Middle East: Is peace any closer?

President Trump has pulled off another “victory for peace” in the Middle East, said Washington Examiner.com in an editorial. Just weeks after a historic deal in which the United Arab Emirates agreed to become only the third Arab nation to recognize Israel’s sovereignty, another Gulf state— this time, Bahrain—agreed to join the so-called Abraham Accords. Once again, the president convinced a Sunni Arab nation that its common interests with Israel—trade, tourism, and the containment of a malign Shia Iran—outweigh any long-running disputes over contested Palestinian territory in the West Bank. “Were President Barack Obama or a President Hillary Clinton presently in the Oval Office, the columnist calls for Nobel Peace Prizes would be deafening.” Let’s not forget the role that Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner played in this achievement, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post. After being portrayed as “a hopeless ignoramus,” Kushner finally pulled off what all the experts couldn’t: a genuine step toward peace in the region.

Progress toward peace is “a mirage,” said Roger Cohen in The New York Times. The threat to Israel’s long-term security does not come from the Gulf states, but rather from its bitter conflict with the Palestinians. And yet the Palestinians “were scarcely mentioned at the White House ceremony” at which Trump hailed the deal as “the dawn of a new Middle East.” By proposing that the Palestinians surrender much of the West Bank and Jerusalem, the administration has done nothing but make “a mockery” of prior efforts to achieve a two-state solution. Indeed, the deal suggests “a misleadingly optimistic picture” of where the region is headed, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. The truth is that the U.S. is losing influence after repeated troop drawdowns; Syria remains a nightmare, and Turkey is expanding its influence throughout the vacuum we’ve left—all while cozying up to a resurgent Russia. The Palestinians, meanwhile, will never accept “a Trump peace plan that ratifies their defeat.”

Still, “immense changes” are underway, said David Harsanyi in NationalReview.com. Arab states are entering into investment and trading relationships with Israel, and Saudi Arabia seems to be inching closer to establishing formal ties, too. It is no longer Israel but the Palestinians who are isolated in the region. Either their corrupt and incompetent leadership accepts half a loaf and peace or “they’ll continue to be left behind.”