Netanyahu vows to make peace with Saudi Arabia

“I think the big prize is peace with Saudi Arabia, which I intend to achieve if I go back into office,” Netanyahu said.

By David Hellerman, World Israel News

Opposition leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make peace with Saudi Arabia if reelected in the upcoming national election.

Netanyahu was discussing his just-released 650-page memoir, “Bibi: My Story” with JNS in an interview published on Sunday.

“In my first meeting with President Trump — and I describe this in my book—I said, ‘There are four peace treaties to be had right away if we pursue them.’ And we waited until the fourth year and happily achieved these four historic peace accords—the Abraham Accords,” Netanyahu said.

“But I think the big prize is peace with Saudi Arabia, which I intend to achieve if I go back into office. And I think there’s a chance I will achieve it,” he added, “because I think Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab countries who haven’t yet made peace with us know that I’m absolutely committed to preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons, which is something that they are keenly interested in.”

Netanyahu noted, “I think there’s a correlation between the rise of Iran and the rise of Israel. The rise of Israeli power facilitated the Abraham Accords, and the continual nurturing of Israeli power will also nurture a broader peace with Saudi Arabia and nearly all of the rest of the Arab world. I intend to bring the Arab-Israeli conflict to a close.”

The Likud leader made a similar pledge in July when he kicked off his election campaign.

“If I am once again elected by you to lead the State of Israel, I plan on signing a comprehensive peace treaty with Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations,” Netanyahu said at the time.

Doing so “will bring us closer to the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” the former prime minister maintained.

The Abraham Accords were brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, culminating in the normalization of Israel’s ties with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in September 2020. Morocco joined in December.

Sudan signed the Abraham accords in January 2021 as part of an arrangement with the U.S., asking to be removed from a list of countries designated as state sponsors of terror. But unlike Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE, Sudan has not made any moves to normalize ties, such as an exchange of embassies.

After Sudan joined the accords, the civilian government was overthrown in a military coup. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council, prefers to maintain security and intelligence cooperation with Israel.

Reports have speculated that Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Oman, Libya, Tunisia Indonesia and Malaysia will be next to join the Abraham Accords.

On Thursday, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), warned the Saudis not to place their trust in Israel.

“This is our warning. Your house is that of a spider [fragile]. You have relied on Israel, which is on the verge of collapse, and this is your fate,” Salami warned.

Israelis go to polls on November 1.