REPORT: Led by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt yesterday rejected a closing statement by the Union of Arab Parliaments that included a call demanding an end to normalization with Israel.

By Israel Today Staff

AMMAN, JORDAN – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates earlier this month reportedly shot down an effort to curb Arab normalization with Israel.

During a gathering of the Union of Arab Parliaments in Amman, Jordan, the speaker of Kuwait’s National Assembly, and the oil-rich state’s de facto ruler, Marzouq Al-Ghanim, proposed a closing resolution that called on the Arab world to walk back recent moves toward the Jewish state.

Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev made history as first Israeli official to tour the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. – Facebook

According to the Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency (via Middle East Monitor), the top Saudi representative at the gathering rejected Al-Ghanim’s remarks regarding normalization with Israel, and demanded they be removed from any resolution resulting from the conference.

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The Egyptian and UAE representatives also reportedly spurned any hostile rhetoric targeting Israel.

In a related story, Oman is said to have arrested a number of social media activists who criticized the Gulf state’s cozying up to Israel in recent months.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, on an official diplomatic visit to Oman where they met with Sultan Qaboos bin Said. – Photo: PMO

Late last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to visit Oman, where he and Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said spoke warmly of renewed relations between their two countries.

Skyline International Foundation recently reported that Oman is taking normalization with Israel very seriously, going so far as to forcibly silence any dissenting voices. The internaitonal group, which monitors violations of free speech, condemned Oman for “disappearing” social media activists who had publicly rejected normalization with Israel in posts on Facebook and Twitter.

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