For first time ever, Egyptair flight lands in Israel

By Bob Unruh

President Donald Trump and is welcomed by Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, on his arrival to Ben Gurion International Airport May 22, 2017, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks)

For the first time ever, an Egyptair flight from Egypt has landed in Israel, according to a report from columnist, author and social media activist Pamela Geller.

“Because of President Trump’s miraculous Abraham Accords, Israel’s relations with the Arab world are strengthening by the day. Funny how any and all good news we receive is always thanks to Trump,” she explained.

Israel and Egypt have had a peace agreement since 1979, but flights between the two have been flown only by a subsidiary called Air Sinai, the report said.

The landing on Sunday by an aircraft carrying the Egyptair logo was a first.

The Jerusalem Post reported, “The Egyptian national carrier will now run four weekly round-trip commercial flights per week between Tel Aviv and Cairo. Sunday’s flight was greeted with water sprays shot in the air in celebration of the historic event.”

The airline declined to explain why this date was chosen for the inaugural flight, but several weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in Sharm el-Sheikh.

It was the first visit by an Israeli prime minister to Egypt in years.

The flight followed another “first,” just days earlier, the first-ever direct commercial flight to Israel from Bahrain.

“Flights between Israel and Dubai began last November, while a direct route to Abu Dhabi launched in April. In July, El Al and Israir both launched their first flights to Marrakesh, Morocco, following the normalization of ties in December,” the report explained.

The flights are the latest evidence of the success of President Trump’s Middle East policy, which produced a long list of agreements, called the “Abraham Accords,” between Israel as its Arab neighbors.

Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for his work.

The initial round of agreements involve Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, and there were reports deals with several other Arab neighbors were in the works at the time Trump left office. Those were Niger, Mauritania, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

WND reported last year when the editor of a Saudi Arabian newspaper said peace agreements with Israel are the only option for Arab nations that have opposed Israel for generations.

Khalid bin Hamad Al-Malik, the editor of Al-Jazirah, wrote two days before the Israel-UAE-Bahrain peace deals that the Arabs “tried war and were defeated; they tried hostility towards Israel and gained nothing; they tried to reconcile [with Israel] on their own terms and failed.”

Trump’s realignment of Middle East relations was praised by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as “brilliant.”

WND columnist Michael Brown said America is watching “history unfold before our eyes.”

“And it is America that is brokering these deals with Israel and these Muslim nations,” he pointed out.

“On one of my recent trips to Israel, I was struck by the degree of enthusiastic support for Trump from the man on the street, among both the religious to the irreligious. (There are plenty of both in Israel!),” he wrote. “In the rough and tumble world of Israeli politics, Trump’s worst qualities hardly raise a concern. Instead, for them, they saw results, tangible results. And some of those results were the difference between life and death.”

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.


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