US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides spoke on Sunday at the American Jewish Committee Global Forum in Tel Aviv.
The event, which hosts 1,500 Jewish advocates from more than 60 nations and six continents, kicked off on Sunday.
In his remarks, Nides expressed hope for the advancement of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“Wouldn’t it be grand that we wake up one day and there’s a normalization between Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel&hellipand I think, as you’ve heard from the President and the Secretary of State and many of the government officials, we’re going to work towards hopefully getting a goal to achieve that,” said the Ambassador.
“it’s not easy, it’s not simple but I believe it’s in the best interest of the United States and the best interest of the state of Israel and the best interests of the Middle East to get that deal done,” he added.
On the Iranian nuclear issue, Nides stated that the US administration is working to ensure that Iran never achieves nuclear weapons.
“Security is the single most important issue that we all work on collectively and, since I’ve been here, obviously the security issue in Iran in particular is the certainly the single biggest threat to the security of the state of Israel. And I think you’ll hear from different leaders, they’ll say that we’re working collectively to make sure, as Joe Biden said, to never allow the Iranians to obtain a nuclear weapon,” he said.
“But it’s not just obviously the Iranian threat. We know what goes on with Hezbollah, what goes on with Hamas, what goes on around the region. As many of you know, four weeks ago I was here and the Islamic Jihad, which so bad even Hamas doesn”t want to hang around with them, but they shot 840 rockets in the state of Israel. No country, no country, anywhere in the world would tolerate something like that,” stated the Ambassador.
Nides, whose term concludes in 40 days, expressed confidence in Israeli democracy, against the background of the events of the past year.

“In the last 26 weeks, between 150,000 and 300,000 people, regardless what side of the issue you’re on, are showing up every Saturday. That, my friends, would be the equivalent of six or seven million Americans showing up at the mall every Saturday. And guess what? here’s been virtually no one, there’s been no property damage. The reality this is that democracy is alive and well in Israel.”
Nides also spoke about the importance of promoting the two-state solution, saying, “I fundamentally believe that most Palestinians living in the West Bank want the same thing as most Jews living in Green Line Israel: They want security, they want an opportunity, they want health care, they want to have a future, and that is what I’ve been trying to spend my time on, because again I think it makes Israel a more secure Democratic Jewish state.”