Arab Foreign Ministers Meet in Israel's Negev Desert  

ALBAWABA - Foreign Arab Foreign Minister have met in the Negev desert with their Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, Monday. Also in attendance was US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. 

The Arab Foreign Ministers included Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed of the UAE, Nasser Bourita of Morocco, Abdul Latif Zayani of Bahrain and Sameh Shoukry of Egypt. 

This is being described as a historic meeting to be held in Israel following their normalization agreement signed in September 2020. 

The Times of Israel reported: "The foreign ministers of Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Egypt landed on Sunday evening in Israel ahead of a landmark regional summit in the southern Negev Desert, where they were joined by their Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid."

The Arab Foreign Ministers landed in the Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel. The daily reported: "From the airbase, the senior diplomats headed to the Isrotel Kedma Hotel in Sde Boker, where Lapid — who is hosting the two-day event — greeted them."

It added an official close to Lapid told journalists that the Israeli top diplomat and the Arab dignitaries were discussing “advancing a regional security architecture.”

Israeli daily Haaretz tweeted:  Historic summit of Arab FMs in Israel. But where are the Palestinians?

The meeting took place while the Israeli government approved the construction of five new Jewish settlements in the Al-Naqab desert as stated the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
The resolution, proposed by Israeli Minister of Interior Ayelet Shaked, gives the World Zionist Organisation's Settlement Division the power to recruit residents to move to the new settlements.

It added, pointing out that there are almost 300,000 Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship and who live in dozens of villages in the Negev and that some 100,000 of them live in unrecognised villages and are denied any infrastructure or support from the government.