Benjamin Netanyahu visited Saudi Arabia

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (photo montage).

Bandar al Jaloud, Maya Alleruzzo POOL / AFP

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3 min

Never before has an Israeli prime minister made a publicly mentioned visit to Saudi Arabia.

The two countries officially do not have a diplomatic relationship.

But Benjamin Netanyahu visited the kingdom this Sunday evening and reportedly met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The information has not been confirmed by those concerned, but this first visit by an Israeli prime minister to Saudi Arabia is mentioned by several official Israeli sources.

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With our correspondent in Jerusalem

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It was a flight advertised on sites spotting air movements that attracted attention.

Sunday evening at 7:30 p.m., a private plane, which Benyamin Netanyahu has used in the past, took off from Tel Aviv for Neom, a resort under construction on the Saudi shores of the Red Sea.

The aircraft spent two hours on the ground and then returned to Tel Aviv at half past midnight.

The theft came when Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, was precisely in Neom with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.

Officially, this tripartite meeting is not confirmed by the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Saudi authorities or the State Department.

But she hasn't been denied either, which is interpreted as half-word confirmation.

And one of the Israeli prime minister's advisers wrote on Twitter that " 

 ", referring to diplomatic activity by the head of government while the other head of the executive Israeli was setting up a commission of inquiry into suspicions of corruption that could implicate Benyamin Netanyahu.

Nothing has filtered for the moment on the content of the exchanges between the three leaders, but the administration of Donald Trump makes no secret of his desire to obtain a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The agreements reached with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are its main diplomatic success in the Middle East.

A similar commitment from Riyadh, the main regional power, would be a major step forward for Donald Trump's team, and a guarantee of the sustainability of these agreements under the future Biden administration.

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• Saudi Arabia

• Israel

• Benjamin Netanyahu

• Mohammed bin salman