UAE warns Israel: Annexing West Bank is a ‘red line’ that would ‘end regional integration’

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.

For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel is going to take that off the table

The carefully crafted Emirati message about the potential “strategic loss” was voiced on the record for the first time since the Abraham Accords were signed. It came as Netanyahu geared up to discuss the matter of annexation with a small group of ministers on Thursday, in response to the plans of several major Western countries to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.

The decision to speak directly to an Israeli audience harked back to an op-ed UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef Otaiba had published on the front page of a top Israeli newspaper just two months before the two countries signed a normalization agreement.

Then too, Abu Dhabi laid out a choice for Israelis as a previous Netanyahu government threatened to annex large parts of the West Bank within weeks.

“Recently, Israeli leaders have promoted excited talk about normalization of relations with the UAE and other Arab states. But Israeli plans for annexation and talk of normalization are a contradiction,” Otaiba wrote in June 2020.

The op-ed proved critical in laying the groundwork for the Abraham Accords, resonating overwhelmingly with Israelis — 80 percent of whom were shown to back forgoing annexation in favor of a normalization deal.

Netanyahu ultimately walked back from the annexation threat in exchange for diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi in a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump’s first administration.

But The Times of Israel later revealed that the UAE only secured a US commitment not to back Israeli annexation until the end of Trump’s term.

Apparently recognizing the move would carry less weight without US backing, Netanyahu hasn’t gone ahead with it since.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a map of the Jordan Valley, vowing to extend Israeli sovereignty there if reelected, during a speech in Ramat Gan on September 10, 2019. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

The US commitment’s expiration coincided with the start of the Biden administration, which restored traditional US policy in favor of a two-state solution and adamantly against annexation.

With Trump now back in office, though, Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners are increasingly adamant that a potential historic window has opened to declare Israeli sovereignty over West Bank settlements, given that the new administration appears either indifferent or supportive of the move.

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 trust that President Trump will not allow the Abraham Accords tenet of his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or derailed by extremists and radicals

“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.

UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Otaiba (L) attends a business forum in the presence of the US president in Abu Dhabi on May 16, 2025. Trump capped his Gulf tour in Abu Dhabi after signing another raft of multi-billion-dollar deals, while also securing a $1.4 trillion investment pledge from the UAE. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

“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.

Like Otaiba, the Emirati special envoy appeared to try to direct her message toward the Israeli public, not the government, which polls indicate only has the support of a minority.

Arguing that annexation would effectively amount to a rejection of the Abraham Accords, Nusseibeh maintained “that choice should be put directly to the Israeli people.”

UN Ambassadors from Israel Gilad Erdan, from the UAE Lana Nusseibeh, from the US Linda Thomas-Greenfield, from Morocco Omar Hilale, and from Bahrain Jamal Al Rowaiei at a New York event marking the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, September 13, 2021. (Jacob Magid/ Times of Israel)

While the senior Emirati official warned about what Israel stood to lose if it proceeded with annexation, she also made a point of highlighting what Jerusalem could gain if it again shelved the plan.

Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, are still open to normalizing ties with Jerusalem, she indicated.

But they are conditioning such a move not just on the withdrawal of annexation plans but on Israel agreeing to establish a credible, irreversible pathway to a future Palestinian state. Still, they haven’t foreclosed the idea entirely, despite massive opposition to Israel’s prosecution of its nearly two-year war against Hamas.

Palestinian artists draw murals depicting the Dome of the Rock and the West Bank as part of an awareness campaign against Israel’s West Bank annexation plans, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 1, 2020 (SAID KHATIB / AFP)

“For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel is going to take that off the table,” Nusseibeh said.

She asserted that Abu Dhabi did not come to this conclusion lightly.

“When Hamas tried to derail the Abraham Accords vision of regional integration with the October 7 terror attacks, we were firm in our response,” the special envoy said, highlighting the UAE’s immediate condemnation of the assault and recognition of Israel’s security concerns, while also “closely coordinating” to deliver more aid to Gaza than any other country.

“Over the last two years… our view was that the vision of the Abraham Accords remains pertinent — that you can’t let extremists set the trajectory of the region,” she said.

Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations Lana Nusseibeh speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, December 22, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

But with Israel taking increasingly far-reaching steps to entrench its presence in the West Bank and Gaza, she said, “we are worried that all of us in the Middle East are moving toward a point of no return” and that now is the time to reach out to Israelis before efforts to maintain Israel’s ties to regional partners are “irreparably damaged.”

“The Abraham Accords’ tenets of prosperity, coexistence, tolerance, integration and stability” have “never looked more under threat than [they are] today,” she said.

Nusseibeh assured Israelis that an off-ramp exists. “There is an outstretched hand, despite all of this misery, in the region to Israel. But, “annexation would withdraw that hand,” she said.