President Joe Biden touted what could be the effects of additional Israel normalization agreements with Middle Eastern neighbors during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
The Biden administration is pursuing a historic deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel that would include defense cooperation and, if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gets his way, U.S. assistance in developing a civilian nuclear program.“In a groundbreaking effort, we announced at the G20: To connect India to Europe through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel will spur opportunities and investment across two continents," the president said.
The president also noted that an agreement would not be made to"contain any country," such as Iran, but is about"a positive vision for our shared future." U.S. and Saudi officials are discussing a framework that would resemble the U.S.’s military pacts with Japan and South Korea, which would include pledging to provide military support if the other is attacked, according to the New York Times. Another aspect of any agreement would likely include Israeli concessions to Palestinians, though it's unclear what those demands could consist of.
"Normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, were it to be achieved, would, in my judgment, be a transformative event in the Middle East and well beyond — transformative because we’ve now had four decades-plus of turmoil in that region in one way or the other going back to 1979," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week."You can go back, of course, even further.
Critics of the possible deal, which include some Democrats on Capitol Hill, question whether the crown prince is a trustworthy actor due to the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, a murder that American spy agencies have judged was ordered by the crown prince, as well as their track record on human rights.
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