Klezmer music notes spring from the garden of a Dubai palace. The bouncy melody, characteristic of Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, makes the wedding guests wake up. Men in dark suits, wearing black hats or kippahs, and women in long, colorful dresses join the bride and groom at the foot of the nuptial canopy. Amidst the applause and “Mazel tov” (which can be translated as “good luck”), some Dubaiotes in white dichdacha, the traditional tunic of the Arabs of the Gulf, approach to observe this curious spectacle. It is the first Orthodox Jewish wedding ever to be celebrated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a wealthy petromonarchy in the Arab-Persian Gulf.
The video of this party, shot in early December, spread at full speed on social networks. It is emblematic of the euphoric, honeymoon-worthy vibe that prevails between the UAE and Israel, following the normalization of their diplomatic relations. Announced in mid-August and ratified a month later on the White House lawn, at the same time as the recognition of Israel by the Kingdom of Bahrain, this intergovernmental treaty was followed by an avalanche of bilateral agreements, in the technology, media, football, financial services, tourism, research or air transport.
“The process of normalization between the UAE and Israel is advancing at full speed, and it is one of a kind, recognizes Husseïn Ibish, researcher at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. The Emirates are aiming for integration at all levels with Israel, while the other countries which have recognized this state, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, have much more limited ambitions. ” The Institute for National Security Studies, Israel’s leading think tank, has opened a dialogue with the Emirates Policy Center, its Emirati counterpart. Israel’s financial industry heavyweight Hapoalim and Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest financial institution, have pledged to cooperate. The Weizmann Institute of Sciences and the Mohamed Ben Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence have done the same. And so on…
Perceived as an El Dorado
So radical is the lifting of the normalization taboo that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family had no qualms about buying back half of the shares in Beitar Jerusalem, an Israeli football club infamous for anti-Arab abuses of its supporters. The Israeli channel i24News has signed a content exchange agreement with Abu Dhabi Media, an audiovisual group, without visibly worrying about the fact that in the Emirates, a super-supervised despotic regime, the media have no freedom.
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