Israel will make concessions to Palestinians for Saudi peace deal, reveals Israeli FM

A normalization deal would give US President Joe Biden “an achievement before the elections. This will boost the U.S. domestic economy, and therefore affect the global economy.”

By World Israel News Staff

The Palestinian issue will not come between normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, Israeli Foreign Minister told a widely-read Arabic news outlet, indicating that Israel was willing to make concessions to the Palestinians in return for a peace deal.

“The Palestinian issue will not be an obstacle to peace,” Eli Cohen said in an interview with the London-based Saudi-owned Elaph. “We also proved this in the Abraham Accords. We all have an interest in improving life in the areas of the Palestinian Authority.”

A normalization agreement would be “a historic opportunity for a peace process that will change the face of the Middle East and the whole world,” Cohen said.

“A visit to Israel by a Saudi foreign minister would be a day of celebration,” Cohen said.

Such a deal, if it happened, would give US President Joe Biden “an achievement before the elections. This will boost the U.S. domestic economy, and therefore affect the global economy.”

Cohen also addressed Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, and its state sponsor, Iran.

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, “is playing tricks, because he is weak and he is hiding like a mouse” in his bunker, Cohen said.

Israel “could send Lebanon back to the stone age” if war broke out with the terror group, Cohen warned.

The ayatollah regime in Tehran, meanwhile, is “a cancer that destroys every country it gets involved in,” the top diplomat said, before adding that “the people of Iran view Israel as a democracy.”

Cohen made his remarks in the wake of a visit by top Biden officials to Jeddah, apparently to discuss the possibility of a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as comments by President Joe Biden that such a deal  “maybe under way.”

Eli CohenIsrael-Saudi relationsIsraeli-Palestinian conflictJake SullivanJoe BidenUS Mideast policy