(Communicated by the President’s Spokesperson)
President Isaac Herzog participated in an Atlantic Council event yesterday (Wednesday, 25 October 2022) in Washington, D.C., marking two years since the Abraham Accords and joining former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro in conversation.
In their conversation, the President presented intelligence establishing the use of Iranian-manufactured UAVs against civilians in the war against Ukraine.
President Herzog: “Innocent civilians in Ukraine are being killed and hurt and wounded and are suffering from Iranian weapons. Iran flatly denied supplying drones to the war against Ukraine. I want to show you two slides that unequivocally prove that Iranian drones are participating in the war in Ukraine against innocent Ukrainian civilians. I want to point out that Iran has kept on supplying these drones and they are attacking all over Ukraine with suicide drones, special UAVs that are meant to create havoc in large scope.”
A Renewable Middle East to Combat the Climate Crisis
President Herzog spoke of his vision for a Renewable Middle East, a regional alliance to combat the climate crisis: “I believe that there will be a Middle Eastern treaty. It may take a generation to get there but we are not far away in so many issues. Take climate, for example. In my mind, if you look down the road, the region will supply energy one day to Europe, Africa, and Asia. I call it the Renewable Middle East… Today we already have an agreement between Israel and Greece on energy connectors, which will one day supply electricity from solar energy from our region to Europe. So you can foresee enormous ideas, great ideas, and leaders in the region are very interested, and they’re looking to Israel for technological solutions.”
Later in the conversation, the President praised Israel’s growing integration in the Middle East: “This paradigm shift has also led to a psychological paradigm shift: more and more Israelis and Arab neighbors throughout the region are talking to each other, and of course in my mind the dialogue between Muslim and Jew, wherever it takes place, is always more than welcome and extremely important. And I can see for myself. For me, it was an eye-opener to be a guest at a state visit in the United Arab Emirates hosted by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, where Hatikvah was played at the national palace. I intend to visit Bahrain as well toward the end of the year. The enormous amount of energy of joint projects and ideas that have emanated from these treaties is just incredible.”