(Prudent sur ce coup là MBS. note de rené)

Saudi Arabia refuses permission for Israeli flight to use airspace

May 27, 2021 at 1:44 pm | Published in:  Middle East Monitror

May 27, 2021 at 1:44 pm

Saudi Arabia has refused permission for an Israeli airline to fly through its airspace, forcing the carrier to cancel a flight to the United Arab Emirates. The flight operated by Israir, the second-largest Israeli carrier, was held for ten hours at Ben Gurion Airport before being cancelled.

The reason for the refusal is unclear. According to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the flight was cancelled because of a "technical failure".

The issue is likely to raise speculation about relations between the two countries. It's only five months since the Kingdom opened its airspace to Israeli aircraft following the normalisation of ties between the occupation state and the UAE last year, followed by Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

Palestinians were supported by civil society groups around the world in their condemnation of the US-sponsored normalisation deals. For decades, the Arab states have conditioned normalisation with the settler-colonial state upon an end to Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine and the creation of a Palestinian state. This was the essence of the Arab Peace Initiative signed in Beirut in 2002.

Not only did the normalising Arab states break their own pledge, but the deal was also seen as rewarding far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, who are committed to taking more land to create "Greater Israel". They are determined to kill any possibility of a viable State of Palestine. For decades, the Likud leader has been promising to get the Arab states to normalise ties without conceding an inch of territory occupied by Israel.

With Saudi airspace closed to them, flights between Israel and the UAE will be unsustainable. Instead of a flight time of three hours, it would be up to eight hours.