Israel’s current Energy Minister and former Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has said that accepting the establishment of a Palestinian state is not worth a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia, and that such an agreement can likely be achieved without concessions towards Palestinian statehood.
“If the price for the expansion of the regional peace agreements is the establishment of a Palestinian state, I give up the expansion and the normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia,” Cohen said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 7.
“As someone who knows foreign relations, I say that it is possible to bring a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia without the establishment of a state and it is first and foremost in the Saudi interest.”