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All we wanted was acceptance: Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum at WION Global Summit

WION Web Team
New Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Mar 24, 2021, 07:47 PM IST
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'For years, all we wanted was to be accepted as a partner in the region. Although we had deals with Jordan & Egypt that brought regional stabilisation, but they never trickled down to people," says Israeli politician Fleur Hassan-Nahoum at WION Global Summit.

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The Abraham Accords signed in Washington DC in August 2020, facilitated by the US administration, normalised relationships between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain

Speaking at WION’s fourth edition of the Global Summit in Dubai, Israeli politician Fleur Hassan-Nahoum shed light on what Abraham Accords meant for Israelis on the ground.

“For Israel and Israelis, this [peace deal] has changed everything”, the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem said.

She further shed light on the impediments that have remained in terms of acceptance for Israel in the region.  “For years, all we wanted was to be accepted as a partner in the region”, she said.

“Although we have made deals with Jordan and Egypt that brought regional stabilisation, it never really trickled down to people in terms of tourism, in terms of peer-to-peer inter-businesses”, Fluer Hassan-Nahoum added.

Explaining why this peace deal is different for Israelis, she added, “This, for Israelis is a different peace because it was signed by leaders so diligently, engineered by Trump administration - but ultimately it’s the peace that has been achieved from people to people”.

She also talked about the strides made in the aftermath of the peace deal. “The platform that we created - the UAE-Israel Business Council, became useful because we provided infrastructure for regular people to be able to talk to each other, to do business with each other, and [to] reach out to each other”, she said.

According to Hassan-Nahoum, people across the region have accepted the newly found sense of peace.  “People have embraced this peace - the Emiratis, the Israelis, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, with open arms”, she added.

The deputy mayor of Jerusalem also added how many were sceptical of how this would pan out, and how the new peace was not expected, ''but that’s what happened on the ground”.

The Abraham Accords, signed in Washington DC in August 2020, facilitated by the US administration,  normalised relationships between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain. This agreement marked the first sign of normalisation of ties between Israel and an Arab country since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.