Israel says Expo 2020 in Dubai is a bridge to Arab world

Israel’s newly appointed commissioner to Expo 2020 says that next year’s world fair in Dubai offers the country a unique opportunity to present a fresh face to the Arab world, just as Israel is growing closer to the United Arab Emirates and other Arab Gulf states.

Elazar Cohen presents plans for the Israeli pavilion at the world’s largest exhibition, in which it aims to project its technological, scientific and agricultural innovations to the 25 million visitors expected to descend upon the glitzy city-state.

But Cohen says the true target audience is the Emirati hosts and the majority Arab visitors, whom he says would find great interest not only in Israeli technology but in its good intentions and outstretched hand.

“There is curiosity, mixed with concern, about this thing called Israel and we want to alleviate that concern,” he says in a briefing at the Foreign Ministry. “We want to project that Israel is an open country, that Israel is a democratic country, that Israel is a country that respects all its citizens, that everyone finds their place in it.”

His presentation, accompanied by a slick promotional video in English, Hebrew and Arabic, delivered by a prominent Arab-Israeli TV personality, comes a day after the Israeli government officially confirmed its participation in Expo 2020 and allotted a budget to its planned pavilion.

— AP