WASHINGTON — Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House Monday in a visit expected to focus on regional tensions in the Middle East and shoring up cooperation on emerging technologies.    

The first-ever Oval Office meeting for a sitting Emirati president comes as the war in the Gaza Strip approaches the one-year mark despite US-led efforts to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. The Biden administration is also racing to head off a broader regional war following a wave of deadly pager and walkie-talkie blasts that Israel used to target the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah last week. 

The UAE, which currently operates a 150-bed field hospital inside Gaza, is expected to take a leading role among Arab states in determining the enclave’s post-war governance and reconstruction. The oil-rich Gulf country established ties with Israel in 2020 that it has maintained despite its criticism of the ongoing Israeli military offensive. The UAE had signaled willingness to contribute troops to a multinational peacekeeping force, but recently conditioned its participation in any day-after planning on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. 

“The UAE wants to be certainly a regional leader, if not a global leader,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former US ambassador to Yemen and the Middle East Institute’s senior vice president. “They want to be seen as a power to be reckoned with and that includes being part of hopefully some progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.”