(Photo: Chen Kedem Maktoubi)
By TOI Staff - October 29, 2018
Israel’s culture and sports minister paid a state visit to the largest mosque in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, part of a historic trip that some have seen as signaling a slow rapprochement between Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem.
Miri Regev visited Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque accompanied by officials from the UAE, touring the the Muslim world’s third largest house of worship, after mosques in Mecca and Medina.
World leaders are frequently invited to visit the mosque, thus underlining the official nature of the trip, the first-ever official state visit by an Israeli minister.
Regev is in the country to watch the Israeli judoka team compete at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, which they are doing for the first time ever in an Arabian Gulf state under their national flag, after the UAE acceded to pressure from international sports officials.
“This mosque has a message of brotherhood and peace,” Regev wrote in the visitor’s book, in Hebrew. “I wish a good life and peace for all.”
Read More: Times of Israel