Dubai, here we come: Israelis may not yet be able to make a beeline for Dubai’s chintzy malls and Abu Dhabi’s golden sands (and ATMs), but that has not stopped a gaggle of newspapers from rounding up dispatches from the United Arab Emirates, full of hope for flourishing ties with Israel’s newest regional buddy.
Both major tabloids, Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth, feature front pages with breathlessly buoyant reports from the Gulf state.
“You’re from Israel? Ahlan, welcome,” reads the large front page headline in Yedioth in a strange pidgin of Hebrew, Arabic and English (Nu, nisht Yiddish?).
“It seems to me that the news of the peace deal forming raised the level of Israeli joy to new heights,” writes Yaniv Halil, the paper’s correspondent who swiftly made for Dubai. “And it seems the level of excitement in Dubai yesterday was similar, if not even greater than that of the Israelis. Every person I spoke to yesterday in Dubai expressed open happiness over the agreement and then showered me with questions about Israel and Israelis. With the heat a blistering 42 degrees in the shade, the news of the historic peace came like a cool and refreshing slushie.”
Israel Hayom’s Eldad Beck gets the same vibe, though naturally the paper runs a picture not of Beck enjoying the Gulf heat, but rather of editor Boaz Bismuth in the Emirates holding up a copy of the paper in 2010, a reminder that Israelis haven’t exactly been strangers to the UAE before now. Beck notes that he too had been to the UAE several times before.
“But still, there was always a need to downplay my Israeliness. The openings toward Israel were expressed behind closed doors, in hiding. So I was surprised by the warmth expressed toward me over the weekend by an Emirati diplomat, when I presented myself as a reporter for Israel Hayom. ‘Ahlan wasahlan Beck,” she greeted me excitedly when I began to speak to her in Arabic. ‘We’ve waited for this day and it’s finally here.”