The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Washington appointed the former Rabbi Arieh Lightstone as a special envoy to accelerate economic normalization between Israel and Arab and Islamic countries.

The appointment came about three weeks before the end of Donald Trump's term.

"The appointment of Lightstone aims to represent US interests in the normalization of economic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Kosovo, and Morocco," said Pompeo in a statement, expressing his confidence that this would encourage other countries to join the normalization agreements with Israel.

It worth mentioning that Lightstone worked as a rabbi in the Jewish community in New York, before joining President Trump's team during his first election campaign in 2016.

Lightstone then was appointed as an advisor to the American ambassador to Israel, after which he was assigned the responsibility of the Abraham Fund as part of the deal of the century to revitalize the economy between Israel and the normalizing countries.

Four Arab countries normalized ties with Israel last year; those counties were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morroco respectively.