Former Israeli diplomat confirms Saudi official visited Israel

Former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Dore Gold has said that Israeli mutual relations with many Arab countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are developing, citing a secret visit of Saudi official Anwar Eshki to Israel, Alarab.qa reported on Friday.

In an interview with the Jerusalem Institute for the Study of State and General Affairs, an Israeli organisation, Gold revealed a series of meetings with the Saudi official, noting that the latter asked him to make the meetings overt. “I can say that Eshki visited Israel,” Gold said.

“Israel’s relations with the UAE are a different story,” he said. “There is an international organisation working in the field of renewable energy and it adopts a system almost similar to that of the US and several countries are members in this organisation, which has its headquarters in Abu-Dhabi.”

Gold added: “Most of the world countries send their ambassadors there and there was an agreement to have our own ambassador,” noting this is one of the ways that Israel is penetrating the Arab countries.

He also said that the EU countries believe the Israeli-Arabic cooperation against terror would achieve the interests of the Europeans because it would prevent the fall of Arab regimes that could push for thousands of migrants towards Europe.

These remarks came in the wake of the recognition by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with the Jewish right to live in peace in the land of Palestine.