In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Gantz confirmed he met with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Wednesday, while Hebrew press reported that he also sat down with other senior officials. “In the meeting [with Sullivan], we discussed advancing the vital security interests of the State of Israel, the broadening of Israel’s integration into the region, and confronting threats posed by Iran and its proxies in the Middle East,” wrote Gantz.
Gantz’s office did not announce the U.S. trip in advance. In many cases, parliamentary regulations require that the Ethics Committee approve Knesset members’ foreign travels.While Gantz’s statement did not mention the normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia explicitly, local media suggested his visit could mean that an agreement between the two countries, seen as increasingly likely in the coming months, is indeed in the offing.
On Friday, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Jerusalem and Riyadh have agreed on the contours of a possible U.S.-mediated normalization agreement.“All sides have hammered out, I think, a basic framework for what, you know, what we might be able to drive at,” he said, amid an ongoing effort to bring the Sunni kingdom into the Abraham Accords. (Read More)
