It is being reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly travelled to Saudi Arabia on Sunday (22 November) for a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Haaretz, Israel’s longest-running newspaper, reports that a plane used by the Israeli Prime Minister left Israel at 19:30, arriving in the Saudi Arabian city of Neom where it spent two hours on the ground before returning to Israel at around 00:30. The private plane is reportedly the same used several times by Netanyahu for trips to see Russian President Vladimir Putin.
If the Israeli Prime Minister did attend the meeting, it would be the first known meeting between high-level Israeli and Saudi leaders – two countries that presently have no formal diplomatic relations.
However, despite unnamed sources confirming, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan has denied any Israeli attendance:
I have seen press reports about a purported meeting between HRH the Crown Prince and Israeli officials during the recent visit by @SecPompeo. No such meeting occurred. The only officials present were American and Saudi.
— فيصل بن فرحان (@FaisalbinFarhan) November 23, 2020
Earlier this weekend, Prince Faisal had spoken in support of a normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but only after a ‘permanent and full peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians’ was established.
In an interview with Galei Tzahal (Israeli Defence Service radio), Israeli Education Minister Yoav Galant this morning stated, “The fact that the meeting took place and was made public — even if it was in only a semiofficial way — is something of great importance”. It is unclear whether the minister had received direct reports of the meeting or was simply responding to the media.
When asked about the meeting this morning, Netanyahu neither confirmed nor denied the trip:
“I have not addressed such things for years and I will not start with it now… I can only tell you that throughout my years as Prime Minister I have spared no effort to strengthen the State of Israel and expand the circle of peace.”
