BICOM
26th May 2021
What happened: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders yesterday following the latest escalation between Israel and Hamas. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also arrived in Israel last night and is expected to do the same today.
Following their meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu highlighted three points:
He thanked the US for supporting Israel’s right of self-defence, recalling it was Blinken, in a previous capacity in 2014, who had personally ensured the speedy replenishment of Iron Dome missiles, worth a quarter of a billion dollars.
On Iran, Netanyahu reiterated his hopes that the US will not return to the JCPOA nuclear deal because “that deal paves the way for Iran to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons with international legitimacy”.