Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Monday that he and two other Trump administration foreign policy officials met with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Benny Gantz, during a three-day visit to Israel.
O’Brien confirmed the visit, which was first reported by Reuters, in an interview with NBC News.
O’Brien said he was accompanied by John Rakolta, the U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, and Ed McMullen, the former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, and also met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He said further talks were scheduled with Israeli officials on Tuesday.
All three remain close to former President Donald Trump, and Trump is likely to be briefed on the visit. O’Brien declined to say whether he had discussed the trip with Trump in advance, but he said he speaks with Trump regularly.
“My goal for this trip was to show my support for Israel,” O’Brien said in an interview. “But at the same time, people know that I’m a former Trump official, that I’m in regular contact with the president, and that I strongly supported him in November.”
He said one of the reasons for his visit was the status of the Abraham Accords, a series of historic agreements signed in 2020 to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. He said it was to confirm.
O’Brien said he notified the Biden administration of his visit several weeks in advance, as he always does.
The United States is trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations and address post-war governance of Gaza. O’Brien argued that just as the Trump administration declared it had defeated ISIS, it should not be enacted until Hamas is defeated.
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Mr. O’Brien said he, Mr. Rakolta and Mr. McMullen met with Mr. Gantz, one of three members of Israel’s war cabinet, on Sunday and with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. He said he also spent time at the site of a Hamas attack on Israel and visited with the family of one of the hostages held by Hamas.
O’Brien said Monday’s talks with Netanyahu also included the International Criminal Court’s announcement that it was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Mr O’Brien criticized the ICC’s move as shameful.
He also criticized the Biden administration’s decision to suspend shipments of military aid to Israel as a “betrayal,” adding that he had not consulted with Israeli officials on the issue.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the visit Monday night.
O’Brien said the sense he got from Israeli officials was that “Israel understands that it needs the United States as an ally.”
“What I’ve been telling my former Israeli colleagues is that whoever the president is, we need to stand by America,” O’Brien said.