Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Monday that he and two other Trump administration foreign policy officials met with senior Israeli government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival, Benny Gantz. , during a three-day visit to Israel.
O’Brien confirmed the visit, first reported by Reuters, in an interview with NBC News.
O’Brien said he was accompanied by John Rakolta, who was the US ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, and Ed McMullen, the former US ambassador to Switzerland, and that they also met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Additional discussions with Israeli officials are scheduled for Tuesday, he said.
All three remain close to former President Donald Trump, who will likely be briefed on the trip. O’Brien declined to say whether he had discussed the trip with Trump in advance, but noted that he speaks with him regularly.
“My goal on this trip was to really show support for Israel,” O’Brien said in the interview. “But at the same time, people know I’m a former Trump official, I’m in regular contact with the president, and I’m strongly supporting him in November.”
He said one of the reasons for the trip was to check on the status of the Abraham Accords – a series of historic agreements signed in 2020 that normalize ties between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.
O’Brien said he notified the Biden administration about the trip several weeks ago, as is routine.
The US is trying to reach an agreement that normalizes relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and addresses the governance of post-war Gaza. It’s a deal that O’Brien said should not be finalized until Hamas is defeated, similar to how the Trump administration declared it had defeated ISIS.
O’Brien said he, Rakolta and McMullen met on Sunday with Gantz, one of three members of Israel’s war cabinet, and Netanyahu on Monday. He said they also spent time at the site of the Hamas attack on Israel and visited the family of one of the hostages still held by Hamas.
Monday’s discussions with Netanyahu, O’Brien said, included the International Criminal Court’s announcement that it is seeking arrest warrants for him as well as Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. O’Brien called the ICC’s action a disgrace.
He also criticized the Biden administration’s decision to halt a shipment of military aid to Israel, calling it a “treason” and adding that he had not discussed the matter with Israeli officials.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night about the visit.
O’Brien said the sense he got from Israeli officials is that “Israel understands that it needs the United States of America as an ally.”
“What I told my former Israeli colleagues is that they need to remain close to the United States, regardless of who is president,” O’Brien said.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
