When former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to visit the Emirates after the signing of the Abraham Accords, the visit never happened. Still, Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, used the occasion to announce that the UAE would pursue $10 billion in investments in Israel.
A joint Israeli-Emirati fund was to be established in invest in Israeli companies in the fields of energy, industry, infrastructure and water use, space, health and agritech. Bin Zayed said that the fund would operate and be managed privately, not by the government, and that it would realize the goals of the Abraham Accords: to establish partnerships and build connections to benefit the people of the Middle East and to advance the whole region. He said the initiative “demonstrates the benefits of peace by improving the lives of the region’s peoples. It is a manifestation of the new spirit of friendship and cooperation.”
