However, addressing reporters later in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to "delay" the annexation as part of the deal with the UAE, but the plans remain "on the table". It is necessary to see how other nations and the various stakeholders in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reacted to the Israel-UAE deal. The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, defended the deal. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's Mohammed bin Zayed decision to normalize ties with Israel reflected badly needed realism.
"While the peace decision remains basically a Palestinian-Israeli one, the bold initiative of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed has allowed, by banishing the specter of annexing Palestinian lands, more time for peace opportunities through the two-state solution," Gargash said in a series of tweets. "Developing normal ties in return for this is a realistic approach forwarded by the Emirates," he said. "The successful decision is to take and give. This has been achieved."
In a statement, Democratic United States presidential candidate Joe Biden said, "The UAE's offer to publicly recognize the State of Israel is a welcome, brave, and badly-needed act of statesmanship ... A Biden-Harris Administration will seek to build on this progress, and will challenge all the nations of the region to keep pace." Biden also said, "Annexation would be a body blow to the cause of peace, which is why I oppose it now and would oppose it as president," he said.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the agreement between Israel and the UAE. He said, "The UAE and Israel's decision to normalize relations is hugely good news." "It was my profound hope that annexation did not go ahead in the West Bank and today's agreement to suspend those plans is a welcome step on the road to a more peaceful West of Asia."
The Persian Gulf state of Bahrain welcomed the accord between the UAE and Israel. The small island state of Bahrain is a close ally of Saudi Arabia, which has not yet commented on the agreement.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a close ally of the UAE, welcomed the agreement. "I followed with interest and appreciation the joint statement between the United States, United Arab Emirates, and Israel to halt the Israeli annexation of Palestinian lands and taking steps to bring peace in the West of Asia," said Sisi.
Jordan said that the UAE-Israel deal could push forward stalled peace negotiations if it succeeds in prodding Israel to accept a Palestinian state on land that Israel had occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
"If Israel dealt with it as an incentive to end occupation ... it will move the region towards a just peace," said Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. Israel's failure to do this would only deepen the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict and threaten the security of the region as a whole. The agreement must be followed by Israel ending any unilateral moves to annex territory in the occupied West Bank that that obstruct peace prospects and violate Palestinian rights.
In a statement issued by his spokesman, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the accord, saying the Palestinian leadership rejects and denounces the UAE, Israeli and US trilateral, surprising announcement. He also termed the deal a "betrayal of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, and the Palestinian cause."
Hamas rejected the US-brokered deal establishing formal ties between Israel and the UAE saying it did not serve the cause of the Palestinians. This agreement encourages the occupation by Israel to continue its denial of the rights of Palestinian people, and even to continue its crimes against our people.
Oman said it backed the normalization of ties between the neighboring United Arab Emirates and Israel and hoped the move would help achieve a lasting West of Asia peace. A foreign ministry spokesman expressed the sultanate's "support for the UAE's decision regarding relations with Israel", according to a statement on Oman's official news agency.
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