Saudi National Day: Israel congratulates Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on its 93rd anniversary
Friendly gesture comes after positive comments from Saudi crown prince and Netanyahu concerning normalization
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs congratulated the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on its 93rd anniversary on Saturday.
“We send our sincere congratulations to the King, Government, and people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the occasion of the ninety-third National Day, read the social media post on X, formerly Twitter.
"May God grant you goodness and blessings, security and prosperity with our wishes for an atmosphere of peace, cooperation and good neighborliness.”
Saudi’s National Day is a celebration of the establishment of the modern Saudi kingdom in 1932 following the British Empire’s partitioning of the former Ottoman Empire into several countries, including the Kingdom of Jordan.
نتقدم بخالص التهاني والتبريكات للمملكة العربية السعودية ملكاً وحكومةً وشعباً بحلول اليوم الوطني ال٩٣ 🇸🇦. يعيده عليكم بالخير والبركة في ظل الأمن والامان والازدهار مع تمنياتنا ان تعم أجواء السلام والتعاون والجيرة الحسنة. #اليومالوطني93السعودي pic.twitter.com/xDwApqvJO1
— إسرائيل بالعربية (@IsraelArabic) September 23, 2023
The Foreign Ministry released the message in both English and in Arabic in separate posts.
The Saudi National Day greeting comes just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in his UN General Assembly address: “We are at the cusp of an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
“I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough – an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Netanyahu said in his speech.
The prime minister said such a peace would “go a long way to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict,” and that it would also “enhance the prospects of peace with the Palestinians.”
Netanyahu stated that peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia “will encourage a broader reconciliation between Judaism and Islam, between Jerusalem and Mecca, between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael.”
Shortly before his return to Israel, Netanyahu claimed that his UN speech was also broadcast in Saudi Arabia.
“The speech at the UN was broadcast live not only on the American news networks, but this time also in an unprecedented manner in Saudi Arabia - this is also a good sign for the new year,” the premier said.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu has said that Israel has a window of opportunity of several months in which to achieve such a peace deal with Saudi Arabia.
“I think that we have a window of opportunity, it’s the next few months. If we don’t achieve it in the next few months, we might delay it by quite a few years,” he told Fox News host Bret Baier.
Several members of the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus in Israel congratulated Netanyahu on the progress towards normalization, but warned that they would not support concessions made to the Palestinian Authority as part of a normalization deal.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.