Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Thursday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and discussed plans to promote normalization with Saudi Arabia, The Middle East Monitor reported.
A statement issued by Netanyahu’s office said the two sides have also discussed joint efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s activities in the region.
“I have known President Biden for 40 years as a great friend of Israel, and I know how much he trusts you on matters of national security,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of the meeting.
The two sides have reiterated the importance of the strategic relations between Tel Aviv and Washington and the need to deepen them, as well as future efforts to deepen the Abraham Accords and expand the “circle of peace,” according to the same source.
However, following far-right Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s storming of Al-Aqsa on January 3, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted an Israeli official as saying that “there is no opportunity to develop relations with Saudi Arabia as long as Ben-Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich are in the government coalition.”
In 2020, several Arab countries signed a normalization deal with Israel.
The agreement is considered a severe blow to Palestinian efforts aimed at isolating Israel regionally and internationally until it ends its military occupation and apartheid-like system in occupied Palestine.
(PC, MEMO, SOCIAL)
