Ex-US negotiator Greenblatt rejects UAE warning on annexation

Former US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt is coming out strongly against an op-ed published by the UAE’s influential ambassador to Washington, in which he warned that normalization efforts would end if Israel insists on annexing West Bank land.

In an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post, Greenblatt says he disagrees with Yousef al-Otaiba’s idea that Israel’s annexation of settlements and the Jordan Valley is an illegal seizure of Palestinian land.

“It is not Palestinian land. It is land that is disputed, and the only way to resolve this is if the two sides can negotiate a settlement of the dispute directly together. But that has proven to be elusive. This is one of the main reasons we drafted the vision for peace in the manner that we did,” he writes.

However, he expresses hope that normalization continues despite the planned annexation: “If Israel chooses to move forward with the application of Israeli law to those areas, I nevertheless hope that there will be continued, significant progress in the relationship between the UAE and Israel. This progress is important for the region for so many reasons, including its security.”

The US administration has yet to publicly comment on al-Otaiba’s op-ed, which was published in Yeditoh Ahronoth on Friday. Greenblatt left his post last year.