Exclusive: Highlights from Congressman Deutch's remarks to the Israeli-Emirati Forum, July 29, 2021

On July 29th, the Israeli-Emirati Forum, the largest grassroots people-to-people forum bringing together a diverse group of Israelis and Emiratis, met virtually to celebrate one year to the announcement of the Abraham Accords. The Forum, founded by Gulf-Israel Green Ventures CEO Asher Fredman, had the honor of being joined by Congressman Ted Deutch from Florida. The following are several highlights from Congressman Deutch’s remarks:

• There are not many things in Washington that have wide bipartisan support. But the Abraham Accords does enjoy such bipartisan support.

• There is currently legislation in Congress with 200 co-sponsors which aims to require the State Department to build upon the normalization agreements.

• There is a lot of excitement to see what Congress can do, especially through various funding sources and programs to spur further cooperation.

• It was widely known that quiet contacts had been going for years between Israel and the UAE, but bringing them out into the open and formalizing them, shattered decades of mistaken belief that peace between Israel and Arab countries could only happen after fully resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other challenges in the region.

• We expected business relations to take off, but it has been exciting to see the developments in all different areas and fields.

• This group (the Israeli-Emirati Forum) is cutting edge in building people-to-people peace. I don’t remember a time when we have seen two peoples so engaged and so excited to build warm relations.