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Israel and the United States will expand their collaboration on energy projects to generate economic and political dividends across the Middle East, officials from both countries said on Monday.

US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry is currently visiting Israel and has had a series of meeting with high-ranking government officials. On Monday he met with Israeli Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz, and on Tuesday he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Our two countries share a history of friendship based on common efforts and mutual respect.  For decades, the energy bonds between our great nations have strengthened, reinforcing an increasingly close energy relationship focused on utilizing clean energy technologies and resources to enhance our security, peace, and prosperity, and that of our partners," Steinitz and Perry said in a joint statement after their meeting.

"Secretary Perry and Minister Steinitz are committed to continuing the positive energy partnership between our two countries that recognizes the strength of our two nations in this area so critical to economic growth, peace and prosperity," the statement continued.

The ministers said that their discussions focused on "advancing energy security through cybersecurity collaboration, information sharing, and training in cybersecurity," as well as on gas projects in the Mediterranean Sea.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also met today (Tuesday, 23 July 2019), at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, with US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. Netanyahu said "I just had a visit with a delegation of journalists from Arab countries. With the exception of one, none of them have formal relations with us. They talk about how so many in the Arab world want to have peace with Israel, normalization with Israel, want to come to Israel. They’re not always free to express it, and there’s always opposition from those who want to take us back, but they expressed that desire.

But within the region, and this is what I told them, within the region, Israel is the irreplaceable power, because there is no other power within the region without whose presence and activity here, I would say the region would collapse. Without Israel, without the things that we do and the things that we stand for and the things that we protect, I think the entire Middle East would collapse to the forces of Islamic radicalism, whether Shiite led by Iran or Sunni radicalism led by Daesh."

Attached photo credit: Haim Zach (GPO)