Ambassador Eitan Na’eh bridges the gulf between Israel and its Arab neighbors

Photos: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, AP Images

It didn’t take long for Ambassador Eitan Na’eh, who arrived to head Israel’s first embassy in the United Arab Emirates last year, to discover that his hosts were fond of a certain story about the Emirates and the Jews.

The hero of the tale was the UAE’s founding father Sheikh Zayed, a far-sighted statesman who turned a handful of cities at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula into a global trade and leisure hub.

A philanthropist who used to receive letters from all over the world asking for financial support, the sheikh, who died in 2004, was once visiting Switzerland, and an aide was reading through the day’s solicitations. Suddenly, the man opened a letter and then pocketed it.

“What is it?” asked Sheikh Zayed, but the aide brushed the question aside and continued to read.

When the pile of letters was finished, the sheikh asked his advisor again what had been in the envelope that he’d skipped. Left with no choice, the aide told the Emirati ruler that it was a request for help from a Jewish man.

“So why did you put the letter away — is he not a person?” demanded Sheikh Zayed, and instructed that the man’s request for $2,000 be answered with a check for double.

“After eight months here, during which I’ve heard that story a few times,” concludes Israel’s ambassador, “I’ve learned two things. The Emiratis are open-minded, and the reason goes back to the man they call the Father of the Nation.”

Tolerance, as Eitan Na’eh’s long diplomatic career in the region has taught him, is a scarce commodity across the oil-rich Middle East. But the picture is mixed: he’s seen the region go in two opposite directions at once in the last few years.

As Israel’s ambassador to Turkey from 2016, his term in office came to an abrupt end when President Erdogan ordered him expelled in protest at the shooting of Palestinians trying to storm the Gaza border. That acrimony was unsurprising given that Turkey — once a staunch ally of Israel and the West — had become far less tolerant under Erdogan’s Islamist-tinged rule.

On the other side of the region, the UAE has traveled the other way, becoming one of the first Arab states to embrace President Trump’s Abraham Accords. Where Sheikh Zayed had labeled Israel an “enemy,” his son Mohammed bin Zayed signed a peace agreement with the Jewish state.

So as Eitan Na’eh prepares to leave the Emirates to become ambassador in Bahrain down the road, he’s well-positioned to consider the million-dollar question about the peace deals: Is the future with the young modernizers in the Gulf, or will the old, extreme Middle East gain the upper hand?

It’s unlikely that there’ll be a definitive answer by the time Na’eh leaves his temporary home, but in the meantime, he’s doing his best to tell Israel’s story in the billionaires’ playground on the Gulf.