Senior US lawmaker urges Trump to back Biden’s push for Saudi-Israeli normalization

A senior US lawmaker has urged Donald Trump to throw his support behind President Joe Biden’s efforts to broker a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican and close confidante of the former US president, said in an interview with Axios published on Wednesday that he briefed Trump regarding his discussions with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following his visit to Saudi Arabia in April.

“I told President Trump, listen, this is the natural extension of the Abraham Accords and if we can do it, let’s do it,” Graham said, referring to a set of US-brokered normalization deals reached between Israel and four Arab states under the Trump administration in 2020.

Biden has been actively working towards achieving a similar diplomatic breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“It doesn’t matter how it gets done, on whose watch it gets done. It’d be a good thing for the stability of the Middle East and our own national security and President Trump deserves his fair share of credit,” Graham said.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a key figure in orchestrating the Abraham Accords, has also urged Trump to support Biden’s potential agreement with Saudi Arabia, according to sources familiar with the matter cited by Axios.

Such support from Trump could prove instrumental in garnering Republican backing for Biden’s efforts to reach a Saudi-Israeli deal.

Saudi Arabia has said that it will not officially recognize Israel until a resolution to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reached.