Bahraini king said to decline Netanyahu request to meet in Manama in August
Saudi-owned paper says Israeli PM dispatched envoy to Bahrain to suggest meeting, but the Gulf nation’s leader said ‘the times has not yet come’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAdam Rasgon is a former Palestinian affairs reporter at The Times of Israel
Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has rejected a request by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet him in Manama, the Arabic-language, Saudi-owned Elaph newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing a “senior source.”
Netanyahu recently asked Al Khalifa for the meeting through an envoy who he dispatched to Bahrain, saying he wished to inform Bahraini officials about “a dangerous security matter,” the source told Elaph.
The envoy, who was accompanied by three security officials, proposed to Al Khalifa that Netanyahu meet him in the Bahraini capital in August to discuss “security matters of mutual interest,” but the Gulf monarch declined the offer, according to the source.
“The time has not come yet,” the source quoted Al Khalifa as saying.
Netanyahu wanted to use the meeting with the Bahraini king to benefit his election campaign ahead of the September 17 national vote, the source also contended.
A spokesman for Netanyahu said he was looking into the report and could not immediately respond. An unnamed aide to Netanyahu, however, told the Saudi-owned daily that the prime minister does not comment on “such news stories.”
The report in Elaph comes just over a month after Bahrain hosted a workshop in Manama about the economic portion of the US administration’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While no Israeli officials attended the summit in Manama, a number of Israeli businessmen and journalists did so.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership fiercely opposed the conference, asserting its economic focus sought to undermine its aspirations for statehood.
In an interview with The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the summit, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad Al Khalifa expressed hope for better relations and eventually “peace” with Israel — a country he nonchalantly declared a part of the region and “there to stay.”
The Foreign Ministry welcomed the Bahraini foreign minister’s comments to the Times of Israel and other Israeli news outlets at the time.
The report in the Saudi-owned daily comes some two weeks after the Bahrain’s top diplomat posed for a photo with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz at a State Department event on religious freedom in Washington.
The Times of Israel Community.