Government Approves Proposal to Establish a Regional Mechanism – the Negev Forum

By Hamodia Staff

YERUSHALAYIM — The government on Sundayapproved Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s proposal for establishing a regional mechanism – the Negev Forum.

Under this decision, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will coordinate the necessary professional work in Israel for the Forum. The Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Ushpiz, will head the Israeli steering committee and will represent Israel at the multilateral steering committee.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid said at the beginning of the Cabinet meeting: “The Cabinet decision formalizes and funds the working groups for the Negev Forum, which we established last year together with the US, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt.

“These working groups will create economic and security links which, just a few years ago, we could not have even dreamed of. We are working together with entrepreneurs in food-tech, water, energy, tourism and climate, increasing trade between our countries, and are holding a dialogue that strengthens Israel’s security.”

The Directors General of the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, Culture and Sport, Energy, Tourism, Health, and Defense will lead the professional work of the Israeli working group, with the participation of the Ministries of Regional Cooperation, Economy, and Finance.

The historic Negev Summit was held at Lapid’s initiative in Sde Boker in March 2022, with the foreign ministers of Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, the United States, and Israel. This, together with the meeting of the steering committee held in Manama in June 2022, led to the establishment of a regional architecture- “The Negev Forum.”

The government’s decision institutionalizes the work of the Forum, for advancing the initiative’s goals: Regional stability and security, leading diplomatic and economic cooperation, and people-to-people ties between the member countries for the welfare of the peoples of the region.

The Negev Forum will act on the basis of six working multilateral groups in the fields of food security and water, energy, tourism, health, education and tolerance, and regional security.

The otherwise bland announcement touched off a heated exchange over where the Palestinians fit into—or don’t fit into—the regional picture.

Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli sought to remind the ministers that establishing the forum and developing ties with Arab nations “are not a substitute to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” according to Channel 12.

She was challenged by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked who said: “The UAE doesn’t care, it wants to boost cooperation with Israel regardless of the Palestinians, there’s no need to make that connection.”

Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel agreed: “No one cares about the Palestinians.”

To which Michaeli rejoined, “The question isn’t whether or not it (the Palestinians) interests them (the Arab nations), it’s whether or not it interests us.”

Subsequently, Shaked declared in a tweet: “Merav is confused. I suggest she gets over her obsession with kowtowing to the Palestinians. The western world understands Israel’s might and is interested in ties even if we don’t give up our possessions and land.

Michaeli shot back: “Dear Ayelet — the one who has been confused over the past year is not me.” Michaeli added that “the greatest danger to the State of Israel is the loss of its identity as a Jewish and democratic state due to combining with 3 million Palestinians. Shutting our eyes to this existential danger due to political fears threatens the existence and the future of the State of Israel.”