Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday told the U.N. General Assembly that his country's normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia would form "a new Middle East."

Netanyahu said President Joe Biden could help in achieving such a peace agreement and repeat the success of former President Donald Trump, under whose leadership the Abraham Accords peace deal was signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

However, the Israeli prime minister called on Biden and U.S. allies to impose sanctions on Iran.

"Eight years ago, the Western powers promised that if Iran violated the nuclear deal, the sanctions would be snapped back. Well Iran is violating the deal, but the sanctions have not been snapped back," he said. "To stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, this policy must change.

"And above all … above all … Iran must face a credible nuclear threat. As long as I'm prime minister of Israel, I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons."

Netanyahu spoke two days after Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a U.S. television network that his country was moving steadily closer to normalizing relations with Israel.

"Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East," said Netanyahu, who stopped speaking briefly as U.N. members applauded. He then held up a 1948 map of the region.

"The year Israel was established. Here is Israel in 1948. It's a tiny country. Isolated, surrounded by a hostile Arab world. In our first 70 years, we made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and then in 2020, we made the Abraham Accords, peace with another four Arab states."

Netanyahu then flipped over the map to show what the Middle East will look like with a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

"The whole Middle East changes," he said. "We tear down the walls of enmity. We bring the possibility of prosperity and peace to this entire region."

The prime minister continued by saying such a peace deal also would provide "a monumental" international change.

"We will not only bring down barriers between Israel and our neighbors, we'll build a new corridor of peace and prosperity that connects Asia, through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel to Europe," he said while drawing a line showing a route through those countries. "This is an extraordinary change. A monumental change. Another pivot of history."

Netanyahu, though, issued one caveat.

"Peace can only be achieved if it is based on truth. It cannot be based on lies," he said. "It cannot be based on endless vilification of the Jewish people. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas must stop spreading the horrible antisemitic conspiracies against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. I mean, he recently said that Hitler wasn't an antisemite. You can't make this up."

The Palestinians, Netanyahu said, should not be given "the power of veto over new peace treaties with Arab states." He added Palestinians comprise only 2% of the Arab world.

"The Palestinians could greatly benefit from a broader peace," he said. "They should be part of that process but they should not have a veto over the process.

"I also believe that making peace with more Arab states would actually increase the prospects of making peace between Israel and the Palestinians."

Netanyahu also talked about "perhaps the most consequential development of our time," artificial intelligence.

"The AI revolution is progressing at lightning speed," he told those assembled. "It took centuries for humanity to adapt to the agricultural revolution. It took decades to adapt to the industrial revolution. We may have but a few years to adapt to the AI revolution. The perils are great, and they are before us.

"Even more disturbing is the potential eruption of AI-driven wars that could achieve an unimaginable scale."

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