Emission: Nation Impact - Georges Hazan
History was made September 15th 2020, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the Abraham Accords with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain Abdullatif Al Zayani. The signing ceremony was hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House.
“We have just finished a historic visit to Washington during which we signed the documents to establish two peace agreements with two Arab countries,” Netanyahu said on his way back to Israel afterward.
Additional Gulf countries are still expected to sign similar normalization agreements with Israel in the coming months.
“The citizens of Israel will see the fruits of these agreements very quickly, but they will be with us for generations. Everyone who was there understood that we made a historic turning point for the State of Israel and for peace.”
Those fruits are already ripening in many different areas in the UAE, following the normalization agreement. Myriad activities were already happening include joint stem-cell therapy research, expansion of an Israeli shoe-store chain to the UAE, the filming of an Israeli lingerie ad campaign in Dubai, and other mutual projects ranging from entertainment to healthcare.
With the historic opening of diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel, Emirati investors finally have a chance to experience the wonders of Israel’s tech economy at first hand.
As such, OurCrowd, the leading crowdfunding & investment platform in Israel, also created history when it hosted major public events showcasing the Startup Nation to its new partners in the UAE, allowing many Israeli and Emirati investors to meet online for the first time.
In the first quarter of 2020, startups in the MENA region excluding Israel raised $277 million. In the same period, Israeli startups raised $2.74 billion – 10 times as much.