The Trump Middle East Peace Deal

Let’s get this straight. Just as The Atlantic comes out with a story labeling Jared Kushner Trump’s “most dangerous enabler,” what do you know, but Trump announces a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, brokered in some considerable part by… none other than Jared Kushner.

Clearly, it’s a first step toward normalized diplomatic ties, including diplomatic recognition, between Israel and the Gulf Arab states. Bahrain has already praised the deal. Oman will undoubtedly follow. Most reports have it that Saudi Arabia is being more cautious, but it is extremely unlikely that the Emirates, a very close ally of Saudi Arabia, would have undertaken the deal without the assent of Riyadh.

One understands that, in exchange for recognition of its right to exist, Israel gave up its plans to annex settlement areas in the disputed West Bank. Dare we mention that in any negotiation, there is give and take. Nothing strange about it, at all.

In truth, the peace deal was a complete and total repudiation of the Obama administration policy toward the Middle East. So much so that Crazy Joe Biden stepped forth to give his administration credit for laying the groundwork. One cannot fathom the depth of stupidity of voters who actually believe this.

The Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning:

The agreement is worth celebrating on its own terms but it also holds lessons for U.S. foreign policy. On regional strategy, this shows the benefit of the U.S. standing by its historic allies in the Middle East. President Obama shunned Israel and the Gulf states and sought to normalize Iran. His nuclear deal, an economic boon to Tehran, was a means to that end. But Iran does not want to be normalized. It’s a revolutionary regime that wants to disrupt the non-Shiite countries, spread its military influence from Syria to Lebanon to Yemen, and destroy Israel.

As you know, Obama administration satraps in the media and the think tank world were strongly opposed to the Trump administration policies toward Israel. They insisted that it was bad to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They thought that the Arab street would rise up in righteous anger. They thought a lot of feelings would be hurt. Tsk. Tsk. And remember when Crazy Joe Biden was appalled that Trump assassinated the head of the Iranian Quds force, Qassem Soleimani. The Obama policy was a massive suck up to Iran.

The Journal added:

Recall that mandarins of Obama foreign policy said moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would cause an Arab backlash. In fact, it is being followed by some of the closest Arab-U.S.-Israeli cooperation on record. Larger strategic realities in the Middle East are more important and are driving this change.

One question is whether a Joe Biden Administration would grasp this, or whether it would follow the Obama model of retrenchment against Iran plus browbeating Israelis for their supposed moral failings. The Biden campaign praised the deal while Ben Rhodes, an architect of Obama Administration policy, blasted it for “the total exclusion of Palestinians.”

One suspects that Rhodes speaks for Obama himself. Jeremiah Wright's protege is not and has never been a friend of Israel. Both of them have missed the salient point, point noted explicitly on this blog several years ago. The war between Israel and the Palestinians is over, and the Palestinians have lost. It’s time for them to negotiate the terms of surrender.

The fact that a major Gulf Arab state wants to do business with Israel is a very promising sign, and not just for Israel. It signals the advance of a reformation within Islam itself, a reformation led by Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. It also shows that a reforming Arab world needs Israeli business and technological a lot more than it needs to coddle Palestinian grievances.

Yesterday, Crazy Joe, who no longer has the least ability to think clearly, denounced the Trump administration for coddling terrorists. It’s like seeing your son receive payoffs from a Ukrainian gas company and then offering a quid pro quo to the Ukrainian government, forcing them to shut down an investigation, and then denouncing Trump for colluding with Ukraine. 

As for terrorist coddling, the Obama-Biden administration saw ISIS establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq. It did nothing to stop it. It bent over for the mullahs in Iran, sending them money to save their regime. It sent cash that was immediately sent along to terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Trump the coddler did not just starve Iran of funds. He destroyed the caliphate and executed its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Of course, people who maintain their integrity recognize the agreement as a great diplomatic achievement. David Ignatius writes this in the Washington Post:

The breakthrough announcement that Israel and the United Arab Emirates will normalize diplomatic relations was the culmination of years of secret contacts — and then a final push by the UAE that persuaded Israel to back off its plans to annex the West Bank.

President Trump revealed the historic agreement following a three-way call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE leader Mohammed bin Zayed, whose formal title is crown prince of Abu Dhabi. For once, Trump didn’t need to manufacture any superlatives. This was, as he tweeted, a “HUGE” achievement. The UAE joins Jordan, which reached a peace agreement with Israel in 1994 and Egypt, which signed a pact with its former enemy in 1979.

Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, outlined the diplomatic exchanges over the past six weeks that closed the deal, during a telephone interview and a later call with a group of journalists. Kushner said the UAE-Israel pact was an “icebreaker” that he hoped would be followed by similar moves by other Arab countries.

So, another ignominious piece of the Obama legacy is buried. The world is a better place for as much.