Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, currently visiting the United Arab Emirates, says in an exclusive interview to the Emirati news outlet The National that Israel under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will not consider the establishment of a Palestinian state.

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Shaked told The National that the Bennett-Lapid coalition government had agreed not to tackle any issues that could cause rifts, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to Shaked, the government's stance was that "economic peace" would improve the lives of the Palestinians and in favor of mutual industrial zones. However, she stressed that Israel would "definitely" not support a Palestinian "state with an army."

The National pointed out that Shaked rejects the labeling of Israeli settlements "illegal," preferring to call them "territory under dispute." In the interview, she called the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel "hypocrites."

"BDS is a new form of antisemitism," Shaked said.

The interior minister told the paper that Israel had gained first-hand experience that showed that whenever it withdrew from a contested territory, a terrorist organization would spring up in the vacuum, citing southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as examples.

"We will not repeat this experiment again," Shaked said.

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The UAE has reportedly threatened Hamas it will cease all infrastructure and economic investments in the Gaza Strip if it fails to come to a ceasefire agreement with Jerusalem in the near future.

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"We are still ready and willing to promote civil projects in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and under UN management [in Gaza], but our necessary condition is calm," an unnamed UAE official told the financial daily Globes over the weekend.

"If Hamas does not commit to complete calm, it is dooming the residents of the Strip to a life of suffering. Its leaders must understand that their policies are first and foremost hurting the people of Gaza."

On Friday, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan voiced his country's concern over the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence and called for a ceasefire and the start of a diplomatic dialogue, state news agency WAM reported.

Al Nahyan offered condolences to all victims of the fighting, citing the promise of September accords that made the UAE and Bahrain the first Arab states in a quarter century to establish formal ties with Israel.

"The UAE is alarmed by the escalating spiral of violence in Israel and Palestine. We express our condolences to all victims of the recent fighting, and join others in calling for an immediate cessation of violence and hostilities," he said.

"The UAE calls on all parties to take immediate steps to commit to a ceasefire, initiate a political dialogue, and exercise maximum restraint," the minister added.

"We reflect on the promise that the Abraham Accords hold for current and future generations, to live with their neighbors in peace, dignity and prosperity," he said, offering his country's support to all efforts to de-escalate tensions.

Part of this article was first published by i24NEWS.

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The United Arab Emirates played a role in getting longtime Asian rivals India and Pakistan to agree to a ceasefire amid tensions over the disputed region of Kashmir, the Emirati ambassador to Washington said.

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The comments by Yousef al-Otaiba come as the Emirates tries to recalibrate its diplomacy to Washington following US President Joe Biden taking office.

After enjoying a close relationship to former President Donald Trump, the autocratically ruled UAE has sought to underline its importance in regional affairs as Biden has struck a harder tone with Saudi Arabia and suggested he wants to rejoin Iran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Speaking in a video released Wednesday by Stanford University's Hoover Institution, al-Otaiba acknowledged an Emirati role "in bringing the Kashmir escalation down" between the two nuclear-armed nations.

"We try to be helpful where we have influence with two different countries," al-Otaiba told H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser to Trump. "India and Pakistan was the most recent one."

In February, India and Pakistan agreed to adhere to a 2003 accord over the heavily militarized Himalayan region that had been largely ignored since its signing. Troops regularly exchanged artillery, rocket and small-arms fire across the so-called Line of Control, killing hundreds including civilians.

Kashmir has been divided but claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan since almost immediately after the two countries' creation in 1947. They have fought three wars against each other, two directly dealing with the disputed region. India in 2019 stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and took direct control over it, sparking unrest.

The sudden ceasefire in February came as a surprise, especially given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist agenda and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's own comments about India.

The two sides had reached the brink of war in 2019 after what India called a preemptive strike against militants blamed for a suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops. Pakistan retaliated, shooting down a MiG-21 fighter jet and capturing its pilot, whom they later released.

That the UAE could be a trusted interlocutor isn't surprising. The federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai has a large expatriate workforce of Indians and Pakistanis across both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Emirati sheikhs maintain close relations to both countries because of it.

In Pakistan, a security official told The Associated Press the UAE did play a role in brokering the ceasefire. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists, declined to say where these meetings took place.

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An Indian security official told the AP the two countries had decided to keep the talks "secret and low key." But he described the UAE's role as providing "nothing but the venue" in Dubai.

The UAE, which hosts 3,500 American troops and the US Navy's busiest foreign port of call, remains a close partner in the region, having sent troops at one point to Afghanistan. The UAE has tried to trade on its efforts to host peace talks between Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as its recognition of Israel, to bolster those ties. It hopes to purchase advanced F-35 fighter jets from the US as part of a $23 billion sale.

However, the UAE's reputation in Washington has taken a hit over human rights abuses during its involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Its close relationship to Saudi Arabia, already criticized over its killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul in 2018, hasn't helped. The UAE also remains skeptical of the Iranian nuclear deal, something Biden hopes to reenter amid heightened regional tensions.

Al-Otaiba acknowledged in his remarks that Pakistan and India "might not sort of become best friends," but that such communication is important.

"At least we want to get it to a level where it's functional, where it's operational, where they are speaking to each other, where there's lines of communication," al-Otaiba said. "That's our goal."

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The two most widely-distributed newspapers in the United Arab Emirates devoted their front pages to the meeting. Khaleej Times, the country's biggest English-language paper, ran a picture of the meeting under the headline "Salam, Shalom."

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Sky News' Arabic channel, which broadcasts from the UAE, invited various analysts and experts to their studio, who praised the nascent deal and encouraged other Gulf states to take similar action.

The state-run Emirati television channels, as well as the kingdom's satellite channels also showed the front pages of various Israeli newspaper, including Israel Hayom, which featured the word "Peace" in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, along with the Emirati, American, and Israeli flags.

The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiyya channel, which is headquartered in Dubai, provided extensive coverage of the delegation's arrival, emphasizing the point that an Israeli plane had, for the first time, flown over Saudi Arabia with permission from Riyadh.

The Qatari Al-Jazeera network, one of the most popular in the Middle East, devoted special coverage to the delegation's arrival, including constant updates. However, Al-Jazeera did opt to focus on two explosions that took place at restaurants in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Monday.

Al-Jazeera's coverage of the blasts played down the likelihood that they were the result of gas leaks and emphasized that the Emirati security establishment was looking into whether they might be linked to the Israeli-American delegation.

Officials in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip condemned the delegation, saying, "The Emiratis continue to rub salt in the wounds of the Palestinian people who are groaning under the weight of the crimes of the Zionist occupation government, with whom the United Arab Emirates has normalized relations."

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh spoke out against the Israeli-US delegation to Abu Dhabi, saying at the opening of a PA cabinet meeting that "Our hope was to see a plan form the United Arab Emirates that would land in a liberated Jerusalem. It pains us to see an Israeli plan landing in Abu Dhabi … in clear violation of the Arab position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called Monday a "black day in history," and added that "The group of 'normalizers' won't be forgotten in the history of our peoples. This scene will remain a mark of disgrace on the heads of the normalizers, who will never understand the danger of the Zionist entity."

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