UAE warns Israel: Annexing West Bank is a ‘red line’ that would ‘end regional integration’Times of Israel, Sep 3, 2025
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — A top United Arab Emirates official warned Israel on Tuesday that annexing the West Bank would cross a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration,” just two days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to hold a major ministerial consultation on whether to advance the highly controversial move.
“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace. It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” Emirati special envoy Lana Nusseibeh told The Times of Israel in an interview conducted in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi.
It was a shocking alarm bell from Abu Dhabi ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords, which the UAE initiated by becoming the first Arab country to normalize relations with Israel in over a quarter-century.
Since then, Emirati officials have insisted that the move was an all-but-irreversible strategic choice, making Nusseibeh’s warning particularly dramatic, as it highlighted how averse the Gulf country is to Israel again considering annexation.
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Those hardliners have identified the recently announced plans of France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Belgium to recognize a Palestinian state as a unique opportunity to finally annex the West Bank, as Jerusalem weighs its response to the unilateral steps, which it deems a “reward” for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught. On Wednesday, indeed, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a proposal to annex 82% of the West Bank, and urged Netanyahu to adopt it.
Accordingly, Nusseibeh also voiced a not-so-subtle message directed at the Trump administration, with which her government has quickly cultivated a close relationship.
"We believe that President Trump and his administration have many of the levers to lead the initiative for a wider integration of Israel into the region,” said the Emirati official, who serves as assistant minister for political affairs and special envoy for UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.
Nusseibeh most recently was the UAE’s ambassador to the UN. She is seen as a particularly influential Emirati diplomat with close ties to the royal family.
"We trust that President Trump will not allow the Abraham Accords tenet of his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or derailed by extremists and radicals,” she added.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/uae-warns-israel-annexing-west-bank-a-red-line-that-would-end-regional-integration/
