AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef traveled to Dubai on Thursday in the first-ever visit to an Arab country to inaugurate a Jewish center in the UAE.
Israeli Kikar Shabbat news outlet said that Yosef visited the Arab country to open a big and new building for the Jewish minority living in Dubai as their number has grown considerably.
According to the Hebrew-language website, Dubai is set to become the concentration center of Zionism in the countries of the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council that are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman.
On Saturday, a ceremony was held in Dubai, attended by 500 Jews, 400 of whom were Israeli tourists visiting the Arab sheikhdom.
This large number of Israelis traveling to the UAE is following political normalization that was officially announced less than two months ago.
During the past two months although some Israeli officials visited the Emirates, opening a Jewish cultural center in Dubai demonstrates that the normalization is far from remaining purely political and expands to cover all-out cultural and social aspects.
Will Dubai be another occupied Palestine?
Opening the Jewish cultural center and school in Dubai comes while there is no large Jewish population in the Arab country and that the center more than addressing the Jewish minority’s needs is a step towards the long-term Israeli objectives in the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms.
Historically, Jews have no long-term and noticeable presence in the UAE. According to figures published in 2019 by the US Department of American Studies and Ethnicity, about 3,000 Jews, under 150 households, are living and working in various UAE cities.
In 2020, it was stated that over the past years, three synagogues have been activated in the UAE, the first one in Abu Dhabi. The two others were opened in Dubai.
Still, this small number of Jews in this country remains unchanged. But after the normalization, the number of Israelis living and working in the UAE, and predominantly in Dubai city, should be expected to increase.
The interesting point is that the volume of the non-political activities of the Israelis in the UAE is increasing at a strange speed.
For example, each week, thousand packs of meat of livestock slaughtered in a Jewish style, or Koshner meat, are shipped to the UAE to facilitate the nutrition convenience of the Jews living in the Arab country.
According to Emirati sources, the volume of meats for Koshner food exported to the UAE has grown five folds since May. This means the abrupt increase of the Jewish population in the UAE since early 2020. The growth in the population came even before the official normalization was announced between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. Months before the declaration of the so-called peace agreement, the number of Jews in Dubai and the whole UAE grew in a planned manner, to an extent that recently a Koshner restaurant was opened in Khalifa Tower in Dubai.
Reports also state that a new school for the Jews has started work with around 40 students, making the UAE having at least two educational centers for the Jewish students.
The collection of the Israeli cultural and social activism in the UAE shows that Tel Aviv has designed a scheduled plan for the presence of the Jews in the UAE and particularly in Dubai as the regional trade hub even before the normalization was given publicity in August. These plans are still pursued devotedly.
The experience of the gradual occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israelis from 1910 to 1940, which started with buying properties and assets and initiating agricultural activists, is now in front of the other Arab countries. The augmented activities of the Israelis in the UAE promotes some questions: Is the UAE becoming another Palestine? Do the Israeli infrastructural cultural and religious activities in the UAE mean something other than long-term planning for a larger number of the Israeli population and perhaps tens of thousands in the Emirates and maybe in other Arab monarchies?
If this trend continues, in the upcoming years and short term, the UAE will witness a considerable number of Israeli expats in its cities. Having in mind the process of Palestine occupation, the growth in the residence and work of the Israelis makes the top threat to this Arab sheikhdom’s home security.
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