by SEAN MATHEWS
The UAE is lobbying the Trump administration to torpedo a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip that Egypt drafted and which has been endorsed by the Arab League, US and Egyptian officials told Middle East Eye.
The split is becoming increasingly bitter, with US diplomats concerned that it is harming US interests in the region. It reflects growing Arab competition over who calls the shots in the Gaza Strip’s future governance and reconstruction, as well as different opinions over how much influence Hamas should retain there.
The Emirati pressure poses a dilemma for Cairo because both the UAE and Egypt broadly back the same Palestinian powerbroker for Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled former Fatah official.
“The UAE could not be the lone state opposing the Arab League plan when it was agreed, but they are trashing it with the Trump administration,” the US official told MEE.
The UAE is flexing its unparalleled access to the White House to criticise the plan as unworkable and accuse Cairo of giving too much influence to Hamas.
The UAE’s powerful ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, has been lobbying US President Donald Trump’s inner circle and US lawmakers to put pressure on Egypt to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians, one US official and one Egyptian briefed on the matter told MEE.
Otaiba was previously on record saying that he did not see “an alternative” to Trump’s call earlier this year for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced outside of the Gaza Strip.
MEE contacted the UAE embassy in Washington, DC for comment but did not receive a reply.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Egypt-founded Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE has tried to stamp out across the Middle East.
Egypt’s military-led government has also crushed the Muslim Brotherhood, but it allows Hamas officials some freedom of movement. Egyptian spymasters have long-standing relations with Hamas members, including the Qassam brigades, which Egypt has used to mediate the ceasefires in Gaza.
UAE angered by US-Hamas talks
Egypt’s Gaza plan has been criticised by the UAE for not spelling out specifically how to disarm and remove Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
Middle East Eye for more