steve Witkoff at the time announced that he was going to be pulling US negotiators from Doha. Now, my understanding is there actually wasn’t necessarily any US negotiating team in Doha, but there was an Israeli team.

And Israel followed up Witkoff by saying, OK, we’re pulling our negotiators. And the feeling was that these conditions that Hamas was adding in July 24 were unacceptable. And a week later, we had Prime Minister Netanyahu announce that he was now only interested in a comprehensive one batch release of all the hostages at once, something that Hamas wants as well or offered as well.

But the Netanyahu conditions are very different from what Hamas is willing to do. So that was on August 1. But the Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, felt that we were actually, even though Hamas made these new conditions, the gaps were still very much bridgeable and they still continue to work despite Netanyahu’s announcement, given that he’s also been saying, his aides have been saying things quietly that they might be willing to do a partial deal sometimes.

They felt that let’s at least try to work with something that we have going, because starting over at this point, given how long that’s going to take, is not what is not in the interest of the hostages. We don’t think it’s in the interest of civilians in Gaza. So let’s try to work with what we have.

And they actually succeed on August 18 in getting Hamas to come down on all of its demands that it issued on July 24 and come back and agree to the proposal that Majed al-Ansari says in this interview is actually 98 percent the same as the one that Israel had agreed to in July, the Witkoff proposal, as it’s called. And they’re still waiting, the Qataris are saying and the Egyptians, for Israel to officially respond. What we have seen is Israel basically avoided direct, they made statements just saying that we only want to do a permanent deal, a comprehensive one, one release, we have five conditions.

But they haven’t specifically said, and therefore we are not interested in what’s on the table. They’ve been vague about that. And the US has also allowed them to be vague beyond Witkoff saying last week, I believe, that actually the official position is to be only for comprehensive deals. So as a result of that shift from the Witkoff proposal to now Witkoff saying that the official position is no more Witkoff proposal, that’s the crux of the frustration that Majed al-Ansari tries to explain in this interview.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: So I think we need to remind our listeners that Hamas abroad has or does still get shelter in Qatar, which is an important piece of this puzzle. And also the agenda of Qatar has often been viewed with suspicion because the question is, who are they? Are they actually neutral?

I think it’s also very interesting that Qatar is involved in other negotiations throughout the world, which I hadn’t quite been aware of because we’re so Israel centric. But there are other wars happening. And Qatar is also a negotiator in those wars.

So can you just give me a little bit of background into why Qatar is putting itself in this position? In our case, I had always assumed it was just because Hamas is sheltering in the country itself. But perhaps there’s something else going on here.

Jacob Magid: Sure. So a couple of things. First, regarding this issue, our issue, the US, several administrations ago, actually, and Israel asked Qatar to play the role of hosting Hamas leaders, feeling that it was better that we have them in a place where we can actually keep eyes on them and we have a good relationship, specifically the US does with Qatar, as opposed to allowing them to run amok in Hamas leaders in, I don’t know, Iran, for example, where that way, in that case, Iran has even more influence over Hamas leaders.

So that was the genesis of their location and base in Qatar. And what Majed al-Ansari actually says in this interview is that we’re only playing this role as long as there’s a mediation in process. And if you recall, in November, they briefly actually asked the Hamas officials to leave because there was no substantial negotiation process happening.

And it was actually that was at the encouragement of the Biden administration at the time due to frustration with Hamas. It was Steve Witkoff who asked the Qataris to come back to bring the Hamas officials back to Doha, feeling that the Qataris actually could play an effective role in getting a deal. And we did see actually a deal in January, a couple of months after they returned.

Now, what Majed al-Ansari says is that if there’s no mediation, we are open to sending them out of Doha. But right now, we haven’t gotten that request from the US and until we do, we’re going to continue playing this role. As for Qatar more broadly, I think the way that they’ve tried to run their foreign policy, in addition to definitely backing various Islamist movements around the world, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot, is to try to maintain its standing in the region by basically playing mediator wherever it can and trying to maintain good relationships with all parties, because if they don’t, they feel that they’re exposed to attack. And the way that they protect themselves is to find that to be useful to everyone.

And particularly, they’ve had a lot of success with the US because they’ve helped the US on various conflicts like Afghanistan, Sudan. They’re very involved in negotiations there. They’ve been very in Russia as well, trying to get hostages out in different scenarios. They’ve been trusted by the US, probably more than almost any other party. And that’s why and because of their strong relationship with the US, that gives them, I think, the backing to continue also doing things that maybe people don’t necessarily like. But they’ve made sure to shield themselves with these various relationships on all sides of the aisle.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: All right. Thank you so much for that. Let’s go to a short break.

And we’re back. I’m Amanda Borschel-Dan here with our US Bureau Chief Jacob Magid in our Jerusalem office. Now, on Friday, the United States said it will not allow Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to travel to New York this month, really in a couple of weeks for a United Nations gathering of world leaders.

We’re talking about the General Assembly. And a State Department official told you, Jacob, that a US visa ban on Palestinian officials planning to attend the United Nations General Assembly would also cover Abbas, along with 80 other Palestinian Authority officials. Now, this is not the first time that this tactic is being used against the Palestinian Authority. And I think just to fill in a gap, a knowledge gap, let’s move back, what, a month or two ago when this was used against Palestinian Authority officials and there was basically no ripple effect, I think, on the world stage. So I could be wrong about that. So tell me what happened here.

Jacob Magid: Sure. So on July 31, we had an announcement from the US that it was going to be issuing visa denials to the Palestinian Authority officials and PLO officials. And what it was is a response to the recognitions that were starting to happen at the time.

But it was, I believe, several days after the French recognition announcement that they were going to be. And the reasoning that they used behind it is that they said that we have legislation in Congress that adjudicates the PA’s adherence to the Oslo Accords and its ability to fight terror. And the legislation requires a report to be put together that is testing every six months how the PA is performing.

There’s nothing, Israel doesn’t have this, just the PA, lucky for them. And the report was actually conducted during the Biden administration because it was in early January it was filed. And it did find the PA to be in certain ways violating its commitments, partially due to one of the reasons was the pay for slay social welfare system, controversial paying people based off of the extent of their prison service.

And that was before Abbas actually canceled that legislation that had that in place. But they were found to be in violation. And the legislation gives four options for what the US can do if they are found to be in violation. The first is to, one of them is to restrict them of visas, which is what they decided to do. But it’s actually the most minor of the options at the table. They can close their missions, which was already done.

They can end aid to the PA, which is also already done. But the most significant step they could have taken was to declare them a Foreign Terrorist Organization, an FTO. And that would have had massive impacts in terms of sanctions, their ability to function afterwards. That would have really been a major step. So they suffice with this visa option. The Biden administration, I think, had found them in violation over time and simply hadn’t implemented this aspect of it.

They’re allowed to use a waiver as the president has that authority. So they go with this announcement that we’re going to issue a visa ban, but they don’t actually implement it. They just say they’re going to, is what happened on July 31.

And to be honest, if you listen back to the podcast where Jessica (Steinberg) and I talked about this at the time, I did not think that they were going to follow through because this is such a significant step to actually block someone from coming to the UN because there is this agreement that the US is a party to that requires the US to be allowing countries to send leadership to countries or even less than, which is what the Palestinian mission is at the UN. But they went far enough, far with this decision and decided to actually follow through. I think it’s easier to attack the PA than it is to actually bar Emmanuel Macron.

So that’s what they are now taking the step to implement what they announced on July 31.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: OK, so before this visa ban announcement, the actual implementation came out last week. You also spoke with the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, about this slew of recognitions that’s meant to come up. And from my point of view, I was really surprised that he was interestingly dismissive.

I’m going to quote just one quote that he said, these countries want to show that they are doing something. So they blow off steam by coming up with these declarative statements. That seems to me dismissive.

But would you say that he is taking this more seriously than it appears from that one statement?

Jacob Magid: I think that he said several things. That was one of them that I found to be the most interesting and used as the headline and the lead. But I mean, he also talked about there were other reasons about the domestic reasoning of why these countries are doing that. I think Israel just assumes it’s because all of them have Muslim populations in the UK or France, and therefore that’s what’s driving this. But I think that’s a little bit superficial. If you look at the percentages of population that is Muslim in the UK, it’s in the single digits. I think there’s a broad and we’re talking about in the US as well, a very broad support for the Palestinian cause. And I think this is a way for countries to address that with something symbolic. I think it’s easier to do than actually, I don’t know, sanctioning Israel or withholding arms.

This is where the, this is a decision that countries went with. It does make it harder to justify explaining how that relates to the situation in Gaza that you’re going to recognize Palestine that doesn’t really address the situation in Gaza. But what the leaders are trying to do is argue that this is part of a broader framework that we believe is really important, broader framework that includes the declaration that was signed in July about no more Hamas in Gaza and that it needs to disarm.

It’s all part of that. And we think it at least gives some tailwind to the two-state process that has been long dead. Obviously, Israel sees it very, very differently.

And Danon talks about that a little bit in the story that I encourage our readers to read. But I think, yes, at the end of the day, he also believes that this is still symbolic. And maybe that’s why I think he talks about blowing off steam, because it’s not going to change the reality on the ground.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: So true. Jacob, I have taken up way too much of your time, the precious time here in the Holy Land. So thank you so much for joining me today in our office.

Jacob Magid: My pleasure.

Amanda Borschel-Dan: Thanks for listening to The Times of Israel’s daily briefing. Please check out another installment tomorrow. This episode was produced by The Podwaves.

And if you have any questions or comments about it or any other episode, please drop us an email to podcast at TimesofIsrael.com. Until tomorrow. Shalom.

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