The veteran leader — one of the most experienced hands on the world diplomatic stage — had placed foreign policy at the center of his agenda. “The government will work to promote peace with all our neighbors while preserving Israel’s security, historical and national interests,” he promised in his government’s guidelines.
“We are united around clear national goals and we will work together to achieve them,” he further pledged at the start of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, adding that expanding the Abraham Accords to encompass more Arab countries was one of the missions around which his government was ostensibly in harmony.
Netanyahu also blasted the previous Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government for failing to add any countries to the 2020 accords, while arguing that only he could repeat what he had accomplished two years earlier, in the twilight of his previous tenure.
At least outwardly, Netanyahu and his allies seemed confident that they could snag the biggest prize of them all — normalization with Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Sunni kingdom that styles itself protector of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. READ MORE
