On the second floor of Dubai’s gleaming Almas Tower, a huge fake diamond welcomes visitors at the door of one of the world’s largest gemstone trading exchanges, at the DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre).
The kitschy composition takes the attention of the largest representative office in the lobby, on the right: Israel, a country that until 15 September last year was not even officially recognized by the United Arab Emirates. “A year ago, I would never have thought to see this here,” security guard Hassan said.
Neither he nor the DMCC chairman, effusive Ahmed bin Sulayem, who has just been elected ambassador to the World Diamond Council — an acknowledgment of the work that took the Emirates from nowhere to third in the world trade in stone, with $21 billion annual negotiated.
“We are in a privileged position,” he said, as he received businessmen on a commercial mission from the São Paulo government last week, a meeting in which he sought to ward off criticism of monopolistic practices such as the envy of Europeans. And the old adversary on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, the Jewish state, is part of the expansion plans.
Since the so-called Abraham Agreements, a pretentious name coined by the Trump government to symbolize the union of three conflicting faiths with common origins in the region, came into force, the speed of business has impressed analysts.
With Donald Trump limping towards defeat to Joe Biden, the treaties were drawn as a foreign policy asset. After decades only at peace with Jordan and Egypt, Tel Aviv has at once settled with two Persian Gulf monarchies, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Among the seven emirates that make up the last state, enthusiasm is greatest in the most showy, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In the first, oil money is paramount, as is the musculature of its sovereign wealth funds: Mubadala bought a natural gas field in Israel in April for $1 billion.
In the second, which focuses on services, commerce and tourism, business is everywhere.
Based in the city since June, Israeli consul (born in Brazil) Ilan Sztulman Starosta is an easy figure at commercial and social events — part of the Emirati business spirit, with the famous parties given by Sulayem, such as the one held on the margins of Expo Dubai 2020 last week.
In August, Starosta’s wife, Jackie, gave birth to Mia, the first Israeli child born in the Emirates—at the hands of an American Muslim doctor, in considerable symbolism.
The opposite is true: the DMCC has installed itself on the Tel Aviv Diamond Exchange, and the giant Emirates announced its daily flight to the city on Thursday (4), joining two low-cost local companies and Etihad ( Abu Dhabi), in addition to Israeli Arkia, on the route between the two countries.
The state-owned IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries) has announced that it will open a center for one of its most profitable businesses, the conversion of large commercial jets like the Boeing-777 into freighters, in Abu Dhabi by next year.
Analysts from both countries point to Dubai as the perfect outpost to increase trade with India, which already has a strong presence in a real estate market in the city that is impressive due to its gigantism and lack of occupation of units.
Today, around 500 companies from both countries have joined the Emirates-Israel Business Council. According to the Arab government, in this first year there were US$ 700 million in deals completed and billions in future promises — compared to a meager US$ 200,000 side by side, by indirect means, until 2019.
The plan of Abdulla bin Touq, the economy minister, is that in a decade the bilateral volume will reach US$ 1 trillion.
Such strength, of course, supports more ambitious plans. The US has assembled the sequence of Arab peace accords with Israel, completed after the first two by Sudan and Morocco, aimed at lessening the ally’s isolation and forming a broad local front against Iran.
In common, all the Arabs in question have the proximity to Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam of the majority Sunni branch. Tehran is the focus of Shiism, and geopolitically it struggles with Riyadh and also Ankara for regional influence, with the encouragement of groups like the Lebanese Hizbullah or the Palestinian Hamas, for example.
That proximity to the Israeli military machine fits into this scenario is inevitable. Last week, the commander of the Emirati Air Force, Ibrahim Muhammed al-Alawi, visited Israel for the first time.
Near Eilat, it accompanied 80 fighters of the local Air Force and seven other invited countries to execute the Blue Flag 2021 maneuvers.
His presence in a specific instruction for modern American fifth-generation F-35 aircraft, which Israel operates and the US wants to sell to the Emirates, which intend to replace its 78 American F-16s and 59 French Mirage-2000s, drew special attention.
This type of standardization, uncommon in the region, also means good business for the sponsors of peace, the US. Those who are not satisfied are the Palestinians, left behind in the agreements and with their dream of a viable state that is ever more distant.
At Expo Dubai, the first major post-pandemic world fair, Israel was present with an empty pavilion, almost a shed, while Palestine exhibited a more robust structure, adorned with images of the Jerusalem it wants as its capital.
The reality, however, could not be more dissimilar, despite the promises of the emir of Abu Dhabi, who is the president of the Emirates, of support for the Palestinians. Even the serious disturbances this year in Jerusalem, Gaza and other conflict areas have not been able to shake the commercial mood in the Gulf.
Journalist Igor Gielow traveled at the invitation of InvestSP
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