Friday, August 21, 2020

Billy Long: President Trump's sharp negotiating skills brought peace between Israel, UAE

(From Seventh District Congressman Billy Long)

Last week, President Trump successfully brokered a historic agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, marking the first agreement between Israel and a major Arab country since 1994 in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is “a turning point for peace.” 

Even New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman and Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius, who aren’t exactly pro-Trump advocates, agree that this accord is a major breakthrough and represents “a geopolitical earthquake” and a “huge achievement.” 

President Trump has been able to achieve what many of his predecessors and critics believed to be an impossible feat, and this could well be the opening salvo for a larger framework of Middle East peace.

The agreement between Israel and the UAE goes far beyond normalizing diplomatic relationships – it provides cooperation on energy, health care, scientific initiatives, trade relations, and importantly establishes security cooperation against regional threats. 








This agreement did not come out of thin air – it represents just one part of a larger plan for peace between Israel, the Palestinians, and the surrounding Gulf States. 

The Trump Administration’s original plan called for Israel and the Palestinians to make peace, asking Israel to annex roughly 30 percent of the West Bank (where most of the settlers were) in exchange for the Palestinians getting to establish a demilitarized patchwork state on the remaining 70 percent. 

The Palestinians rejected the deal because they felt it was unjust and unbalanced, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heavily involved in the plan’s creation, to say he intended to proceed with only the annexation part of the plan July 1.

The breakthrough, facilitated by President Trump’s sharp negotiating skills, came when Israel agreed to suspend annexation for peace with the UAE. Instead of trading land for peace, Israel could offer peace for peace. How does the UAE fit into this equation? In June, the UAE’s ambassador penned an open letter warning that Israeli annexation of the West Bank could derail the progress Israel has made with gulf Arabs, creating a shared interest with the Palestinians.

This deal also defuses the threat of turning Jordan into the Palestinian state, avoids potentially deep divisions in every synagogue across America and opens the doors for other gulf sheikhdoms like Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to follow in the UAE’s footsteps and not just recognize the right of Israel to exist, but to deepen ties between them and dramatically lessen the chances of war. The only losers in this deal are radical pro-Iran, anti-American countries, who are left out in the cold with dwindling resources and a shrinking list of remaining potential allies.

This deal marks the most significant step towards peace in the Middle East in over 25 years, and as President Trump said, it is a huge breakthrough. By normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, President Trump has cleared the way for a new, more peaceful Middle East that encourages the entire region to participate in peace treaties and economic cooperation or simply be left behind.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a nice press release, Billy, except that Israel and the UAE have both said that they worked together on this agreement for a long time and that Trump had nothing to do with it. You might want to look that up.

Its always the son in law Jarheds fault said...

Just so everyone has a fuller appreciation of the bull manure Las Vegas Billy Long totes and spreads like a good little toady:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/world/middleeast/trump-netanyahu-israel-uae.html


WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has accelerated a push to sell the F-35 stealth fighter and advanced armed drones to the United Arab Emirates, at a time when the Gulf nation is working with the Trump administration on a historic plan to formalize diplomatic ties with Israel, according to American officials familiar with the discussions.

Administration officials in recent weeks gave a classified briefing about the F-35 to the Emirati military — despite some concerns among National Security Council staff about the wisdom of disclosing details on one of the Pentagon’s most advanced weapons to a foreign government before a decision about a potential arms sale has been completed.

American officials deny that the new push to sell the advanced weapons is a direct reward for the Emirati role in a diplomatic breakthrough, announced by President Trump last week, where the Emirates would become just the third Arab nation to recognize Israel. In exchange, Israel will suspend annexation of occupied West Bank territory.

But officials do not dispute that the new momentum on the arms sale — after years of stalled requests by the Emirates to buy the fighter jet — is linked to the broader diplomatic initiative.