The coronavirus crisis has led to some tentative attempts at cooperation between Arab Gulf nations and Israel, which many of them do not recognize.
In the battle for regional influence, coronavirus worries make Middle East countries vulnerable to disinformation campaigns. And this month, Qatar Airways held a ticket giveaway for healthcare workers, in gratitude for their work during the pandemic, and said Israelis were eligible to apply.
“There is no difference, no barrier in medical fields,” Akbar al-Baker, the airline’s chief executive, told CNN. Conversely, in late March, the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, imported 100,000 coronavirus test kits to Israel in a secret deal with an unidentified gulf state, according to Israeli government statements and media reports., with several Arab Gulf countries already struggling to reopen while infection rates remain high. The UAE reported no new cases on Thursday, keeping its tally at 31,969 infected and 255 dead among them.Israel, meanwhile, has begun lifting its lockdown after 281 deaths from the coronavirus. It confirmed 16 new infections on Thursday, bringing its total to 16,809. The Sheba Medical Center, a leader in telemedicine services, is preparing for the eventuality of an autumn spike in cases by building an underground “corona department” outfitted to provide remote treatment to throngs of patients. “A few months ago no one spoke about telemedicine,” Har-Even said, “but COVID-19 raised it to the level of a commonplace treatment — used so that we could protect our staff.”Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox.Last year, Sheba’s director, Yitshak Kreiss, a former surgeon general of the Israeli army, was invited by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin to attend the White House-sponsored Peace to Prosperity Workshop in Bahrain, an international summit aimed at advancing the Israeli-Palestinian “vision for peace” developed by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law.According to hospital spokesperson Steve Walz, Kreiss brought to the conference a position paper proposing “medicine as a solid bridge to peace in the region.” The proposal has not been made public, but it was presented to numerous political leaders, including the then-Bahraini foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, one of the most prominent proponents of rapprochement between Arab nations and Israel. “Before the Bahrain conference we never dreamed of speaking to people in Bahrain,” Har-Even said. “A lot of doors and hearts were opened there. Partners in the gulf understood the strong and immediate effect Israeli medicine could have.” Yet much of the budding cooperation could be at risk, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to, an annexation that would make a viable Palestinian state difficult, if not impossible. The move has brought condemnation from Arab states, including those with peace deals with Israel. Earlier this month, the UAE warned there would be “dangerous repercussions” if Netanyahu went ahead with the annexation — a point of view echoed even by Arab leaders with long-standing peace deals with Israel.“There would be more chaos and extremism in the region,” Jordan’s King Abdullah said in an interview this month with the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. “If Israel really annexes the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,” the king said.
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