Report: Netanyahu revealed secret UAE visit to avoid being upstaged by election rival Bennett

Having learned Bennett was about to visit the Gulf nation, PM said to have rushed to publicize his own trip, enraging Abu Dhabi which has denied it ever took place

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to publicize his wartime visit to the United Arab Emirates — a trip that the UAE had reportedly asked to keep secret and which Abu Dhabi has publicly denied took place — was driven by internal political concerns over a planned trip to the Gulf state by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, a report said Sunday.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu said he had secretly visited the UAE during the US-Israeli war with Iran and met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, adding that this resulted in a “historic breakthrough” in bilateral relations. The UAE denied the claim, however, calling the statement from Netanyahu’s office “entirely unfounded.”

The trip would be the first that Netanyahu has made to the UAE since normalizing relations with Abu Dhabi in the 2020 Abraham Accords, as previous hoped-for visits failed to materialize.

Channel 12 reported Sunday that Emirati officials had explicitly asked that the meeting remain confidential and were angered by Netanyahu’s decision to disclose it, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the countries despite warming ties.

The report said Netanyahu decided to reveal the visit after learning that Bennett was expected to travel to the UAE the following day for meetings with bin Zayed and senior Emirati officials.

Bennett is considered a central rival to Netanyahu in this year’s Knesset election. Now making a political comeback as the head of the nascent Together party, Bennett unseated the premier in 2021 by joining with centrist and left-wing parties, as well as an Arab party, before taking a break from politics after that government collapsed in 2022.

Channel 12 cited two sources familiar with the details as saying Netanyahu feared Bennett’s visit would become public while his own meeting remained secret, creating the impression that the Emiratis were receiving Bennett officially but regarding the sitting prime minister as an unwelcome guest.

It was unclear whether Bennett’s reported visit ultimately took place.

Bennett’s office declined to comment on the report, while Netanyahu’s office denied the story, according to Channel 12.

Although Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi have been working to increase security and economic cooperation in the years since the Abraham Accords, these efforts have strengthened dramatically since the outbreak of the war with Iran.

Among other things, reports have indicated that the two countries worked together on coordinated attacks on Iran, intelligence sharing, detection and interception of Iranian missiles and drones, and selecting Iranian targets.