Trump announces 'historic' deal between Israel and the UAE, including a suspension of West Bank annexation plans

• President Donald Trump announced a "historic" deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, declaring the normalization of relations between the two countries.
• Israel has also agreed to suspend plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, according to the agreement.
• An established public relationship between Israel and the UAE had not existed prior to the announcement.
• The deal states the three countries are hopeful that more "diplomatic breakthroughs" between Israel and other nations in the region can be possible.
• The deal is a mixed bag for Palestine, experts say, and also has implications for Iran.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates have formally established a diplomatic relationship in a "historic" deal announced by President Donald Trump on Thursday.

Trump along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed reached an agreement to establish the "full normalization of relations" between the two countries.

"HUGE breakthrough today!" Trump tweeted on Thursday. "Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends, Israel and the United Arab Emirates!"

The groundbreaking deal is the first peace treaty signed in decades between an Arab nation and Israel, with the last enacted with Jordan in 1994. The UAE has never publicly recognized Israel as a state since its formation in 1948, similar to many countries in the region in a show of allegiance to Palestine.

The UAE is now the first Gulf Arab state to have ties to Israel.

The agreement comes after Israel has been expanding settlements and Netanyahu repeatedly signaled plans to annex much of the occupied West Bank. The settlements are viewed as illegal under international law.

According to the terms of the new deal, Israel will halt annexation plans in the occupied West Bank and instead focus on creating formalized relations with other nations.

"The United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates are confident that additional diplomatic breakthroughs with other nations are possible, and will work together to achieve this goal," the joint statement on the deal said.

Netanyahu reacted to the president's announcement in Hebrew, tweeting, "A historic day."

Similarly, the UAE ambassador to the US stated that the agreement "is a significant advance for the region and for diplomacy."

"It immediately stops annexation and the potential of violent escalation," Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba said in a statement about Thursday's announcement. "It will help move the region beyond a troubled legacy of hostility and strife to a more hopeful destiny of peace and prosperity."

The pact also outlines plans for cooperation between Israel and the UAE in combatting the coronavirus pandemic, including working together on treatment and vaccine development.

Delegations on behalf of Israel and the UAE plan to convene in the coming weeks to sign a bilateral agreement covering areas on "investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and other areas of mutual benefit."

Netanyahu last visited the White House in late January to attend the launch of the Trump administration's "peace plan" for Israel-Palestine crafted by the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Critics blasted the initiative as a PR stunt for Netanyahu, given Palestine was not involved in the negotiations.

An ambassador from the UAE also appeared at the event, though the government had not formally endorsed the U.S. plan.

President of Palestine Authority Mahmoud Abbas in May said Palestine will not sign any new deals with Israel after it issued commitments to annex areas of the West Bank.

Al Otaiba on Thursday said that the UAE still backs a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, "as endorsed by the Arab League and international community."

Trump credited his son-in-law and senior adviser for his role in negotiating Thursday's deal. "People don't really understand the things he's able to do," Trump said of Kushner.

"It's going to take a while for these agreements to get fully enforced," Kushner said on Thursday.

The deal is a mixed bag in terms of its impact on Palestine, experts say, and unlikely to help foster peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

"For the Palestinians it's really bad. No annexation is good, but the price is too high. It breaks the Arab consensus that the Arab Peace Initiative is the basis of all major diplomacy with Israel. The Saudis will be very unhappy about that, too," Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told Insider.

The Palestinians will be "hopping mad" over the deal, Ibish said, adding, "but I'm not sure they've lost much here, practically, and avoiding annexation can only be an excellent thing for them."

At the same time, the deal suggests that Israel can "make major progress with Arab countries without giving up anything they've already secured in the occupied territories, which is great news for Israel. And, in that sense, very bad for the Palestinians," Ibish said.

"We can't wait for the Palestinian leadership to try and resolve this," Kushner said on Thursday. "Every country's going to do what's in their best interests, what's in the region's best interests, and we have big problems in the world and we can't be stuck in the past."

The new agreement also has implications for Iran, which is viewed as a major threat by both Israel and the UAE.

Iranian state news on Thursday decried the Israel-UAE deal as "shameful."

"Iranian leaders are likely to use the agreement to bolster their common refrain that they are the real defenders of the Palestinians as Arab leaders sell them out, but that rhetoric is becoming a tired trope given Iran's role in bolstering [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's] brutal crackdown in Syria and other regional priorities," Dalia Dassa Kaye, director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, told Insider.

Kaye cautioned that "not everything" that happens in the region is about Iran, stating that the deal likely has "more to do with UAE's relations with Washington than its relations with Iran."

"Sadly though it's not likely to advance the deal that matters most — peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In that sense regional tensions are likely to continue," Kaye added.