Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to fly back to Israel late Saturday night after having won standing ovations during his address Friday at the United Nations General Assembly.
The prime minister told world leaders during his address that it is likely Israel will reach a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia but did not offer a timeline to the process. Nor did Netanyahu suggest which concessions Israel might offer the Palestinian Authority to finalize such a deal.
Normalization between the two countries, he said, would mean a “quantum leap” in the region, ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and creating “a corridor of energy pipelines, rail lines, fiber optic cables between Asia and Europe through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”
Such an agreement, he said, would create an entirely new paradigm in the region. “Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East,” he said.
