Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “many” people in Saudi Arabia want a normal relationship with Israel, expressing hope that the kingdom will join the Abraham Accords agreed during the Donald Trump administration .
Pompeo, a former CIA Trump leader and chief diplomat, made the remarks in a recorded video address to the Campaign Against Combat Semitism, which will give him its first Global Leadership Award on Monday.
Under the Abraham Accords that Trump broke last year, four major Arab states – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – agreed to establish ties with Israel.
Israeli newspapers abounded with speculation about other Arab countries interested in coming to an agreement, with Saudi Arabia’s powerhouse being widely regarded as a major prize for the Jewish state.
“Predicting the future has been a struggle for me,” Pompeo said, adding that he believes “many more” countries will seek ties with Israel.
“I hope the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can find its way to join Abraham Accords. I know that many within that country want that to happen,” he said.
Sources in Jerusalem have said that Pompeo and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November in the Red Sea city of Neom.
The meeting, rejected by Riyadh, encouraged frenzied profitability in Israel that a normalization deal could be imminent.
The kingdom has publicly reaffirmed its policy for decades of not including ties with Israel until an agreement is reached to resolve the Palestinian conflict.
The Trump administration was flirting with Riyadh while trying to isolate Iran’s common enemy and hold back harsh criticism of right-wing abuse in the kingdom, including the gruesome 2018 murder of a person- Saudi news and royal critic Jamal Khashoggi.
Breaking with Trump’s approach, U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday that Washington would “hold (Saudi Arabia) accountable for human rights abuses” as it released an intelligence report alleging Prince Mohammed from allowing Khashoggi assassination by Saudi representatives in Istanbul.
Soleimani
Pompeo also said the Abraham Accords was made possible by the U.S. killing powerful Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in an air strike, arguing that he built trust between Washington and his Arab allies.
“When leaders in the Arab world saw that the United States was willing to do this, to push back against Iran, to push back against the leadership of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) in the person of Qasem Soleimani, it was known they had a friend, “Pompeo said.
“They knew they could … build a set of agreements with the State of Israel: these are not divisive issues, they have a deep connection, one could not have happened without the other.”
A UN special assassin for the murder of a criminal, Agnes Callamard, said Soleimani’s killing was “illegal”.