Netanyahu promises direct flights to Saudi Arabia

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to launch direct flights to Saudi Arabia if he is victorious in Tuesday’s elections.

“I’m going to bring you direct flights from Tel Aviv to Mecca,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Channel 13’s Ayala Hasson on Saturday night in a statement that hinted at the establishment of normalized ties with Saudi Arabia.

Speculation had always been high in the last year of the Trump administration that such ties would come to fruition under the rubric of the Abraham Accords, in which Israel established normalized relations with four Arab regimes.

But normalized ties with Saudi Arabia never materialized. Saudi Arabia, however, did grant Israel flyover rights, something it had denied the Jewish state in the past.

In his Channel 13 interview, Netanyahu touted those four agreements and promised that four more deals would be finalized. It was a pledge that he made last week as well.

Netanyahu had been scheduled to fly to the United Arab Emirates for the meeting, but first it was canceled because of a diplomatic snafu with Jordan. As a result of the fiasco, Amman would not let an Emirati plane leave Amman for Tel Aviv to collect Netanyahu for the visit.