RIYADH (Middle East Eye) – Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to Saudi Arabian state television to claim that normalization with Riyadh is key to peace between the Zionist regime and Palestine.
Netanyahu, who is likely to become Zionist prime minister once again later this month, talked up a potential improvement of ties with the Persian Gulf kingdom during an interview with Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya on Thursday.
He also urged U.S. President Joe Biden to reaffirm Washington’s own relationship with Riyadh, following recent tensions over a Saudi-led cut in global oil production.
“The traditional [U.S.] alliance with Saudi Arabia and other countries, has to be reaffirmed,” he said.
“There should not be periodic swings, or even wild swings in this relationship, because I think that the alliance between America’s allies and with America is the anchor of stability in our region.”
In 2020, under Netanyahu’s premiership, the Zionist regime signed U.S.-brokered normalization deals with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, in what became known as the Abraham Accords.
Saudi Arabia, which does not have official diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime, has insisted that it would only normalize ties upon the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
“I think we can have a new peace initiative that will form a quantum leap for the achievement for the resolution of both the Arab-Israeli conflict and ultimately, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Netanyahu said on Thursday.
“And of course, I’m referring to what could be a truly remarkable historic peace with Saudi Arabia.”
He said that a normalization deal, like those signed with other Arab states would “change our region in ways that are unimaginable”.
Elsewhere during the interview, the incoming prime minister said that he would not reverse a U.S.-brokered maritime agreement between the occupying regime and Lebanon signed by outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid, despite denouncing it in October.