The Biden administration is actively involved in encouraging more Arab states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Tuesday.
“They fully adopted the Abraham Accords and are eager to expand them,” he said. “There is going to be someone appointed to be responsible for doing so.”
The Biden administration is considering appointing former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro as a Middle East envoy responsible for handling the continuation of the Abraham Accords, The Washington Post reported last week.
The Biden administration does not use the Trump-era name “Abraham Accords,” instead calling them “normalization agreements.”
In a briefing summing up his time in the Foreign Ministry, as a new government is expected to be sworn in on Sunday with Yair Lapid taking his place, Ashkenazi said he is in daily contact with Washington.
Ashkenazi would not say which countries were likely to be next to establish full relations with Israel. But before US President Joe Biden came into office, there was progress with Saudi Arabia, Oman, Mauritania and others.
Ashkenazi also said he was in contact with several of his counterparts in countries with which Israel does not have formal ties.
Relations with Abraham Accords countries – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco – are on a “super-fast track,” Ashkenazi said, adding that it has continued after they “passed the test in the framework of Operation Guardian of the Walls.”
Ashkenazi pointed to 29 agreements already signed, as well as four new diplomatic delegations. Trade between Israel and those countries has already reached NIS 1 billion, he said.
Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz said the agreement to avoid double taxation signed with the UAE last week was a key one that will open the door to more deals.
But beyond the numbers, Ashkenazi touted the Abraham Accords as “changing the discourse in the Middle East.”
Ashkenazi is a cofounder of the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace, founded by top Trump aide Jared Kushner to deepen ties between Israel and Arab countries, and he plans to take part in the institute’s activities after he leaves office.
The foreign minister denied reports that the US set any ultimatums or time limits on Operation Guardian of the Walls last month.
“We had full support from the US government,” he said. “They asked us what our goals were and how we planned to attain them. Biden was involved in the details... It wasn’t easy for them, but they blocked UN Security Council decisions [against Israel] at least three times.”
A continuous and transparent dialogue with the US was key to continued support, Ashkenazi said.
The Foreign Ministry also worked on a trade agreement with Jordan in the past year that would increase imports and exports between Israel and Jordan and allow Amman to export more to the Palestinian Authority.
Ashkenazi met with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, three times in the past year, and said they were close to signing a deal, but the latest round of fighting with Hamas set the talks back.
Ashkenazi pointed to slight positive shifts in voting patterns in the UN, such as only 18 UN General Assembly decisions against Israel in 2020, compared with 20 the previous year.
Israel is now taking a more aggressive negotiating tack to try to get countries to vote in its favor or abstain, which included calling in ambassadors to the Foreign Ministry for clarifications after a recent UN Human Rights Council vote.
“This is a war of attrition, and we have to be assertive,” Ashkenazi said.
Ushpiz touted Israel’s election to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for the first time on Monday, pointing out that it is one of the UN’s largest councils.
Israel will now be able to vote, propose discussions and launch initiatives in ECOSOC, after 154 countries voted to support Israel’s membership via the Western European and Other Countries group. ECOSOC oversees various UN committees, including Status of Women, Statistics, Population and Development.
“Choosing Israel to serve on ECOSOC is a recognition of our innovation and creativity, which serves to benefit all nations of the world, as well as evidence of our diplomatic efforts throughout the international community,” Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said Monday.