The feelings are mixed. On the one hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally found his historic legacy: Peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On the other hand, the breakthrough was not the achievement to which he aspired. What he — and his voters — really wanted was to implement historic Israeli sovereignty over a significant part of the West Bank. That will no longer happen. The agreement with the UAE is a candy to dispel spreading bitterness, a pain relief tablet to ease the hangover plaguing Netanyahu’s electoral base since the heady White House event in late January at which the upcoming annexation was declared.

As strange as it sounds, the agreement with the UAE makes a fourth round of Israeli elections less likely. Netanyahu, who continues to decline in the polls — a Maariv media outlet poll gave his Likud party a record low of 27 Knesset seats Aug. 13 — knows the deal with the Emirates will not improve his standing within the center-left by a single vote, but could well deprive him of many right-wing votes.

Contacts with the UAE have been underway for over a year, especially via Emirati Ambassador in Washington Yousef Al-Otaiba and Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer. Israel and the UAE have been conducting a flourishing, largely covert relationship for over two decades. In recent years, the UAE had grown to be the Arab state closest to Israel among those that do not maintain official ties with the Jewish state. This clandestine romance has now gone public. In a conversation with Al-Monitor, a senior Israeli diplomatic said on condition of anonymity, "Israel has finally agreed to leave home and marry the mistress.” Asked what leaving home means, the source replied, “Forgetting its annexation intentions. … Netanyahu knows too that he cannot have both peace and annexation; he was forced to choose peace after realizing he could not achieve annexation.”

Paradoxically, the deal with the Emirates restores the principle most despised by Netanyahu and the political right: lands for peace. “He gave up lands,” a senior Netanyahu government source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “because he gave up the annexation that he had declared with great fanfare and in return received peace — or at least normalization.” That explains the reactions on his right, which range from chilly to furious. Settlement leaders vented their ire on social media, issuing militant declarations against Netanyahu. Within his Likud party, reactions are restrained and cynical. You promised annexation, his electoral base is telling Netanyahu; you delivered instead direct flights to Abu Dhabi.