16 Oct 2020; MEMO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli parliamentarians on Thursday that the Israeli normalisation deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has “no secret annexes or hidden clauses” before the Knesset overwhelmingly approved the deal, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Eighty members of the Knesset voted in favour of the agreement and 13 voted against it, all of whom are from the Joint List, which comprises Arab Israelis.
Last August, Israel and the UAE announced reaching a US-brokered agreement to normalise relations. Soon after, fellow Arab Gulf state Bahrain reached a similar agreement, with speculations pointing to a third possible normalisation deal between Israel and Sudan. The two Arab countries each officially signed the deal with Israel at the White House last September.
The Arab world and Israel have been at odds since the 1948. Many in the Arab world despised the violence that Palestinians were subjected to for the forceful creation of the Jewish state. Egypt was the first country to normalise its relations with Israel in 1981, sparking a wave of outrage from fellow Arabs and critics within Egypt.
