Palestinians not a roadblock to Saudi deal, says Israeli FM

The Iranian regime is “like a cancer that destroys every country it gets involved in,” Eli Cohen tells Saudi media.

JNS

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen seen during an interview at the ministry in Jerusalem, June 12, 2023. Photo by Yossi Aloni/Flash90.

The Palestinian issue will not be an obstacle to normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, according to Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

Jerusalem’s top diplomat made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview with Arabic-language online newspaper Elaph that is set to be published on Monday, excerpts from which were seen by Ynet.

“The current Israeli government will take steps to improve the Palestinian economy,” Cohen stated, amid reports that one of Riyadh’s demands for a U.S.-brokered deal to join the Abraham Accords involves concessions to the Palestinians.

“A visit to Israel by a Saudi foreign minister would be a day of celebration,” Cohen remarked, noting that governments led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had secured diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

He predicted that the Israeli premier and the Saudi crown prince would make history together.

Cohen touched on other subjects in the interview with the London-based media outlet, which is owned by Saudi businessman Othman al- Omeir, including provocations by the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group at the Lebanese border in recent months.

He said that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was hiding in his bunker “like a mouse,” and warned that Israel “could dispatch Lebanon to the stone age” in a war with the terror group.

On the subject of Iran, Cohen called the regime in Tehran “a cancer that destroys every country it gets involved in.” He added that “the people of Iran view Israel as a democracy.”

The minister also addressed the debate in Israel regarding the government’s judicial reform initiative, saying that opponents of the reform are “exaggerating concerns.”

Concessions to PA delayed after Tel Aviv terror attack

(August 6, 2023 / JNS)<
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Israel’s Security Cabinet will not approve concessions to the Palestinian Authority during an expected meeting on Sunday afternoon.

“This is not the right atmosphere to bring it to the cabinet table,” a political source confirmed to Channel 12, referring to Saturday’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv that killed 42-year-old municipal patrol officer Chen Amir.

The package of concessions meant to prevent the P.A. from collapsing was drafted in the last few days, according to the report. The work on it is being led by National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi and the head of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, Maj. Gen. Ghasan Alyan.

After the terror attack, the decision was made to delay discussion on the series of economic and defense measures intended to boost the P.A. The political source said that the item would be brought to the Cabinet table for final approval “soon, maybe as early as this week.”

“The Americans know that we will confirm this soon and they are fully coordinating with us. These are not concessions or rewards, but decisions that will help the P.A. to maintain a better economic life, and this is a security interest first and foremost,” the source said.

Also on Sunday, Kan Reshet Bet radio reported that P.A. officials have issued an ultimatum that if concessions are not approved at the Cabinet meeting, they will boycott an international security summit that is supposed to take place in the next two months.

The summit would be a follow-up to a U.S.-supervised meeting in February in Aqaba in which Israel and the P.A. affirmed the need to “commit to de-escalation on the ground,” according to Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.

August 6, 2023 | 5 Comments »

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  2. “MK Ilouz meets Mike Huckabee
    Likud MK meets delegation led by former Arkansas Governor, discusses Israeli sovereignty and Abraham Accords.” Aug 7, 2023

    “Last August, Huckabee told the Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF) that no one has the right to change Israel’s ancient borders.

    “I don’t love the Land of Israel because I’m Jewish,” he said, “I love it because I know that it was God’s choice to select it for His People. Those boundaries are nearly 4,000 years old and none of us have the right to change them. We only have the right to expand them.”

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/

    Gotta love this guy. He was my first choice for president in 2016 (I briefly registered as a Republican in 2015 just so I could vote for him but he dropped out early on.)

    1

  3. “Not the right atmosphere” to arm terrorists. Poor optics.
    My response:
    https://youtu.be/FXHkFZ-nG4Y

    P.A. officials have issued an ultimatum that if concessions are not approved at the Cabinet meeting, they will boycott an international security summit that is supposed to take place in the next two months.

    Much as Cleavon Little holds himself hostage in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles”

    https://youtu.be/Z_JOGmXpe5I

  4. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is confident that Israel and Saudi Arabia will sign a peace agreement and that the ties between the two countries will continue to develop even without a formal agreement.

    In an interview published today (Monday) with Bloomberg News, Netanyahu said that “Saudi Arabia is one of the exceptional things that tells you why I’m very optimistic about Israel.”

    “I think that we are about to witness a pivot of history, maybe, I can’t guarantee that it will happen. First, there is an economic corridor of energy, transport, and communications that naturally goes through our geography from Asia through the Arabian Peninsula to Europe. We are going to realize that,” the prime minister said.

    “My sense is we’re going to realize that whether we have formal peace or not,” he stated, adding that he’d tell investors in the Jewish State to “bet on it.”

    Related articles:

    Arab countries ban travel to Lebanon due to Palestinian violence
    ‘Palestinians not an obstacle to Israel-Saudi peace’
    The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and European submission
    ‘We want significant steps on normalization’

    When asked what concessions Israel would be willing to make for such an agreement with Saudi Arabia, he said: “I’m not willing to give anything that will endanger Israel’s security,” adding that he considered the Palestinian issue a “checkbox” rather than a serious issue in the context of negotiations with Saudi Arabia.

    “Is that what is being said in corridors, is that what is being said in discreet negotiations — the answer is a lot less than you think,” he said.

    Netanyahu stated that if the Palestinians are given their own state, “it won’t be their own state. It will be an Iranian-controlled state.”

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/375225