Israel, Gulf nations sign accord
Historic agreement came after months of outreach
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 marking a major geopolitical shift in the Middle East and giving Trump a platform as peacemaker as he heads into a reelection campaign.
“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history,” Trump said. “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 behindthe-scenes outreach by Trump’s sonin-law, Jared Kushner, and his envoy for international negotiations, Avi Berkowitz.
The signing 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
“With the U.S. elections approaching, it seems that the administration felt the need to lock in a diplomatic win.”
Jon Alterman Center for Strategic and International Studies
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 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. Trump’s campaign has touted the agreements 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.
“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. “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 with caveats.
“As we learn more about the full details of both agreements, questions remain – specifically, regarding the commitment that the UAE has received from the Trump Administration to purchase American-made F-35 aircraft,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“It is also critically important that we fully understand the agreements’ details regarding the announced freeze of efforts by Israel to annex portions of the West Bank,” she said, noting the House is on record supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday’s breakthrough marks a break from past U.S. policy that he said had favored the Palestinians. For decades, U.S. policy “gave the Palestinians a veto right” to block Arab countries “from engaging with the most important democracy in the Middle East,” on everything from commercial activity to security cooperation, Pompeo said. But the administration helped persuade the UAE and other Arab countries that Iran poses the greatest threat and that closer ties with Israel would isolate Tehran.
“This administration is taking a fundamentally different approach to creating an opportunity for increased stability in the Middle East and less risk to America,” Pompeo said in a forum hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank.
The text of the agreements has not been made public, but the pacts are expected to restore full diplomatic relations between Israel and the two countries. The agreements are not “peace” accords, although Trump and the other signatories used that term repeatedly to emphasize the significance of the agreements. The UAE and Bahrain were never at war with Israel and their leaders have been quietly inching toward closer relations with the Jewish state for years.
The only other Arab nations with active diplomatic ties with Israel are Egypt and Jordan.