Netanyahu: 'Opportunity to reach a Saudi agreement in coming months'
'Otherwise - the [normalization] process could take years' says the Israeli premier during two interviews with U.S. media after his UN General Assembly speech
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed a “historic deal” with Saudi Arabia, during interviews with U.S. media, following his United Nations General Assembly speech on Friday.
“I think we're getting closer to peace every day that passes,” Netanyahu told Fox News, adding “we have a limited window of opportunity to reach an agreement in the coming months, otherwise - the process could take years.”
"I think that when you have three leaders and three countries that avidly want a result – the United States under President Biden, Saudi Arabia under the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israel under my premiership – I think that really raises the possibility we'll succeed," the Israeli prime minister stated.
Speaking with CNN, Netanyahu also highlighted the tripartite effort “with a common goal to change history, to make this quantum leap, another quantum leap for peace,” adding it would change the Middle East forever.”
“Not only to bring down the walls of enmity, but also to create a corridor of energy pipelines, rail lines, fiber optic cables, between Asia through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates. This is an amazing change… this a pivot of history,” he added.
"I am willing to consider benefits to the Palestinians - without jeopardizing the peace of Israel,” Netanyahu replied to Fox News’ Bert Baier, but warned that there were no peace treaties for 25 years because the demands of the Palestinians had to be satisfied first.
During the interview with CNN, Netanyahu clarified this Palestinian first stance as an inside-out approach to ending the conflict, but stated “I think making peace with Saudi Arabia and basically starting to end the Arab-Israeli conflict will help to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
“I think it is the outside-in approach that has a much greater chance of ending both sets of conflicts with the Arab states and with the Palestinians,” the Israeli prime minister told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
Netanyahu also told CNN that the Palestinians “can benefit from this, and I think they made a mistake not joining the Abraham Accords, and instead keeping themselves out of it. I think they will be much wiser to enter this [Saudi normalization deal] and see how they could be part of the process.”
“Part of the process doesn’t mean they have a veto power over the process, because if they had a veto in the case of the Abraham Accords then we would never have had the Abraham Accords, and we would go another quarter of a century without,” he added.