WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump heralded a pair of historic agreements formalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and two Gulf Arab nations in a ceremony Tuesday on the White House South Lawn.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the accords – written in English, Hebrew and Arabic – marking a major geopolitical shift in the Middle East and giving Trump a platform as peacemaker as he heads into the fall reelection campaign.
“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history,” Trump said at the beginning of the ceremony. “Together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region.”
Netanyahu called the agreements “a pivot of history” that “heralds a new dawn of peace.” The foreign ministers from Bahrain and the UAE were equally sweeping in their praise for the pacts.
“For too long, the Middle East has been set back by conflict and mistrust, causing untold destruction and thwarting the potential of generations of our best and brightest,” said Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Bahrain’s foreign affairs minister. “Now, I’m convinced. We have the opportunity to change that.”
Tuesday’s diplomatic pageantry at the White House, attended by 800 invited guests, followed months of behind-the-scenes outreach by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his envoy for international negotiations, Avi Berkowitz.
The signing ceremony highlights a realignment in the Middle East, as Arab nations once devoted to Palestinian statehood move away from that commitment to solidify their ties with Israel. It also showcased Trump’s close ties with Netanyahu, who have sought to boost each other at critical moments in their respective political campaigns. Trump’s staunchly pro-Israel stance is very popular among evangelicals and the broader GOP base. .
Netanyahu and Trump both predicted that other Arab countries would soon follow Bahrain and the UAE in normalizing relations with Israel.
Under the agreements, Trump said, Israel, the UAE and Bahrain will establish embassies, exchange ambassadors and cooperate on a broad range of issues, from trade to health care to security.
“They’re going to work together. They are friends,” he said. “There will be other countries very very soon that will follow these great leaders.”
Trump and his allies are hoping the agreements will burnish his credentials as a peacemaker with the presidential election less than two months away. Trump’s campaign has touted the agreements on Facebook as “historic Middle East peace deals,” which experts noted was an overstatement.
“With the U.S. elections approaching, it seems that the administration felt the need to lock in a diplomatic win. There have not been many in the last four years,” said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank.
He said the biggest winner in the deal is the UAE because the Israelis will be “eager to make deals on Emirati terms” and the UAE has also improved its standing with both Democrats and Republicans in Washington at a moment of deep polarization. Lawmakers in both parties have grown increasingly frustrated with the UAE and Saudi Arabia over their conduct in the war in Yemen, which has killed more than 60,000 civilians and created a horrific humanitarian catastrophe.
“The biggest losers are probably the Palestinians. They saw their own weak negotiating hand with Israel and were counting on Arab solidarity to strengthen it,” Alterman wrote in an analysis published Tuesday. “It is unclear whether a weaker position will drive Palestinians toward greater conciliation or less conciliation with Israel.”
The accords won rare bipartisan plaudits from lawmakers in Congress – with some caveats.
“As we learn more about the full details of both agreements, questions remain – specifically, regarding…
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