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What happened: Israeli Foreign Ministry Director Alon Ushpiz and 20 other Israeli officials joined counterparts from Morocco, Bahrain, the UAE, Egypt, and the US in Abu Dhabi for the first official meeting of the Forum’s working groups.

• A total of 150 participants met in what organisers say was the largest gathering of Israeli and Arab officials since the 1991 Madrid Summit.
• Israeli ministries represented included defence, intelligence, economy, agriculture, energy, health, tourism, and education. Officials from the National Security Council and the Water Authority were also present.
• Amidst a week of domestic political tension and recrimination, the forum presented a rare opportunity for bipartisan celebration. Opposition leader Yair Lapid described images from the summit as “extremely moving” and tweeted that “our vision of a ‘statesmanship of connections’ is taking form and is bringing the Middle East to new achievements of regional stability and cooperation.”
• Away from the Forum, new Foreign Minister Eli Cohen spoke with UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday. Cohen then joined Economy Minister Nik Barkat in meeting with UK minister for the Middle East region Lord Ahmed in Jerusalem on Wednesday, with discussions focussing on regional security and the long hoped-for free trade deal between the UK and Israel.

Context: The Negev Forum was a 2022 initiative of the US and then-Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, designed to create a “permanent forum” to deepen the Abraham Accords, strengthen Arab-Israeli ties, and address issues of mutual concern.

• Its inaugural meeting, attended by the Foreign Ministers of all members, was held in March last year in Sde Boker, followed by subsequent meetings in June and October.
• The Working Groups are divided into six issue areas-
  • Regional security
  • Clean energy
  • Food and water security
  • Health
  • Tourism
  • Education and coexistence.
• It can already point to its achievements in increased tourism and direct flights between Israel and the Arab members, as well as the expansion of trade and academic and cultural exchange.
• Israel currently chairs the education and coexistence group, and co-chairs the food and water security team with Morocco.
• Officials stressed the importance of the latter group in the context of the continued disruption of the global supply of grain and other vital ingredients caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• Israeli Foreign Ministry officials stressed that the decision of all other Forum states to publicly criticise Minister Ben Gvir’s recent visit to the Temple Mount would have no bearing on discussions, and further signs of the increased cooperation between Israel and the UAE were evident during and beyond the Forum.
• This week, Israel and UAE held their first official financial dialogue meeting (virtually). Shira Greenberg, chief economist and director of state revenue, research, and international affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Finance joined Younis Haji Al Khoori, under-secretary of the UAE’s Ministry of Finance, to discuss opportunities for financial cooperation.
• The UAE also announced this week that it will introduce Holocaust education at both the primary and secondary level.

“Empty chairs”

• Jordan continues to decline invitations to attend the Forum, citing the non-inclusion of the Palestinians. A US State Department official this week described the ongoing absence of Jordanian officials as constituting an “empty chair at the table”.
• US officials have been keen to persuade Amman to participate, with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken raising the issue once more on a phone call with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi last Friday.
• Alongside Egyptian overtures to Ramallah, the question of Palestinian involvement was also discussed last July during President Biden’s meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, with the latter said to have confirmed to Biden that his government was not interested in participating under current conditions.
• The US continues to update Palestinian officials on the forum’s discussions, and an idea floated last year was that Jordan and the Palestinians would join the working groups in an observer capacity.
• The US stressed that the forum’s work still sought to benefit the Palestinians: “You’ll likely see projects that are not targeted specifically at the Palestinians per se,” said an official, “but broader regional projects that [they] will be able to benefit from just like the other countries involved…”
• Although Israeli-Palestinian peace is not a formal priority of the forum, its Regional Cooperation Framework (agreed by the Bennett-Lapid government in November 2022 but only released this week) did express the ambition that its work could be “harnessed to create momentum in Israeli-Palestinian relations, towards a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and as part of efforts to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
• Ushpiz, however, said: “Our line is very clear and my instructions going in were very clear ­- the Negev forum is about strengthening regional integration and improving people’s lives and we don’t want it to engage in political discussions about the Palestinian issue.”
• Analyst Barak Ravid cites Israeli officials disclosing that several of the participating Arab states had wanted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be mentioned in the meeting’s closing statement but that these proposals were rejected by Israeli officials.
• Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem, meanwhile, condemned the Arab states’ participation as an “insistence on the sin of their normalisation with the Occupation State”.

Looking ahead: The forum’s next meeting – at the “Annual Ministerial” level – will take place in Morocco in the Spring.

• By that time, Prime Minister Netanyahu will hope to have made his first official visit to the UAE.
• According to reports, officials in Washington plan to invite the Foreign Minister of an unnamed and as yet uninvolved Muslim African state.