The first commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took to the skies on Monday, after an agreement to normalize relations between the two countries following a peace deal.
The flight would have taken seven hours if it had not been allowed to use Saudi airspace, Becker said; instead it took just over three hours. Israel and Saudi Arabia do not share diplomatic relations. President Donald Trump’s top adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and the Director of Israel’s National Security Council, Meir Ben-Shabbat all spoke briefly to the media after arriving on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion airport on Monday morning. « This is a historic flight and we hope that this would start a more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond, » Kushner said. « The future should not be determined by the past. » Brian Hook, the outgoing US Special Representative for Iran, and Special Representative for International Negotiations, Avi Berkowitz, are escorting Israeli government experts in aviation, space, health and banking, according to a senior White House official.
