Netanyahu Says US Must ‘Reaffirm’ Alliance With Saudi Arabia

The incoming prime minister said that he wants to build on the Abraham Accords, which his former government signed in 2020 to establish diplomatic ties with Bahrain and the UAE. Netanyahu said it’s “up to the leadership of Saudi Arabia if they want to partake in this effort.”

Saudi officials recently reaffirmed that they seek a Palestinian state as a precondition for normalizing with Israel. But in order to form a coalition government, Netanyahu gave Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist settler, sweeping powers over the West Bank.

Related:

Abraham Accords Isolate Palestinians, Solidify Israel’s Apartheid Rule

Before taking additional steps to reinforce Trump administration deals with authoritarian regimes, Members of Congress should take a more nuanced and critical view of the so-called Abraham Accords. Members of Congress who support human rights must ensure that they have a clear understanding of how these deals implicate the United States in the commission of potential war crimes, undermine human rights commitments, deny peoples self-determination, and complicate democratic transitions, all while further marginalizing the Palestinian people and thwarting their long-denied rights to freedom, justice, and equality.

White House pushes to derail Sanders measure cutting Saudi support

But Biden aides say the president is opposing the resolution for different reasons than Trump did. The current version of Sanders’s measure differs from the previous versions, particularly in defining intelligence-sharing and support operations as “hostilities.” That could have dire consequences for U.S. operations globally, some congressional aides say, including in such hot spots as Ukraine.

“It really has made us nervous,” said one senior Democratic aide, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The changes “could have real ramifications for our support for Ukraine right now, or our support for Israel,” the aide said. “This is the first time that the Congress is being asked to vote on defining hostility as intelligence-sharing, and it’s dangerous.”

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Some proponents of the legislation pushed back on the administration talking points. “The White House is touting the lack of recent Saudi airstrikes, but their opposition to Bernie’s bill shows that they remain open to supporting a Saudi escalation,” said Erik Sperling, executive director of the advocacy organization Just Foreign Policy and a former congressional staffer who has worked on Yemen policy since 2015.