MY SAY: THREE CHEERS FOR JARED KUSHNER AND MICHAEL POMPEO BY RUTH KING
President Biden’s ventriloquist, Barack Obama, will make every effort to scuttle or damage the historic Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab nations. Those efforts will fail thanks to the sage counsel and logistical cooperation of his trusted adviser, confidante, and son-in-law Jared Kushner and his loyal and effective Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
From 1967 until the advent of President Donald Trump, every single administration has put forth peace plans that air-brushed the terror and genocidal ambitions of Israel’s Arab enemies and predicated a gratuitous demand that Israel accept concessions and territorial withdrawals in exchange for “recognition of its right to exist.” The Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords, and the Gaza withdrawal were clones of each other.
No sober democracy would have accepted those terms from tyrants, and no good-faith American President would have demanded them. However, the Israeli governments of Menachem Begin, Itzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu did so, and each agreement was followed by unrelenting terror against hapless civilians. The dead were cynically referred to as “casualties of peace.”
Enter President Donald Trump who, breaking with tradition, relied more on Jared Kushner, David Friedman (America’s Ambassador to Israel), and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, rather than on the standard recommendations from the military and State Department officials.
In the summer of 2020, President Trump, burdened with the pandemic and unrelenting Democrat efforts to destroy his administration, helped broker the historic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which was – only the third peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country. Michel Pompeo then began shuttle diplomacy to the region to persuade other Arab nations and Israel to begin negotiations and diplomatic exchanges. As a former Congressman from Kansas, Pompeo had strong bonds with Israel, and the Arabs admired his military experience and warnings of the threat of militarized Iran.
For his part, Jared Kushner reassured Israel that it would retain its military edge and he shifted Middle East politics, which had obsessively focused on the Palestinian Arabs, to the economic and strategic benefits flowing from exchanges with Israel. A new and younger Arab population was tired of old grudges and welcomed Kushner’s resolve to solve current problems.
Scolds will argue that Arab nations have a history of flouting agreements and treaties. So what? The worst that can happen is that diplomats will be recalled and insults hurled and the international media will flood the news with recriminations blaming Israel. Nothing gained? Unlike previous agreements, nothing lost.
What’s the bottom line? The old paradigm for making peace by territorial withdrawals and inimical concessions is now relegated to the dustbin of history. Furthermore, the accords have coattails that have occasioned more agreements with many other formerly hostile nations.
The architect of this new Middle East policy is Donald J. Trump but the two loyal soldiers who helped devise and implement the plan deserve credit and gratitude.
Comments are closed.
