WASHINGTON -- Former strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer firmly denied on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed before the October 7 attack, dismissing reports of such a conversation as “fiction.”
“Did a conversation take place? No,” Dermer said at the MEAD Conference in Washington.
Dermer, one of Netanyahu’s closest confidants and a central figure in Israel’s relations with the US and the Gulf states, said he would have known had such a call taken place.
“If there had been a conversation, I would have been part of it, because one of the tasks assigned to me was to expand the Abraham Accords and strengthen the partnership with the United Arab Emirates,” he said.
Dermer said he was either briefed on or participated directly in all conversations between Netanyahu and bin Zayed.
“I was either privy to the details or was on the line during the conversation itself, and this conversation did not take place,” he said.
Dermer denies that the call ever occurred
Dermer stressed that he was not merely disputing what was allegedly said during the call, but denying that the call itself ever occurred.
“It is not even a question of the content of the conversation,” he said. “I don’t believe there was a conversation at all. And certainly, that content was not discussed.”
Dermer said he did not know where the story originated, noting that both Israel and the UAE had rejected it.
“I think the Emiratis have made clear that it did not happen. We have made clear that it did not happen,” he said. “So it is simply fiction—a made-up story.”