Crown prince Mohamad bin Salman > US State Department, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Last week, Likud Knesset member Danny Danon told an international Abraham Accords forum that he expects to “see an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the coming year.”
Diplomats, business leaders and high ranking academics gathered in Rome at the Abraham Accords Global Leadership Summit to discuss ways to expand on the agreements.
Israel signed normalisation agreements with the UAE and Bahrain in September 2020 and signed a similar agreement with Morocco months later.
While quiet cooperation already exists between Riyadh and Jerusalem, Israel is eager to turn the security ties into full-fledge diplomatic recognition.
In July, Saudi Arabia opened its airspace to all commercial airliners, in a nod to further normalise its relations with Israel.
The comments follow some unease about support for the Abraham Accords among the public in Israel’s existing Arab partners.
Polling from the Washington Institute has indicated that 45 percent of Bahrainis held very or somewhat positive views of normalisation with Israel in November 2020.
Similar polling found two thirds of Emiratis and 31 percent of Moroccans are likewise sceptical about normalisation with Israel.
