Incoming senior Trump official Waltz says administration will prioritize Saudi-Israel ties

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz revealed that a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement will be a “huge priority” for the Trump administration. 

“Let’s call it what it is: the next phase of the Abraham Accords,” Waltz told Dan Senor, the host of the popular podcast, Call Me Back. Senor is also known as the co-author of the bestseller book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. 

During his first presidency, Trump forged the historical Abraham Accords, which led to the establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and the four Muslim Arab states Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan. 

While Saudi Arabia refrained from normalizing its ties with the Jewish state in 2020, it is widely believed that the Saudis played a central role behind the groundbreaking agreement between Israel and parts of the Arab world. In addition, the Saudis have in recent years cultivated covert ties with Israel. 

In late September 2023, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) openly told Fox News anchor Bret Baier that Saudi Arabia and Israel were moving closer to a normalization agreement. 

“Every day we get closer,” MBS said, adding that Saudi Arabia links potential Israel ties with the implementation of the two-state peace formula. However, following the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and the subsequent Gaza War, the Saudis decided to postpone its plans to normalize relations with Israel. 

Realizing that any future territorial agreement requires security for Israel, Waltz stressed the need to "eliminate these terrorist organizations” and demilitarize post-war Gaza. 

“Hamas may hope so, but we’ve made it clear: Gaza must be fully demilitarized, Hamas must be dismantled so it cannot regroup, and Israel has every right to defend itself. Those goals remain unchanged.”

Waltz further appeared to embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position that the Iranian regime deliberately attempted to derail Saudi-Israeli normalization by unleashing a multi-front terrorist proxy attack on the Jewish state since the attack in October 2023. The terrorist militias Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are all backed and armed by the ayatollah regime in Tehran. 

“This is why I firmly believe that Iran lit the fuse – Hamas – to blow everything up,” Waltz assessed, referring to Hamas Oct. 7 attack and the subsequent war.

Waltz also emphasized that the Iranian ayatollah regime with nuclear weapons would constitute an intolerable threat to Israel, the Middle East and the world. 

“If you think the region is unstable, violent, and at war now, imagine it under a nuclear umbrella controlled by Iran,” the senior Trump official warned. The Iranian ayatollah regime openly calls for the destruction of Israel.

 “We must take this very seriously,” Waltz argued. “Every American should understand that any kind of nuclear confrontation in the region would be catastrophic for the entire world.” He continued. 

In December, Waltz told Fox News that Trump’s Iran policy would be more hawkish than the one embraced by the outgoing Biden administration. 

“You’re going to see a huge shift on Iran,” Waltz vowed.

“We have to constrain their cash. We have to constrain their oil. We have to go back to maximum pressure, number one, which was working under the first Trump administration,” he stated.