Bahrain Mirror: The Israeli Channel 12 revealed on Saturday that Israel proposed an initiative to a number of Gulf States based on normalizing relations between both sides and establishing the foundations of open economic and security cooperation despite the continuing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The channel explained that the Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz presented his plan to several Arab foreign ministers during his visit to New York last week at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, indicating that Katz's move was "in full coordination" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The initiative, which was presented by Katz, was developed by a team within the Israeli Foreign Ministry and is based on making use of the common interests between Israel and the Gulf states, particularly confronting Iran.

The channel revealed that the initiative aims at fully and publicly normalizing relations between Israel and the Gulf states, whom Katz met their foreign ministers and whose names were not disclosed, pointing out that the initiative does not provide for a "comprehensive peace" agreement with the Gulf States, because Israel knows that this is not possible under the current circumstances.

Katz proposed the Israeli initiative to the US administration's outgoing special envoy for the peace process, Jason Greenblatt, indicating that they discussed a possible US-Israel mutual defense pact to push the initiative forward.

Arabic Version