Netanyahu: My meetings with Arab leaders and forums in the Arab world are more than you think … assurances of him visited four Arab countries secretly in 2018
The Israeli Prime Minister told Israeli reporters, after the conclusion of the Warsaw Conference last week, that the conference on peace and security in the Middle East in Warsaw was a historic achievement in relation to relations between Israel and the Arabs, stressing at the same time that “the prohibition of the Israeli meeting with Arab leaders” was actually broken.
“Israel can normalize relations with the Arab world without resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it will not be able to achieve full peace with the Arab states at the same time”, he said.
Information in Israel about sources close to the Israeli prime minister has shown that last year Netanyahu secretly visited four Arab countries that do not have relations with Israel, without revealing them or even the date of those visits.
Netanyahu predicted normalization in the fields of trade and direct aviation and change of Arab public opinion towards Israel, stressing that four of the five Arab foreign ministers who spoke at the closed meetings of the conference on Iran agreed that Israel has the right to defend itself against the Iranian “aggression” and echoed the same Israeli discourse that the Islamic Republic of Iran constitutes an existential threat, even without possession of nuclear weapons, as the Israeli Prime Minister publicly told Israeli journalists.
In a question about the existence of fear of the titles and statements that are being used in which remind the Israelis with era of the late Prime Minister and State of Israel president Shimon Peres, who on his time the connections with some Arab countries had began, Netanyahu responded “I don’t want to say a new Middle East, but something great is happening here, if you were present”, adding that “you will be surprised by what happens at the closed talks!”.
“There are five of the Arab foreign ministers who gave speeches; four spoke of Israel’s right to defend itself against the Iranian aggression”, “they said that a solution to the Iranian problem should first and foremost be found, without it, the conflict cannot be resolved”.
When he was asked if he had any intention of visiting another Gulf state after his visit to Oman, Netanyahu replied: “Who told you that I didn’t travel to another country in the Gulf?”.
“I don’t talk about everything I do, my meetings with Arab leaders and forums in the Arab world are more than you think”.