Top Jerusalem Official Sees UAE Ties Benefiting Her City

(Bloomberg) -- Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum is looking to leverage Israel’s normalization with the United Arab Emirates to bring development opportunities to her city.

Infrastructure investment and property development can help to make that happen, Hassan-Nahoum said in a recent interview at a luxury hotel owned by Dubai billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor. And she already has a business networking platform in place to prod that along.

Months before normalization plans were even announced, she and Israeli businessman and entrepreneur Dorian Barak set up a joint council for Israeli and Emirati businesspeople, whose quiet cooperation over the years had grown as their governments drew unofficially closer.

“The UAE can be a fantastic partner in developing infrastructural projects, and is a gateway to the whole east part of the globe,” she said.

Palestinian Arabs make up 37% of her constituents, Hassan-Nahoum said. While Israel speaks often about Jerusalem being an undivided city, reality on the ground is much different.

Budgets for the city’s traditionally Arab eastern sector, captured in the 1967 Middle East war, have historically been lower than for the Jewish west so Palestinian areas consequently suffer from shabbier infrastructure. Building permits are handed out more sparingly.

While the normalization of Israel-UAE ties marks a historic breakthrough -- the UAE is the first Gulf Arab state to officially recognize Israel -- Palestinians and many others in the Arab world regard it as a betrayal because it preceded an agreement on Palestinian statehood.

Hassan-Nahoum, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, says she wants to change the narrative in the interest of developing east Jerusalem.

“The rhetoric doesn’t have to be about betrayal,” but “about how to move forward,” she said.

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