AP / September 23, 2023
UNITED NATIONS – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that Israel is “at the cusp” of a historic breakthrough leading to a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, without outlining a clear path over the significant obstacles facing such an accord.
He struck an optimistic tone throughout his roughly 25-minute address — and, once again, used a visual aid. He displayed contrasting maps showing Israel’s isolation at the time of its creation in 1948 and the six countries that have normalized relations with it, including four that did so in 2020 in the so-called Abraham Accords.
“There’s no question the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace. But I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough, an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Netanyahu said. “Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East.”
There are several hurdles in the way of such an agreement, including the Saudis’ demand for progress in the creation of a Palestinian state — a hard sell for Netanyahu’s government, the most religious and nationalist in Israel’s history.
The Saudis are also seeking a defense pact with the United States and want help in building their own civilian nuclear program, which has fueled fears of an arms race with Iran.
Netanyahu told Fox News on Friday evening that the “window of opportunity” for a deal with the Saudis was “the next few months.”
“If we don’t achieve it in the next few months, we might delay it by quite a few years,” Netanyahu said.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in an interview with Fox News this week that the two sides are getting closer to an agreement, without providing much detail about the U.S.-led negotiations. He declined to specify what exactly the Saudis are seeking for the Palestinians.
Netanyahu said the Palestinians “could greatly benefit from a broader peace,” saying: “They should be part of that process, but they should not have a veto over the process.”
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down more than a decade ago, and violence has soared over the past year and a half, with Israel carrying out frequent military raids in the occupied West Bank and Palestinians attacking Israelis. Netanyahu’s government has approved thousands of new settlement homes in the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for the main part of their future state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the General Assembly on Thursday, made no direct reference to efforts to reach a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But he reiterated the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has only worsened since the Abraham Accords were signed.
“Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying their full and legitimate national rights are mistaken,” Abbas said.
Netanyahu has often seemed to revel in using the podium of the General Assembly to lambast Israel’s enemies.
He famously held up a picture of a cartoon bomb in 2012 to illustrate Iran’s advancing uranium enrichment. In 2020, he claimed Hezbollah was stockpiling explosives near Beirut’s airport, prompting the Iran-allied militant group to organize an immediate visit by journalists, who saw heavy machinery but no weapons.
The map he held up this year made no reference to the West Bank, Gaza or east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in 1967 that the Palestinians want for their future state. The map appeared to show Israel encompassing all three.
The chamber was largely empty during his address, though there was a group of Netanyahu supporters who clapped several times during his speech. Protesters and supporters of Netanyahu demonstrated across the street from the U.N. headquarters.
Netanyahu referred to the cartoon bomb when he held up the maps, pulling out a red marker and drawing a line showing a planned trade corridor stretching from India through the Middle East to Europe. The ambitious project, unveiled at this month’s Group of 20 summit, would link Saudi Arabia to Israel.
He also reprised his longstanding criticism of Iran, which Israel views as its greatest threat. Netanyahu referred to Iran’s crackdown on protests, its supplying of attack drones to Russia for use in Ukraine, and its military activities across the Middle East.
Netanyahu called for stepped-up sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, which has steadily advanced since the United States withdrew from a landmark agreement with Iran and world powers to which Israel had been staunchly opposed.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, who also attended the General Assembly, urged the U.S. to lift sanctions in order to return to the nuclear deal. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but the U.S. and others believe it had a secret weapons program until 2003.
Raisi also denied Iran had sent drones to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. U.S. and European officials say the sheer number of Iranian drones being used by Russia shows that the flow of such weapons intensified after hostilities began.
In an ambiguous turn of phrase during his address, Netanyahu said that “above all, Iran must face a credible nuclear threat.” The prime minister’s office later issued a clarification, saying he meant to say ”credible military threat.”
Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but has never publicly acknowledged them, has repeatedly said all options are on the table to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
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Israel on cusp of region-reshaping peace with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu says
Reuters / September 22, 2023
UNITED NATIONS – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he believed his country was on the cusp of peace with Saudi Arabia, predicting it could be clinched by U.S. President Joe Biden and reshape the Middle East.
Yet, amid urging by Riyadh and Washington that the Palestinians be included in the diplomacy, Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Palestinians should not be allowed to veto the regional deal making.
Expectations that Israel might normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s two holiest shrines, have been ratcheted up this week.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS, said a deal was getting closer by the day and Netanyahu and Biden held a long-awaited meeting to discuss the prospects.
Netanyahu described as a precursor the 2020 normalization accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, known as the Abraham Accords and sponsored by then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
“There’s no question: The Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace,” he said. “I believe we’re on the cusp of a more dramatic breakthrough: A historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
Such a complex deal would likely require broad support among U.S. lawmakers – a tall order with a presidential election in 2024.
While crediting Trump for the previous deal, Netanyahu made clear he hoped the current Biden administration would clinch this one, though U.S. officials have insisted there is still a long way to go and no guarantee of success.
“I believe we can achieve peace with Saudi Arabia with the leadership of President Biden,” Netanyahu said.
Though he voiced willingness to seek some accommodation with the Palestinians – whose statehood goals are ruled out by his hard-right government – Netanyahu said: “We must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states.”
On Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the same forum: “Whoever thinks peace in the Middle East is possible before our people achieved their full right is delusional.”
Netanyahu, who has often used the U.N. podium to warn against Iran, described his country’s arch-foe as the “fly in the ointment” that would try to wreck a deal with Saudi Arabia.
But he cast normalization as already in the works, citing the now three-year-old air corridor for Israeli carriers over Saudi territory and an ambitious plan, announced by Biden this month, to make both countries part of a rail and shipping network that would run from India to the Mediterranean Sea.
He illustrated the latter with a red line he drew across a regional map – a play on a 2012 U.N. speech in which he used a marker to draw a proposed “red line” for Iran’s nuclear drive.
“Today I bring this marker to show a great blessing,” he said, deeming normalization with Saudi Arabia “an extraordinary change, a monumental change, another pivot of history.”
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu said he was “delighted” to hear the upbeat assessment by MbS, the Saudis’ de facto ruler, in an earlier interview with the U.S. network.
“To borrow a phrase, I think we’re getting closer to peace every day that passes,” Netanyahu said, according to excerpts of a full interview to be broadcast later on Friday.
Netanyahu said he did not want to “minimize the hurdles before us.” But, stressing that he, Biden and MbS all “avidly want a result,” he added: “I think that that really raises the possibility that we’ll succeed.”
Shortly after Netanyahu’s U.N. speech, the prime minister’s office said he misspoke when he said, “Iran must face a credible nuclear threat” to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Netanyahu’s office said he had misread his prepared text, which called for “a credible military threat” against Iran’s nuclear program. Those words were in line with what he has often said before.
Iran denies it is seeking a nuclear bomb. Israel neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons but is widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state.
Reporting by Dan Williams and James Mackenzie in Jerusalem; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller
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Netanyahu: Israel on cusp of region-reshaping peace with Saudi Arabia
Middle East Monitor / September 22, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday he believed his country was on the cusp of peace with Saudi Arabia, predicting it could be clinched by US President Joe Biden and reshape the Middle East, Reuters reports.
Yet, amid urging by Riyadh and Washington that the Palestinians be included in the diplomacy, Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Palestinians should not be allowed to veto the regional deal making.
Expectations that Israel might normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s two holiest shrines, have been ratcheted up this week. Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, said a deal was getting closer by the day and Netanyahu and Biden held a long-awaited meeting to discuss the prospects.
Netanyahu described as a precursor the 2020 normalization accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, known as the Abraham Accords and sponsored by then-US President Donald Trump.
“There’s no question: The Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace,” he said. “I believe we’re on the cusp of a more dramatic breakthrough: A historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
Such a deal would likely require broad support among US lawmakers – a tall order with a presidential election in 2024.
While crediting Trump for the previous deal, Netanyahu made clear he hoped the current administration would clinch this one.
“I believe we can achieve peace with Saudi Arabia with the leadership of President Biden,” he said.
Though he voiced willingness to seek some accommodation with the Palestinians – whose statehood goals are ruled out by his hard-right government – Netanyahu said: “We must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states.”
On Thursday, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, told the same forum: “Whoever thinks peace in the Middle East is possible before our people achieved their full right is delusional.”
Netanyahu, who has often used the UN podium to warn against Iran, described his country’s arch-foe as the “fly in the ointment” that would try to wreck a deal with Saudi Arabia.
But he cast normalization as already in the works, citing the now three-year-old air corridor for Israeli carriers over Saudi territory and an ambitious plan, announced by Biden this month, to make both countries part of a rail and shipping network that would run from India to the Mediterranean Sea.
He illustrated the latter with a red line he drew across a regional map – a play on a 2012 UN speech in which he used a marker to draw a proposed “red line” for Iran’s nuclear drive.
“Today, I bring this marker to show a great blessing,” he said, deeming normalization with Saudi Arabia “an extraordinary change, a monumental change, another pivot of history.”
