Blue and White chairman, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, spoke at the special hearing and voting on the UAE-Israel peace deal signed at the White House a month ago.
“I commend the prime minister for choosing to embark on the path to peace", Gantz said, "The agreement would not have been achieved without the leadership of President Donald Trump, his senior advisor, Jared Kushner, Ambassador David Friedman, and special representative, Avi Berkowitz. The paradigm shift led by the American government will go down in the history of the Middle East and the entire world. I would further like to commend Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed for the bold and visionary leadership he displayed.”
Gantz emphasized that in wake of these accords, he is working withe the defense establishment on "maintaining security interests and qualitative edge". "Our friends in the U.S. are allies and partners that are committed to protecting Israel’s security, and recognize that without a strong Israel, there can’t be a stable Middle East”, he added.
In wake of the reports regarding purchase deals of F-35 Jets by Gulf states, Gantz said: “In the Middle East there have been and will continue to be arms deals. Let me say this in the clearest possible terms: As long as I am defense minister, Israel’s military power and its qualitative edge in this region will be maintained, strengthened, and further entrenched".
The Defense Minister mentioned Iran in his speech and added: “We face the Ayatollah regime and people whose only message is violence with a military that is at-the-ready, military, and with both new and long-standing partners, who are prepared to fight with us for stability and peace. Now that the accords have been ratified, Israel has grown stronger and Iran, weaker.”
“We must remember the imperative to rehabilitate and deepen our ties with our close neighbors: Jordan and Egypt", Gantz continued, "Those ties have been neglected in recent years, with damaging effects on Israel’s strategic interests.”
“The Abraham Accords are an opportunity to revitalize our efforts to reach a political accord with our Palestinian neighbors", he added, "I call upon Mahmoud Abbas and upon the young generation of Palestinians: our hand is extended to you, the time has come for you to join this journey toward peace, rather than staying mired in refusal.”
Gantz said that he sorry to hear that there were lawmakers in the Knesset who voted against the accords - "This is the moment to ensure that we educate our next generation to peace and find the inroad to a better future for the children of the Middle East, Palestinians included.”
“The choice for peace was weighed against other alternatives that were on the table", Gantz explained, "including unilateral strides that would have drawn us into a dangerous tailspin at one of the worst crises we’ve ever known.”
MK Gantz then changed a subject and aimed his words at the Prime Minister, in wake of internal issues in Israel.
“I call upon the prime minister and his cronies to stop their obsessive preoccupation with the state institutions that are in both of our charge and stop treating them as if they’re made up of enemies of the state", Gantz declared, "We must appoint the people who will lead this country along with us: in the police force, in the state’s attorney’s office, in the finance ministry, and allow them to serve the public. We need to stop the incitement against them.”
“It is our job to offer the Israeli public an economic recovery plan that will get us out of the deepest economic crisis in our history. It is not a pawn in a political rescue scheme.”
Gantz returned to the peace accords and concluded: “Since the days of Abraham, the hope and prayer for peace have been part of us, part of all of his descendants. Let us hope that this moment will get us a little bit closer to peace, and pray that we never stop laboring to reach the day that all of Abraham’s children enjoy its fruits.”