Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations on Friday thatIsrael is on the “cusp” of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia and thatPalestinians should not get to “veto” the move.
Addressing the General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu said agreements in2020 to establish formal ties with three other Arab states had already“heralded the dawn of a new age of peace.”
“But I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramaticbreakthrough – an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
“Such a peace will go a long way to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Itwill encourage other Arab states to normalize their relations with Israel,”he said.
Netanyahu firmly rejected the insistence of Palestinian leader MahmudAbbas, in his own UN speech on Thursday, that there could be no peace inthe Middle East without a Palestinian state.
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“We must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arabstates,” Netanyahu said.
“The Palestinians could greatly benefit from a broader peace. They shouldbe part of that process. But they should not have a veto over the process.”
US President Joe Biden’s administration has been leading talks betweenIsrael and Saudi Arabialink,whose crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, recently saidthat the two sides were getting closerlink.-APP/AFP
