It is a very strong symbolic act, the culmination of a normalization of relations between two countries.
Israel opened its first embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Sunday.
The latter, them, validated that same day the establishment of their embassy in Israel, in Tel Aviv, alongside other foreign delegations including the French one.
We have to go back to last summer to understand this diplomatic upheaval in the Middle East.
We are on August 13, 2020, in Washington (United States).
Donald Trump, then President of the United States, tweets: Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed on "a historic peace agreement".
Signed a month later, under the aegis of the United States, the “Abraham Agreements” seal the beginning of a normalization of relations between the two countries.
If Israel and the United Arab Emirates have never fought a war, this deal is huge: the United Arab Emirates officially recognizes Israel.
An earthquake in the Middle East where, until then, the Arab countries had conditioned the recognition of the Hebrew state on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which, since 1967 and the annexation of Jerusalem by Israel, undermined diplomatic relations in the region.
Until then, only Egypt (in 1979) and Jordan (in 1994) had signed a peace agreement with Israel, but those were really at war.
Agreements at stake
Since September, therefore, it is the beginning of a love affair between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
In October, it was announced that Israeli and Emirati citizens no longer need visas to travel from one country to another.
A measure that "makes Emirati citizens the first in the Arab world not to need a visa to enter Israel," noted The National.
About 20 air links per week between the two countries are now in place - Saudi Arabia even now allowing Israel to fly over its airspace towards the Emirates.
On Wednesday, Israeli and Emirati companies signed a first agreement in the field of renewable energy aimed at making the Jewish state a world leader in solar energy.
An agreement that succeeds many others - both finding economic interests: the Abraham's agreements promise the signing of similar agreements in many areas (finance, health, science, technology, energy, agriculture, water, etc. ).
Main oil producer, the United Arab Emirates are also opening up with these agreements to another market: the… European market.
In October, Israel and the Emirates signed an agreement offering the opportunity for the latter to use and extend the pipeline of the former to transport its oil cheaply.
An outstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
These new relations are not to please everyone, and above all the Palestinians who see in the UAE's gesture a "betrayal".
The absence of diplomatic and above all commercial relations with its neighbors was until then an important means of pressure on Israel to hope to unblock the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Other Arab countries - Israel has already announced normalization agreements with Morocco, Sudan and Bahrain - could follow the same path as the United Arab Emirates.
At the risk of bogging down even more the situation of the Palestinians?