SCOOP: Saudi Arabia effectively blocks Israeli minister's trip to kingdom for UN conference
Saudi Arabia initially approved a request for
But the Israeli Foreign Ministry had a more ambitious goal for the conference: to send Cohen as the head of the delegation — which would have been seen as a modest but unprecedented normalization step, the three Israeli officials told Axios. No Israeli minister has ever publicly visited the kingdom.The Israelis approached the World Tourism Organization and the Biden administration to help them get the "green light" for Cohen to attend, the Israeli officials said.
According to the officials, Saudi Arabia told the World Tourism Organization that Cohen could attend the conference with two staffers. But when it came time to finalize Cohen's security arrangements — a typical step for any traveling Israeli minister — it became clear that the Saudis weren't going to have a serious discussion, the Israeli officials said. That forced Cohen to take the trip off his agenda.
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