Jared Kushner will be among a delegation of U.S. officials who will travel from Israel to the United Arab Emirates in the first commercial flight between the two Middle Eastern countries.
Those aboard the flight will include Kushner, who is a senior White House adviser, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, outgoing Iran envoy Brian Hook, and the State Department’s Middle East Envoy Avi Berkowitz, a senior administration official told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
The move comes after the historic agreement between Israel and the UAE to normalize relations. The United States helped broker the deal, dubbed the Abraham Accords, which was announced earlier in August. The flight is another step in bridging the regional divide between Israel and Arab countries.
“This historic event is a significant step forward in the Abraham Accords — the breakthrough agreement President Trump brokered to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE, announced on August 13,” the senior administration official said.
Israel’s national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat will lead the Israeli delegation to the UAE, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a Monday news release. Netanyahu said he hopes Israeli citizens will soon get the opportunity to also travel to the UAE.
“This delegation will work — together with an American team and a team from the UAE — to advance the peace and normalization between Israel and the UAE,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“This is a historic agreement. It will bring engines of growth. It can help bring about an economic flourishing in general and during the corona era in particular. I hope that other countries in our region will join the cycle of peace,” he added.
