{"id":38429,"date":"2022-03-11T01:58:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T09:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=38429"},"modified":"2022-03-10T18:15:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T02:15:57","slug":"peace-hopes-still-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2022\/03\/11\/peace-hopes-still-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Peace hopes still alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barak Ravid\u00a0<\/em>(photo from Twitter)<\/em><\/p>\n

An end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be nowhere in sight, but the Israeli-Arab conflict may be coming to an end, says a leading Israeli diplomatic journalist.<\/p>\n

Barak Ravid spoke virtually Feb. 20 in a presentation organized by the Jewish National Fund of Canada. Ravid, who reports for Axios from Israel, was formerly with Ha\u2019aretz<\/em>, where he worked for a decade as diplomatic correspondent and columnist, and is also a familiar face on Israeli TV. He was interviewed by Cynthia Ramsay, publisher and editor of the Jewish Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ravid spoke about his new book, Trump\u2019s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East<\/em>, which is currently available only in Hebrew but should be out in English this summer.<\/p>\n

Ravid acknowledges that Trump is a controversial figure and that the book\u2019s title has received some pushback. \u201cPeace is not the first thing that comes to mind when you say the word Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cI chose that name because it happens to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

The author maintains that the Abraham Accords and the expanding normalization between Israel and Arab states would not have occurred under any other president.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, Trump\u2019s policies in the region closed down the trust gap that was open between the U.S. and the Israeli government \u2026 a gap that was opened during Obama\u2019s term in office,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether it was warranted or not doesn\u2019t matter. The gap was there. Trump\u2019s policies in the region, mainly on Iran, closed down the gap and brought Israel and the Arab countries closer together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision to appoint his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to deal with peace in the Middle East was key, according to Ravid. In interviews with Israelis and Arabs for his book, Ravid found that both sides viewed the appointment as proof of how central this issue was for Trump and served as an assurance that, when they spoke to Kushner, they were speaking to the president.<\/p>\n

The ultimate reason the Abraham Accords were cinched, said Ravid, is that Trump did what he always claimed as his strength \u2013 he made deals. In return for normalizing relations with Israel, each party to the accords got something they wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the United Arab Emirates, it was the arms sales, the sales of the F-35 fighter jets,\u201d he said. \u201cFor Bahrain, it was an upgraded trade deal [with the United States]. For Sudan, it was removing them from the [U.S.] state department\u2019s terrorism list. For Morocco, it was the U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara\u2026. Without those tangibles, those countries would not necessarily agree to take those steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ravid contends that Trump is not the only leader who deserves credit \u2013 Binyamin Netanyahu, who was Israeli prime minister at the time, was pivotal to the success. Ironically, he noted, the decision by most Arab politicians in Israel to reject the accords led Mansour Abbas to break away from the Joint (Arab) List and form a new party, Ra\u2019am, whose participation in the new coalition government ultimately brought Netanyahu\u2019s reign to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in history, an Arab party is a part of the coalition in Israel,\u201d Ravid said. \u201cIn a strange way, the Abraham Accords enabled this change in Israel where Jews in Israel feel more comfortable towards Arabs and Arabs feel more comfortable joining the coalition and, therefore, Netanyahu\u2019s biggest foreign policy achievement created the political conditions to get him out of office.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has long been an assumption that peace between Israel and Arab states would come only after a resolution of the Palestinian issue. When Netanyahu earlier tried to bypass the Palestinians and make friends in the neighbourhood, he was publicly shunned, said Ravid. But he kept plugging away behind the scenes, building relations in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to go from zero to 100 in one step,\u201d said Ravid. \u201cYou need to get to a situation where you narrow this gap and Netanyahu managed to take Israel and the Arab world from zero to, let\u2019s say, 70. So, when the decision for the Abraham Accords came, the Arab countries didn\u2019t have to go zero to 100, they needed to go 70 to 100.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third crucial contributor \u2013 who Ravid said deserves perhaps the most credit and who wants the least recognition \u2013 is the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates. Bin Zayed has been trying to modernize his nation and he saw normalization with Israel as advantageous to his project. At the time, Netanyahu was threatening to annex about 30% of the West Bank into Israel. According to Ravid, bin Zayed saw a way to manoeuvre.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe decided to be the most vocal opponent of annexation,\u201d Ravid said. Bin Zayed told the Trump White House that, if Netanyahu dropped the annexation initiative, he would be ready to sign a peace deal with Israel.<\/p>\n

For the White House, the annexation issue was a huge headache, said Ravid, and bin Zayed\u2019s offer solved that problem while delivering a generational diplomatic breakthrough at the same time.<\/p>\n

The big question is, what\u2019s next? What about Saudi Arabia?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the crown jewel,\u201d Ravid said. U.S. President Joe Biden sent his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to Riyadh and received a list of demands from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. All the demands were on the United States, not Israel, including that the Saudi monarch be invited to the White House.<\/p>\n

Bin Salman has been an international pariah since the Washington Post<\/em> commentator and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2017. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency concluded that bin Salman ordered Khashoggi\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiden will have to take a very hard decision if he wants to move ahead with the Abraham Accords,\u201d said Ravid, walking the fine line between rewarding a foreign leader who American intelligence has dubbed a murderer of a journalist and seeking to advance peace in the Middle East. But, if it works, the dominos will almost certainly fall into place, said Ravid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Saudi comes in, then Indonesia comes in, then Kuwait comes in, then Oman comes in, then Muslim countries in Africa join, Pakistan,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s literally the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict \u2013 while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this regard, Ravid said, \u201cThe Palestinians decided to boycott the Trump administration in December 2017 after Trump announced he is recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy there. While I can understand Palestinian frustration and anger, and it makes complete sense to protest, the decision to boycott Trump until his last day in office, I think, was counterproductive to their goals, and didn\u2019t get them anything in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the flip side, Ravid argued, Netanyahu\u2019s annexation of a big chunk of the West Bank would have put another nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Abraham Accords, even though the Palestinians won\u2019t admit it, saved the two-state solution, at least for now,\u201d said Ravid. \u201cSome people think it\u2019s gone already, but if you think the two-state solution is still alive, the reason it\u2019s still alive is that the UAE normalized relations with Israel and stopped Netanyahu from annexing the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernice Carmeli, president of JNF Canada Pacific Region, opened the event, and Michael Sachs, executive director of JNF Pacific Region, closed it. Lance Davis, chief executive officer of JNF Canada thanked Ravid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barak Ravid\u00a0(photo from Twitter) An end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be nowhere in sight, but the Israeli-Arab conflict may be coming to an end, says a leading Israeli diplomatic journalist. Barak Ravid spoke virtually Feb. 20 in a presentation organized by the Jewish National Fund of Canada. Ravid, who reports for Axios from Israel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[21316,21313,4330,4668,1673,21314,19823,1798,3597,21315,1044],"class_list":["post-38429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-abraham-accords","tag-barak-ravid","tag-israel","tag-israeli-arab-conflict","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-jewish-national-fund-of-canada","tag-jnf-pacific-region","tag-middle-east","tag-politics","tag-trumps-peace","tag-two-state-solution"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}