Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s successful visit to the UAE Dec. 13 completes a series of foreign policy moves since he took office in mid-June.

They began with the emergency repairs to Israel’s broken-down relations with Jordan’s King Abdullah, continued with restoring trust with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah a-Sisi in a Sept. 13 meeting in Sharm al-Sheikh, a significant upgrading of relations with Morocco (with which Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed a security alliance at the end November), Israeli involvement in efforts to restore calm in post-coup Sudan, a significant deepening of relations with Bahrain and even the beginning of a surprising if not yet substantive conciliation in Israel's chaotic relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Saudi Arabia would be a jewel in the crown of Israel's normalization with the Arab world. Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid are investing tremendous efforts to break through the stalemate reached between the Saudis and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who provoked Saudi ire to dangerous levels when his associates allegedly leaked his secret November 2020 meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But breaking the ice with the Saudis and bringing Israel’s special, clandestine relationship with them into public view would require input from the Biden administration, which is much more suspicious of Riyadh than the Trump White House.

Meanwhile, Bennett is investing great efforts in consolidating the regional alliance initiated in Netanyahu’s term. He is battling Iran’s growing influence in the region and fear of the ayatollahs’ fury.