Senior Emirati scholar says ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu never visited UAE

Senior Emirati scholar says ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu never visited UAE Submitted by MEE staff on Thu, 05/14/2026 - 20:38 The Israeli prime minister's office revealed earlier this week that the trip was made in March A man on the phone walks by a billboard for the 'Make it in the Emirates' conference, in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on 4 May 2026 (Amr Alfiky/Reuters) Off Emirati scholar Abdulkhaleq Abdulla has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "war criminal" who is wholly unwelcome in the United Arab Emirates, after the country's foreign ministry issued a statement denying that Netanyahu ever came to visit UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Netanyahu made a "secret" visit to the UAE in March, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, his own office said in a statement on Wednesday. "There is no welcome whatsoever for a war criminal and the killer of Gaza's children on the pure soil of the Emirates," Abdulla, who is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, wrote on X on Thursday.