Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put off his historic trip to the United Arab Emirates due to Jordan’s failure to authorize the flight path, Israeli media reported. The cancelation came amid a diplomatic crisis with the kingdom, as well as the Israeli premier’s wife being hospitalized with appendicitis.
Netanyahu’s trip to the UAE would have been his first official visit since the announcement of the Abraham Accords, which marked peace and normalization between the Gulf state and Israel in August.
The delay was revealed shortly before the flight’s departure, and was triggered by the cancellation on Wednesday of the Jordanian crown prince’s proposed visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem after a dispute over security arrangements.
Local media has also reported that Israel’s premier was slated to have met Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman while in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi, though this has been denied by Riyadh.
Though Saudi Arabia encouraged the rapprochement between the Jewish state and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, it stopped short of establishing ties with Israel. However, clandestine ties have strengthened in recent years, as Jerusalem and Riyadh have found a common threat in Iran. In November, Israeli officials said that Netanyahu and Prince Mohammed had secretly met in the kingdom, but Riyadh publicly denied the occurrence.
Early voting for Israeli diplomats and staff at the country’s embassies abroad began on Wednesday evening, with the envoy to New Zealand casting the first vote of the March 23 elections.
Following New Zealand, 103 other ballot stations will be opened at around 100 embassies and missions around the world, with the final votes taking place in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The ballot boxes at the embassies will remain open for two days, the Central Elections Committee announced.
Votes in the Israeli election will be cast for the first time at four new diplomatic outposts: Morocco, Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
According to Israeli law, private citizens living abroad cannot vote unless they come to Israel, but exceptions are made for diplomats and their families. Some 4,000 Israelis will be allowed to vote at the diplomatic offices worldwide.
Israeli and Biden Administration officials on Thursday will hold the first session of a bilateral strategic group aimed at collaborating to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The US-Israel Strategic Consultative Group will be led by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat.
The White House has said that it would like to rejoin the Iran Deal if Tehran first returns to compliance. However, the Islamic Republic has insisted that the US first remove sanctions before it returns to the terms of the 2015 accord, putting the two sides at a stalemate. Former president Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and imposed punishing sanctions on Iran.
Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have voiced opposition to the Biden Administration’s desire to rejoin the deal, putting Jerusalem and Washington at odds on the issue. Some leading Israeli officials in recent months have warned of military action to halt Tehran’s nuclear program.
In recent months, Iran has taken steps to violate the JCPOA by the enrichment of uranium past the accord’s limits and barring UN inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities.
Concurrently, Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified at the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the 2015 JCPOA put Iran’s nuclear program “in a box” and “cut off its pathways to producing fissile material for nuclear weapons on short order,” adding that “There was an invitation from the European union to all of the parties, to the JCPOA including Iran, including the United States. We said we would attend; Iran so far has said no. I think the ball is in their court to see if they’re serious about re-engaging or not.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially confirmed that a search for former Israeli spy Eli Cohen’s remains is underway in Syria. At the same time, in what has been called a “dramatic development,” an item thought to have belonged to Cohen is now in Israel’s possession, a source in the Syrian government claimed. According to local media, the item was first transferred from Damascus to Moscow, which then passed it on to Jerusalem. It is currently being examined by Israeli authorities.
The Syrian source told local media that the item could be a piece of clothing or a document.
Cohen was an Israeli secret agent who, in the early sixties, gained the trust of top Syrian government officials and offered advice to its defense ministry. He was caught and executed in 1965. The whereabouts of his remains have been unknown for decades.
According to recent reports, the Russian military has been searching for Cohen’s body at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus. In early February, local media reported on excavations at Yarmouk’s cemetery. Asked to comment on this news, Netanyahu for the first time confirmed that the reports are accurate. “It’s true. That’s all I can tell you,” the Israeli premier said.
Israeli Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai will be on the jury of Israel’s The X Factor, local media revealed. During the fourth season of the music talent show, Barzilai will be joined by British television personality Simon Cowell.
Barzilai rose to fame as a 2018 Eurovision contestant and won the competition with her song Toy. The tune would go on to become an international sensation, reaching the number one spot on the music charts of more than 44 countries. Toy also broke viewing records on YouTube and TikTok.
Cowell, the original creator of The X Factor, has been judging the British version of the show since the first season aired in 2004. “Over the years The X Factor format discovered amazing talents from all over the world, I can’t wait to see what Israel has to offer,” Cowell said.
The X Factor has aired three seasons in Israel (2013, 2014, and 2018), with Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli as the host of the show. Some of the country’s top talents have participated, including Eden Ben Zaken, Moshe Peretz, and Eden Alene, who will represent the Jewish state in the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest in May.
Recommended Content
- Israeli, Egyptian Officials Hold Largest Bilateral Conference in 20 Years (Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom)
- Jared Kushner Plans Book on Trump White House, Abraham Accords (Steve Holland, Reuters)
- El Al Introduces 15-Minute Result COVID Tests (Michal Raz-Chaimovitz, Globes)
- Ben & Jerry’s Introduces Special ‘Mixed-Up’ Israeli Election Flavor (Hili Yacobi-Handelsman, Israel Hayom)
