“As-salaam aleikum.” That’s how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to begin his Sept. 15 message. He continued, “to all of Israel’s friends in the Middle East: those who are with us today, and those who will join us tomorrow.”
Netanyahu delivered this speech at the ceremony to mark the signing of the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain on the South Lawn of the White House. He later tweeted that part of the speech in Arabic to all his Twitter followers around the world. Yes, in Arabic! The very language that, just two years ago, saw itself demoted by Netanyahu himself, from Israel’s second official language to a language with “special status,” to use the term as it appears in the new law.
