Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain on Tuesday at the United Nations climate change conference taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, marking the highest-level encounter between officials of the two countries. Several hours later an Israeli official said the Bahraini leader accepted Bennett's invitation to hold a visit to Israel, which would most likely take place in early 2022.
The meeting is the first of an Israeli prime minister with one of the leaders of the four Arab nations that are signatory to the Abraham Accords, a normalization pact sealed under the Trump administration.
The other three are Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Morocco. "I believe that everything we see from Bahrain sends such a warm message of friendship," Bennett said at the meeting. He then added, "We ain't seen nothing yet," eliciting laughter.
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Video: Omer Meron/GPO
Earlier in the day, Bennett met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaking before the meeting, the prime minister thanked Modi and described him as "the person who restarted the relationship between India and Israel, which is a deep relationship between two unique civilizations."
Modi tweeted a picture of the meeting with the caption, "Enhancing friendship with Israel." The tweet also said that the two "had a fruitful meeting in Glasgow. Both leaders discussed deepening various avenues of cooperation for the benefit of our citizens."
Bennett also met Microsoft founder Bill Gates, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Jens Stoltenberg.
Speaking at the climate conference that began on Monday, Bennett said: "Israel is at the beginning of a revolution on climate change. We recently started implementing our '100-step plan' which means that we're currently doing more to promote clean energy and reduce greenhouse gases than at any other time in our country's history. For the first time, Israel is committing to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and we will phase out the use of coal by 2025."
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