Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a deal to establish full diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates proves his country does not need to retreat from occupied land sought by the Palestinians to achieve peace and normalisation with Arab states.

The two countries announced on Thursday they were establishing full diplomatic relations in a US-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians.

Mr Netanyahu has insisted the annexation plans are only on “temporary hold” at the request of the US.

The UAE, like most of the Arab world, long rejected official diplomatic ties with Israel, saying recognition should only come in return for concessions in peace talks.

Its accord with Israel breaks that long-held tenet and could usher in agreements with other Arab states, undermining a consensus that was a rare source of leverage for the Palestinians.

“According to the Palestinians and to many others in the world who agreed with them, peace can’t be reached without conceding to the Palestinians’ demands, including uprooting settlements, dividing Jerusalem and withdrawal to 1967 lines,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video statement.

“No more. This concept of ‘peace through withdrawal and weakness’ has passed from the world.”

The Palestinians want the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for their hoped-for state and peacemaking with them since the 1990s has been based on withdrawal from those lands to make way for a Palestinian homeland.

Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Six-Day War, although it withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.

But what has been a wall of Arab support for the Palestinians and their demands has begun to crack in recent years, in large part because of the shared enmity of Israel and other Arab states towards Iran and Iranian proxies in the region.

The Palestinians bristled at Mr Netanyahu’s remarks.

“Peace should be established on the basis of the Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abba, said.

“This is the Arab and international consensus, and anything else has no value.”

Mr Netanyahu also reiterated his interpretation of the UAE deal – that annexation is only being suspended and is still on the table, so long as it was done in coordination with Washington.

UAE officials have indicated the deal means annexation has been shelved entirely.

After President Donald Trump released his Middle East plan earlier this year, which was favourable to Israel, Mr Netanyahu said he would forge ahead with annexing parts of the West Bank.

He backed away from moving forwards with annexation last month in the face of fierce international opposition and misgivings by White House officials.

But Mr Netanyahu, who has seen his popularity plummet over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, has faced searing criticism from settler leaders and their representatives in Parliament over the annexation backtrack and he has tried to reassure them that he remains committed to the move.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday, Netanyahu’s office said, as the new administration tries to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.

A statement from the Israeli leader’s office said Jason Greenblatt “reaffirmed President Trump’s commitment to Israel’s security and to the effort to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve a lasting peace through direct negotiations.”

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and the Palestinians have been concerned at the more favourable approach shown by Washington towards Netanyahu since Trump came to office in January.

The statement added that during a conversation lasting more than five hours, Netanyahu and Greenblatt discussed Israel’s settlement building “with the hope of reaching a formula that will aim to promote peace and security.”

One of the most heated issues between Israel and the Palestinians is Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory the Palestinians want for their own future state along with the Gaza Strip.

On Friday, Trump spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and invited him to the White House. It was the first phone call between the two leaders since Trump took office. Greenblatt is set to meet Abbas in the West Bank on Tuesday.

The Israeli statement added that “Greenblatt stressed how important enabling the growth of the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life for Palestinians are to President Trump.”

Before taking office, Trump named Greenblatt, his company’s top lawyer, as his special negotiator for trade deals and other talks and his adviser to the Middle East and special representative for international negotiations.

The Israeli military filed manslaughter charges on Monday against a soldier who shot a wounded Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground in a killing a poll said many Israelis felt was justified.

The defendant – a conscript infantry medic whose name has been barred from publication – was captured on video firing once into the head of the Palestinian after the man had been shot by other soldiers while taking part in a March 24 stabbing attack.

The incident in Hebron, a city in the occupied West Bank that has been a focus of a six-month-old wave of Palestinian street violence, tapped into international controversy over whether Israeli security forces’ response has been heavy-handed.

Defence lawyers say the soldier took action, fearing the Palestinian had a hidden bomb. Prosecutors, citing the testimony by the soldier’s comrades and his apparently calm disposition, see it as an illegal shooting motivated by revenge.

The soldier was initially held on a murder warrant. The lighter manslaughter charge, reflecting a view that the killing was not premeditated, could spell a jail term of up to 20 years.

“The terrorist … was left lying on the ground, still alive, and did not present any immediate and tangible danger to the civilians and soldiers around him,” the manslaughter indictment said.

It said the accused handed his helmet to a comrade, cocked his rifle, walked a few steps towards the Palestinian and “fired one bullet at the terrorist’s head”, causing his death.

Such action, the charge sheet said, violated rules of engagement and had no “operational justification”.

An opinion poll last month found 57 percent of Israelis think the soldier should never been arrested. His supporters, including some rightist politicians, have demonstrated for his release. Almost 60,000 people have signed an online petition demanding that he be decorated for heroism.

The soldier’s family and supporters planned to hold a rally, under the slogan of “you don’t abandon a warrior”, in a main square in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

Two popular Israeli singers initially said they would perform at the gathering but later withdrew, saying they feared the event would have political overtones and be seen as a protest against military authorities.

The outcry over the Hebron incident has flagged up rare rifts over the role and ethics of Israel’s conscript armed forces, long the symbol of unity among the majority Jews where deep concern about security is largely shared across the social and political spectrum.

During a short trip to the West Bank this November, an interfaith group, most of them British Muslims from the Faith Matters organization, visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah and Hebron through a Holy Land Trust program for five days.

Faith Matters is a UK interfaith and community cohesion-based organization that works “towards conflict resolution and cohesion through work with faith communities in the UK and the Middle East.” The aim of the trip was to bring British Muslims to the Palestinian territories so that they gain awareness of issues within the region and to build networks and links with faith-based and interfaith organizations in the arena. Therefore, the trip included meetings with key faith leaders, organizations and faith institutions.

The group had the chance to have an overview of interreligious relations in the region and diverse Jewish perspectives on Judaism and the State. They also met with Archbishop Atallah Hanna who talked about the relationship between Muslims and Christians. The group also had the time to wander around the old city of Jerusalem and visit the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque. They also learned about the relationships between Arabs and Jews through Musalaha, an organization that works towards reconciliation.

The group had a series of private-facing discussions in Jerusalem and Bethlehem including a meeting with HLT Executive Director Sami Awad (who shared his personal experience in nonviolence), a meeting with a member of parliament and representatives from the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). Short pilgrimages were also included and allowed the group to pray at the Ibrahimi Mosque. A visit to HLT home rebuilding project at Al-Khader village and to the St. George Monastery was a highlight. A great ending of their tour was enjoying dinner and a cultural evening along with HLT staff in Bethlehem before heading back home.

With the aim of promoting the messages of understanding, mutual support and empathy between Muslims and Christians both in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories and within the UK, the group left the Holy Land supporting Muslim and Christian dialogue and ensuring that the dialogue continues through the participants when back in the UK.

Source: The Holy Land Trust Link: https://www.holylandtrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=687&Itemid=90

The Future Visions Charity: The charity supports entrepreneurs in the West Bank through micro and small business loans and to people in outlying villages in Palestine. Faith Matters provided strategic advice to the charity and helped to develop its structure, it direction and the systems it needed to develop in order to be effective. The Future Visions Charity provides support to many Palestinian women in villages in the Jordan Valley and in the West Bank of Palestine. It also tries to use faith and business as a route to reducing tensions and mistrust between communities. It is these latter values and vision which synergises with the work of Faith Matters which also works on programmes to tackle intolerance, hatred and bigotry.

This link has also meant that models of co-existence and dialogue have been tried and implemented in communities in Palestine, the United Kingdom and Israel.