Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the weekly Cabinet meeting on June 30 with a “very important statement” from an interview granted by Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa to Israel’s Channel 13 News. He quoted, “Israel is a country of the Middle East. Israel is part of the heritage of this whole region. The Jewish people have a place amongst us. The Israeli public needs to trust that there are countries in the region that do want to have peace and do encourage the Palestinians to do it.”

Netanyahu attributed the refreshing interview with the Bahraini minister to none other than “our policy, which is turning Israel into a rising regional and global power.” Israel, Netanyahu added, is “drawing closer to the Arab states, and gradually normalizing relations with them” and had “praised the Bahrain conference that was designed first and foremost to lead to economic prosperity for the Palestinians and the entire region.” The Palestinians, he said, “repeatedly attacked the conference in contradiction of their own interests,” while Israel “is continuing to advance ties with the Arab world, including today, and this serves everyone.”

As usually, Netanyahu selected the facts to suit his propaganda and ignored those that contradict it. In reading the statement of the Bahraini foreign minister, Netanyahu omitted some salient parts. “I am concerned about the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for a two-state solution,” the Bahraini minister said. “We have not heard even a hint of a positive reaction to the Arab Peace Initiative on the part of the Israeli government. We have heard such things from various political elements in Israel, but the reaction of the government of Israel was full of reservations and distrust… I advise Netanyahu and the Palestinians not to miss the opportunity that exists today to achieve a peace agreement.”

This is not the first time Netanyahu has misled the public with a distorted representation of the mutual security interests Israel shares with the Gulf states, chief among them the conflict with Iran. He turns every public gesture — such as his 2018 visit to Oman, Israeli participation in a sports tournament in Doha and the invitation extended to Israeli journalists to attend the recent US-led economic workshop in Manama — into additional proof that he can supposedly advance ties with the Arab world, develop the settlement enterprise and neutralize the Palestinians, all at the same time. The political center and left-wing opposition applaud Netanyahu as though he were the one who achieved the breakthrough with the Arab world and did so without paying a price in the Palestinian arena.