US Officials Say Washington Plans A Meeting Of Prime Minister Elect Benjamin Netanyahu's And Arab Governments Next Year

Benjamin Netanyahu. (Wikimedia Commons/kmu.gov.ua/men's goods)

JAKARTA - The United States (US) plans to hold Israel's meeting with Arab countries that recognize it next year, prompting the government of prime minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu to exercise restraint.

Netanyahu will be in office with the far-right government in Israel's history, including figures from hardliners who support expanding settlements in the Palestinian territories.

A senior US official said Washington has a foreign ministers meeting planned for the first quarter of 2023, referring to the Negev summit in March 2022.

The meeting, with Israel's centrist government at the time, brought Egypt's foreign minister to the Israeli desert, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, and his counterparts from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, who normalized relations in 2020 in the so-called Abraham agreements .

The deal, hailed by then US President Donald Trump as a distinctive achievement, was "close to and liked by Prime Minister Netanyahu, I imagine he would like to continue to see that move forward," the US official said on condition of anonymity.

"I think Israel should consider it," the official continued.

"Depending on a number of things Israel is doing, that might make it more difficult or easier for these countries to actually engage and participate and move forward, let alone bring a new nation into the process," he said.

It is understood the United Arab Emirates initiated the Abraham accords in exchange for the then Netanyahu Administration's promise not to proceed with annexation of the West Bank, a move that received the blessing of the Trump Administration.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's Administration has warned it against annexation and settlement expansion, supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state while halting any major diplomatic push toward a goal it sees as having little chance of success.