After President Donald Trump announced via Twitter on Sept. 11 that Israel and Bahrain had agreed to establish diplomatic relations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I am thrilled to announce to you, Israeli citizens, that we will reach a peace agreement tonight with another Arab country, Bahrain. An agreement that joins the historic agreement with the United Arab Emirates. It took us 26 years to go from the second peace agreement with an Arab state [with Jordan in 1994] to reach a third peace agreement [with the UAE]. And it took us not 26 years, but 29 days to go from a third peace agreement with an Arab country to a fourth one. And there will be more.’’
Referring to the peace-for-land formula used in the past in efforts to reach peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu said the current agreement brings peace in exchange for peace. He said the two new agreements are expected to bring Israel great economic benefits. “We have invested in peace for many years, and now peace will bring us investments, big investments for the Israeli economy, which is very important. All these agreements were reached through hard work behind the scenes for many years. They have turned into reality with the very significant help of our friend, US President Donald Trump, and I wish to thank him and his team for this very important assistance.’’
