Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Kushner: ‘Stage is set’
Trump adviser optimistic on more peace deals in Mideast.
JERUSALEM — White House adviser Jared Kushner on Sunday trumpeted the recent agreement by Israel and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations as a historic breakthrough and said “the stage is now set” for other Arab states to follow suit, but he gave no indication that any new deals were imminent.
Appearing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien, Kushner spoke a day before he is to join a senior Israeli delegation on the first commercial flight from Israel to the UAE. The flight holds great symbolic value and is a key step in what is expected to be full normalization between Israel and the UAE.
The Aug. 13 announcement makes the UAE just the third Arab country to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, and the first to do so in more than 25 years. It reflects a shifting Middle East in which shared concerns over Iran have overtaken traditional complete Arab support for the Palestinians.
“Today obviously we celebrate a historic breakthrough for peace,” Kushner said, adding that the deal will create “previously unthinkable” economic, security and religious cooperation.
“While this peace agreement was thought by many to be impossible, the stage is now set for even more,” he said, claiming he has heard optimism throughout the region since the deal was announced.
“We must seize that optimism and we must continue to push to make this region achieve the potential that it truly has,” said Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-inlaw and chief Mideast adviser.
Israel and the UAE have moved quickly to cement their ties over the past two weeks. Almost immediately, they opened direct phone lines, and Cabinet ministers have held friendly phone conversations.
On Saturday, the UAE formally ended its commercial boycott of Israel, although the two countries have quietly conducted business for years. Today’s flight of an El Al plane from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi will be the first known flight of an Israeli commercial airliner from Israel to the UAE. The two countries are expected to sign a formal agreement at the White House in the coming weeks.
But so far, predictions by Israeli and American officials, including Kushner, that other Arab countries would follow the UAE have not materialized.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo toured the region last week, stopping in Sudan, Bahrain and Oman — three countries widely seen as candidates to establish ties with Israel — but appeared to leave empty-handed.
The flurry of U.S. diplomatic activity comes as the Trump administration presses ahead with plans to promote Arab-Israeli rapprochement even in the absence of a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which had long been seen as a prerequisite for Israel to reach peace deals with all its Arab neighbors.
The UAE deal gave the Trump administration a welcome foreign-policy victory ahead of November’s presidential election.
Gulf Arab countries, which like Israel share deep animosity toward Iran, have shown an increasing willingness to make back-channel ties with Israel public.
Netanyahu said the agreement with the UAE would bring “unbridled” trade and opportunities.
“You will see how the sparks fly,” he said.
Trump unveiled a Mideast plan in January that has been rejected by the Palestinians, who say it unfairly favors Israel.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for an independent state.