The steering committee of the Negev Forum established last year, bringing together Israel and Arab states, opened two days of meetings in Abu Dhabi on Monday, with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt and the United States participating but with Jordan declining to participate in the gathering. 

The Monday meeting is the third time that the Negev Forum has convened after a June encounter in Bahrain and a virtual one in October. The participating senior officials are now preparing for the second Negev Forum summit of foreign ministers, expected to take place in Morocco this spring.

The Negev Forum was established by former Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to deepen and expand regional cooperation under the the Abraham Accords. It first met in Sde Boker, a small village and conference center in the south of Israel where the country’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion lived his last years.

The forum includes the United States, Israel, the four Abraham Accords signatories the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco as well as Egypt, with which Israel had signed a peace treaty in 1979. Jordan, which signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1994, declined to join the forum as long as the Palestinians also refuse to participate.