Defense Minister Benny Gantz recently secretly traveled to Jordan for talks with King Abdullah on Iran and other issues concerning the region, Ynet has learned.
According to sources, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi has also met twice at his colleague Jordan Ayman Safadi a few months ago.
In a conference call Friday with members of his Blue & White party, Gantz admitted that he had been in contact with Jordanian officials and said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an unexpected person in the kingdom.
He said he hoped relations with the neighboring country would improve. Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in a 1994 ceremony on the two countries’ border.
“The connection with Jordan is a huge asset and could be a thousand times better,” Gantz said, noting his ongoing relationship with the king and senior Jordanian officials.
“Unfortunately, Netanyahu is not welcome in Jordan and is hampering relationship promotion,” he said.
During the call by Blue & White members, Gantz stopped out at the prime minister, saying he was expected to deal with Iran’s nuclear threat “as if it were his own personal property.”
He accused Netanyahu of destroying the Mossad intelligence agency, the Foreign Ministry and even the IDF when it came to handling the Iranian threat.
“Mossad and the IDF have been showcasing creativity, independent of Netanyahu,” Gantz said.
“We are building an offensive, defensive and intelligence response and will know how best to protect Israel,” he said.
The defense minister said Israel must work to halt Iran’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons through “ongoing dialogue with the U.S. and Europe as well as Arab countries that share our concerns and interests.”
He said there needed to be a united effort with Israel and its “allies” on this issue.
Regarding the sale of solemn arms to regional states, which was the campaign of former president Donald Trump, Gantz said he has taken steps to ensure Israel’s qualitative margin.
The Biden administration has already announced that it would review the decision to sell advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that Trump promised as part of the Abraham Accords signed last September .
The defense minister also said Israel would benefit from providing coronavirus vaccines to the Palestinian Authority.
“It is in our interest, both politically and humanitarianly, that Palestinians receive the coronavirus vaccines, with more than 100,000 of them coming into Israel for day-to-day work,” he said. e.
“This is why we need to do what we can to help them get the pictures and explore how we can help them in any other way,” Gantz said.