WASHINGTON — The United States is making plans for an early 2023 assembly between Israel and Arab countries that recognize it as they pressure Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing government to exercise restraint, a U. S. official said Tuesday.
Netanyahu is about to take the workplace with the top-right government in Israel’s history, largely composed of members who strongly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.
A senior U. S. official said Washington is planning an assembly “probably in the first quarter” of 2023, which would be attended by foreign ministers from the so-called Negev Forum, which met for the first time last March.
The assembly, with the Israeli government now outgoing and more moderate, brought the foreign minister of Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, and his counterparts from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco in the Israeli desert, normalizing relations. 2020 as a component of the Abraham Accords.
The deals are “close and costly to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s center, so I think he should continue to see this breakthrough,” the U. S. official said on condition of anonymity.
“I think Israel has to take that into account,” the official said. “Depending on some of the things Israel is doing, it would possibly make it harder or less difficult for those countries to commit, participate and move forward, not to mention integrating new countries into the process. “
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this month that the implementation teams of the Negev Forum, six teams tasked with promoting regional projects in the spaces of regional security, food security and water, energy, health, education and tourism, would meet early next year. .
It won’t be long before it becomes clear whether this is the meeting of the U. S. official referring to or referring to a ministerial-level summit expected to host Morocco, according to Middle East diplomats who spoke to The Times of Israel in October.
The UAE introduced the Abraham Accords in exchange for a promise by Netanyahu’s then-government to approve annexation of parts of the West Bank, a step that got the blessing of former US President Donald Trump’s administration.
US President Joe Biden’s leadership has warned that he opposes annexation and expansion of the deal and has supported the creation of a Palestinian state, while preventing any primary diplomatic crusade toward a goal from succeeding.
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