President Biden said Friday that one of the goals of Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel was to thwart efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and the Jewish state.
“One of the reasons why they did what they did, why Hamas launched an attack on Israel, is because I didn’t work with the Saudis,” Biden, 80, said at a campaign fundraiser in Washington. Because they knew they were trying to form a partnership.”
“Because the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel, which would effectively unify the Middle East,” he added.
Since 2020, Israel has reached diplomatic breakthroughs with several Muslim-majority countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, but Saudi Arabia has yet to recognize Israel’s sovereignty.
The unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, which killed more than 1,000 people in southern Israel, came amid recent talks aimed at repairing relations between Jerusalem and Riyadh as part of a trilateral agreement with the United States.
The deal that was taking shape was aimed at increasing stability in the Middle East, countering the nuclear threat from Iran (Iran is a bitter rival of Saudi Arabia), and increasing economic cooperation.
During the meeting, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei warned that any country that attempts to normalize relations with Israel will “incur losses.”
Diplomatic talks on a possible Saudi-Israeli deal have been paused since the October 7 attack. According to Bloomberg.
Biden’s comments came on the same day the White House asked Congress to approve about $14 billion to support Israel’s air and missile defense systems and buy other weapons in its war against Hamas.
The funding is part of a broader $106 billion funding request for humanitarian relief in Ukraine, Gaza and Israel, U.S. border security and countering China.
Also on Friday, when asked by a reporter whether Israel needed to delay a potential ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to free more hostages held by Hamas terrorists, Biden said, “Yes.” Looks like you answered.
However, a White House press secretary said the president “did not hear all of the questions.”
“The question was something along the lines of, ‘Do you want to see more hostages released?'” White House press secretary Ben LaBolt said. Reuters reported.
