Trump to take first official direct flight from Saudi to Israel

US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East next week is set to break a record and lead to the first official direct flight from Saudi Arabia to Israel.

Saudi Arabia does not have formal relations with Israel and as such there are no links between the two states. However, Trump is expected to travel from the kingdom to Israel directly during his short trip to the Middle East.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, reported a former senior US official saying that previously American officials would have had to “almost land at Queen Alia Airport in Amman to make believe that we were, in fact, coming from Amman” when flying from Saudi Arabia to Israel.

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Elliott Abrams, a former senior official in the Bush and Reagan administrations, added: “I hope and assume that that kind of silliness has been dispensed with.”