This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor. My colleague and friend Malcolm,

online conference of President's major American Jewish organizations. The President's trip to

the Middle East, much excitement in all directions. You will note, however,

Abraham Accords comes up right away. What does it mean? Where is it going? Malcolm, our guest is the

Executive Director of the Miscove Institute for National Security, Asher Fredman, just finished his reservist duty. He's in Jerusalem

on location. Malcolm, it's all yours. Good day to you. Thank you, John. Asher, we thank you for

being with us. I know tonight is the beginning of holiday celebrations in Israel. And I wanted

to get your view as somebody who was involved directly in the development of the Abraham Accords,

how you see the president's trip projecting the expansion of the Accords?

Do you think it was a repudiation that neither Saudi Arabia accepted and the Syrians said that they would only consider, or do you

see the opening doors for future expansion? Thank you, John, and thank you, Malcolm. It's a pleasure

to join you. I think that the president's trip to the Middle East was a positive for the

Abraham Accord. I think that there was no reason to expect

that we would see Saudi Israel normalization

already at this early date,

but we saw the president talking about how important it was.

We saw that the ties between Saudi Arabia

and the UAE are growing deeper,

and the UAE, the partnership between America and

its Gulf allies is growing deeper, and that's a good thing for the Abraham Accords. The Saudis

still primarily want a defense pact with the United States, and given that that will require

congressional approval, that probably means that normalization needs to be a component of that.

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