Washington - "Jerusalem" dot com - Saeed Erekat - The Wall Street Journal reported, in a report published today, Wednesday, that US President Joe Biden 's visit to the Middle East aims primarily to deepen US-Israeli security relations, and the visit will focus on "integrating" Israel into the region by expanding its relations with more Arab countries.

The visit aims, according to the American newspaper, to deepen the "Abraham Accords" of normalization, to include important countries in the region such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which shares Israel's fears of Iran.

It is noteworthy that US President Joe Biden had expressed these priorities, first in his statement after the end of the G-7 summit on June 30, and secondly in his lengthy article published in the "Washington Post" newspaper last Sunday.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, Israel has been in closer relations than ever before with Arab countries in a joint effort to contain Iran's threats. In Bahrain, an Israeli naval officer is working with Bahraini and American officials to confront Iran's military ambitions, while Israeli soldiers in Morocco recently participated in an The largest regular military maneuver of the United States in Africa, while the Israeli Navy conducted maneuvers in the Red Sea with the participation of naval forces from several Arab countries.

It is noteworthy that Israeli military officials had met with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates together at the headquarters of the US Central Command in the Middle East last month in an effort to develop a new air defense agreement to protect Israel and the countries of the Persian Gulf from threats posed by Iran and its allies.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday that Biden will seek to increase Israel's integration into the region during the trip and coordinate on confronting the Iranian threat.

Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a front for the Israeli lobby, which was established by the Israeli military establishment at the beginning of the current century in Washington, and specializes in advancing Israeli agendas in Palestinian , Syrian and Iranian affairs, told the newspaper, saying that the visit will constitutes a "new chapter in the security of the Middle East".

"The key now is for these actors to institutionalize these gains," he added.

The newspaper notes that while the Biden administration is trying to bring Israel and its Arab neighbors together in a regional air defense partnership aimed primarily at protecting countries from the threats of Iran and its allies, efforts to do so have been hampered by the tense relationship between the Biden administration and the Kingdom due to Saudi Arabia's resistance to US pressure. In changing course on key issues, including oil production and human rights.

The newspaper claims that Israel has offered to provide direct assistance to the UAE, which faced a series of missile strikes from Houthi-backed militias in Yemen earlier this year.

However, experts believe that building an integrated air defense system that extends from Israel to the United Arab Emirates is difficult due to the different interests and agendas of the countries concerned, as so far neither Saudi Arabia nor Qatar officially recognizes Israel, and they do not have the public relations required to achieve this yet.

Earlier this month, Tehran announced that cooperation in the field of air defense between Arab countries and Israel would destabilize, according to Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, who said in a press statement that "an attempt to create new security concerns in the region will not be It has nothing but to weaken common regional security and serve the security interests of the Zionist regime."

Experts in Washington claim that "the shift towards more cooperation with Israel stems in part from concerns about the US' willingness to intervene militarily in the region, especially after its sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan and Biden's stated desire to direct US security resources toward China."

The Wall Street Journal attributes to Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz saying last week that since the signing of the "Abraham Accords," defense officials between Israel and the printing states in the Gulf have held 150 meetings with each other.

Gantz said that Israel has sold more than $3 billion in weapons to the Gulf states. In 2021, 7% of military sales to Israel went to “Abraham Accords countries,” according to the Defense Ministry.

Gantz noted that cooperation with the United States and some regional neighbors is already under way. He said recently: "This plan is already underway and has already thwarted Iranian attempts to challenge Israel and other countries in the Middle East."

According to the investigation, Israel is also looking forward to integrating its cyber defenses with its new allies, and according to an Israeli official, cyber officials in Israel have met dozens of times with their Emirati counterparts since the signing of the Abraham Accords, who said that the two countries "exchange intelligence information, potential threats to each other, and the lessons they learned while dealing." with cyber threats.

In a few cases, the Israeli official claims, "Israeli and Emirati officials found threats that the other was not aware of. In one incident in 2021, a civilian Israeli company discovered a cyberattack originating from an agent of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which hacked into servers around the world. Including Israel and the United States.

Last year, Israel signed a cybersecurity agreement with Morocco.