UAE: ‘Viable two-state solution plan’ needed before we commit to rebuilding Gaza

The United Arab Emirates will condition its financial and political support for the reconstruction of Gaza after the war on the advancement of a US-backed initiative toward a two-state solution.

“The message is going to be very clear: We need to see a viable two-state solution plan, a road map that is serious before we talk about the next day and rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza,” UAE Ambassador to the UN Lana Nusseibeh tells The Wall Street Journal.

The remarks fly in the face of those made yesterday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told a top Knesset panel that the UAE and Saudi Arabia would finance Gaza’s reconstruction, even as he continues to reject a return of the PA to Gaza as well as the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Nusseibeh says: “The road map is: the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority and a grouping of countries that have leverage on the both of them sitting around the table and saying, ‘That’s the endgame we’re going to work to. The work starts here. This is the timeline, and it starts now.'”

The Emirati envoy says Egypt, Jordan and several other Muslim-majority countries should also be part of the effort.

Without a road map to a two-state solution, “we’re not going to be as fully invested in the rebuild, and with Israel it will also have an effect. That’s not the trajectory we signed the Abraham Accords on,” Nusseibeh adds.