Netanyahu: Prospects 'Good' of Diplomatic Deal With Saudis

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said prospects of reaching a diplomatic deal with Saudi Arabia like the historic Abraham Accords are "good."

In the Abraham Accords reached during the Trump administration, Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, with Sudan and Morocco later following suit.

"The prospects are good," Netanyahu said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, "and I intend to work for it. The United States wants it. Saudi Arabia wants it. And we want it."

Netanyahu said like the Abraham Accords, any talks with Saudi Arabia will be done discreetly, as opposed to the first of President Woodrow Wilson's 14 points for peace negotiations following World War I: "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view."

"I believe in open covenants, secretly arrived at," Netanyahu said. "If we make any progress, it will require important consultations, and if those are to succeed, they need to be done discreetly. That is exactly what happened with the Abraham Accords."

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