Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has called on moderate Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, to bolster their security ties with Israel in an effort to fight global terrorism and counter the Iranian threat.

In an opinion piece titled “Uniting behind pragmatism in the Middle East” that was published in Defense News, one of the world’s top military magazines, Lieberman asserted that the “strategic divide in today’s Middle East between fanaticism and pragmatism outweighs the sectarian divisions of the past.”