Israel and the Emirates, half a year of more trade than diplomatic relations

It was political leaders who six months ago today signed the normalisation agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but it has been the business sector of both countries that has taken the reins of a link that for now is measured more in millions of dollars than in diplomatic achievements.

Since the signing of the so-called Abraham Accords on 15 September at the White House, the volume of Israeli exports of products and services to its new partner in the Persian Gulf has exceeded 500 million dollars.

This figure, Adiv Baruch, president of the Israel Export Institute, revealed to Efe, was the target they had set for the first year, in which they now hope to exceed 1 billion dollars in sales.

"Economics has been the engine of diplomacy," Baruch said, describing the bilateral ties as "economic diplomacy and apolitical diplomacy", and the Emirati market as an "oasis in the desert" for Israelis.

While this incipient alliance has strong political undertones, particularly based on their enmity towards Iran, it has not yet yielded tangible diplomatic results beyond the appointment of ambassadors.

Financially, however, the figures are overwhelming: according to the Dubai government, trade with Israel in the first five months since the agreements exceeded 6,000 tons, including a balance of almost $200 million in exports.

Some of the main sectors of this bilateral trade have been food technology, advanced medical equipment, cybersecurity, fruit and vegetables, diamonds, and financial technology.

This budding relationship goes beyond the mere buying and selling of goods and services, however, and has also been characterised by a relentless flow of cooperation agreements, memoranda of understanding, countless daily direct flights with tens of thousands of tourists and, above all, investment plans.

Last Thursday the Emirati government announced the creation of a public-private fund to invest $10 billion in "strategic sectors" in Israel, which officials in Abu Dhabi described as "a manifestation of the new spirit of friendship and cooperation".

Alongside bilateral trade and multi-billion-dollar investment funds, a host of intermediary companies with a presence in both countries have flourished to facilitate and promote business-to-business deals.

One such company is the UAE-Israel Business Council, founded by Fleur Hassan Nahoum, deputy mayor of Jerusalem, and Thani al Shirawi, CEO of one of the largest business conglomerates in the Gulf.

Beyond the initial frenzy and the momentum of a business sector eager for quick and quantifiable results, both felt that the focus should be on the fruits that the Abraham Accords, under which Israel also established relations with Bahrain, can generate in the medium to long term.

"Israelis are very transactional, they come to the Emirates and think that in a week they will have something signed, and it doesn't work like that," Hassan Nahoum told Efe, who believes that these new ties have been "extremely successful" although he acknowledged that there is "a gap in expectations" between the two sides.

This, Al Shirawi told Efe, may be due in part to certain "reservations" of some in the UAE regarding trade with Israel, specifically products from settlements in the occupied West Bank, which also has a political component that may affect trade.

"It will take time," he said, explaining that even his own company has used these months to make a first approach and explore the new market, and that now the "execution phase" will begin.

One of the first Israeli products to set foot on Emirati soil were avocados imported by the company Narinport General Trading.

"At the end of the day it's just business," the company's owner, Daria Izmerli, told Efe, admitting that for her the important thing is not the origin of the product but the price, the quality and the possibilities of marketing it.

"I feel that the link with our Emirati customers goes beyond a purely commercial relationship," Javier Gojman, CEO of Davik, whose container of adhesive tapes was the first to arrive in Dubai after the signing of the agreement by which the UAE became the third Arab country and the first in the Persian Gulf to recognise Israel as a state, told Efe.