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Has Jared Kushner Turned his Back on the Palestinians?
As the White House announces a historic deal between Israel and the UAE, Ian Bremmer talks to the chief architect of the Middle East strategy for President Trump—his senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner. In the conversation, Bremmer challenges Kushner's assertion that the US is trying to give the Palestinians a fair offer and asks if Arab nations have walked away from the Israel/Palestine conflict. As in January, Kushner continues to insist that Palestine has a "fair" and "great" offer for peace, saying: "this deal may be the last opportunity [the Palestinians will] ever have."
Watch the episode: Jared Kushner on Middle East peace & pandemic in the US
Israel & UAE normalize relations: is Middle East peace to come?
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer examines the recent diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East as the UAE becomes only the third Arab nation to normalize relations with Israel. The deal comes at a moment when both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are both politically vulnerable following widespread criticism of mishandling of COVID-19 pandemic response. The man in the middle of both stories is a right hand to President Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Why is Mike Pompeo in the Middle East?
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on a very important mission right now. This week he is visiting four countries in the Middle East and Africa. Two of them, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, have recently moved to normalize ties in a historic deal recently brokered by the Trump administration. The other two — Sudan and Bahrain — are rumored to be looking at forming closer ties with Jerusalem as well.
What is it that each country involved wants out of Pompeo's trip? Is this really just about building a united Israeli-Arab front against Iran or are there other interests at work? Here's a look at the key players.
The United Arab Emirates: Shared concerns over Iran's destabilizing regional activities — and its proxy forces in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq — have long facilitated backchannel cooperation between the Israelis and Emirates. But mutual enmity towards Iran is hardly the only reason why UAE wants better ties with Israel.
For years, Abu Dhabi has tried to buy sophisticated F35 fighter jets (and advanced weaponry) from Washington, but the US — committed to ensuring that Israel maintains a "qualitative military edge" in a volatile region — has refused, even when the Emirates have thrown more money on the table. But now, in acquiescing to American demands and normalizing ties with the Jewish state, Abu Dhabi has reportedly convinced Washington to honor their weaponry wishlist.
Bahrain: The small Gulf state has long shown an interest in normalizing ties with Israel, in order to both capitalize on economic opportunities with Israel-based tech innovators, as well as to deepen ties with Washington. Indeed, while most Arab capitals rejected the Trump administration's Middle East peace plan earlier this year, Bahrain supported it, and even hosted a US-sponsored economic conference that brought Arab and Israeli businesspeople together.
Iran looms large in the Bahraini royal family's calculations here. That's because Bahrain is at the forefront of Sunni-Shi'ite sectarianism: it is a Shia majority country with a Sunni monarchy that faced massive challenges to its rule at the peak of the Arab Spring — agitation it believes Iran was behind. For Bahrain, closing ranks with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel to push back against Tehran isn't only a foreign policy matter, it's an issue of national security.
Sudan: Cash-strapped Khartoum has long suffered under US sanctions over its support for terrorist groups under former strongman Omar al-Bashir (including a stint in the 1990s when it harbored Osama bin Laden). Losing the country's oil-rich south, which seceded in 2011, hasn't helped. At the moment, the country, which recently had a revolution of sorts, is desperately seeking removal from the US terrorism blacklist so that it can access much-needed financial support from the US, Europe, and lenders like the IMF and the World Bank.
Sudan's new government, which came to power after al-Bashir was ousted in 2019, likely figures that pursuing normalization with Israel will endear it to power-brokers in Washington who can lift those sanctions. (It's worth noting that after Pompeo's visit to Khartoum on Tuesday, Sudan's government said that it cannot move towards full normalization with Israel until the transition period in Sudan ends and fresh elections are held in late 2022.)
Israel: For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — currently plagued by corruption charges, as well as twin economic and political crises — making peace with longtime rivals in the Gulf is a formidable foreign policy achievement he can tout to critics back home, presenting himself as the country's perennial "statesman."
It's also a way for the hawkish Israeli government to disprove the naysayers who have said for years that the path to normalization with the Arab world was only through compromise on the Palestinian issue.
Bottom line: If the Trump administration can pull off broader Arab-Israeli normalization, it could give the White House a big boost before the November 3 elections as he struggles to keep up in the polls.
Podcast: Jared Kushner on Middle East peace & pandemic in the US
Listen: President Trump's top advisor—and son-in-law—Jared Kushner joins the GZERO World Podcast for an in-depth conversation with Ian Bremmer.
On the heels of a historic deal normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Kushner discusses the latest development in a key mission of his tenure in the White House—moving closer to an elusive Middle East peace deal. Kushner also addresses the Trump administration's much criticized response to the COVID-19 pandemic and controversies surrounding President Trump's attack on voting by mail. He also previews future Iran and China policies should President Trump win a second term.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Jared Kushner on Middle East peace & pandemic in the US
Watch: GZERO World with Ian Bremmer features an in-depth conversation with President Trump's senior advisor—and son-in-law—Jared Kushner.
On the heels of an historic deal normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Kushner discusses the latest development in a key mission of his tenure in the White House—moving closer to an elusive Middle East peace deal. Kushner also addresses the Trump administration's much criticized response to the COVID-19 pandemic and controversies surrounding President Trump's attack on voting by mail. He also previews future Iran and China policies should President Trump win a second term following the 2020 presidential election coming in November.
Quick Take: Normalizing Israel & UAE relations
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
You may have seen the big news, that the United States facilitating normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, one of the Gulf monarchies. It is a real change in the way we think about the geopolitics of the Middle East. And it just shows how much times have changed.
If you go around the Middle East and ask Arab leaders what their priorities are, they'll tell you Iran, they'll tell you ISIS, al-Qaida, they'll tell you Syria, and Libya, they'll tell you Yemen, they'll tell you domestic instability, but they will not say Israel-Palestine. And that is so different than five, 10, 20 years ago when no willingness to talk to the Israelis unless you actually had some sort of successful peace negotiations between the two. Well, what's happening is the common enemy of Iran is becoming more important, the Palestinians are becoming less important, poorly governed, less powerful, and their former erstwhile friends and supporters are saying, "eh, we've got other priorities."
This is a big deal. And I said that back when Jared Kushner unveiled the peace plan, which, of course, was going to be much less of an attractive deal for the Palestinians in terms of land, allowing for the annexation of some of their territory by the Israelis in the West Bank, giving them a quilt work of territories that were not joined directly, building tunnels and roads to allow them somehow to have a Palestinian state. They were going to get a lot of money in return that was promised by the Americans and others in the region, but the Palestinians were not a part of putting the plan together. The Americans negotiated it basically themselves with their allies, Israel.
And not only that, but President Trump has been quite unilateral in changing the rules on the ground. You know that he, after decades of Congress and presidents calling to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he did it. And a lot of people complained all over the world, but nothing really happened. He also recognized the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, complaints in the region, no one really did anything. And the reality is that the Israelis are increasingly making the rules. The Palestinians are being left behind. And the fact that on the back of that, with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is facing big corruption scandals at home and might not even last very much longer as PM and his unity government could easily fall apart, but Israel is in a much stronger position geopolitically than it has been before. And that's despite the fact that they've given absolutely nothing to the Palestinians.
I remember reading all of these New York Times op-eds from Tom Friedman saying that, you know, if Israel doesn't form a deal with the Palestinians, that will be it for Israel. Actually, that's not true. And it's because Israel doesn't need the Palestinians. It's a horrible thing to say. It's horrible, particularly for the Palestinians, because these are people that have no capacity for real employment, and education, and opportunity in Gaza. It's over 50 percent unemployment, extraordinary amounts of hunger and no opportunity, but also no opportunity to change the status quo. And they've had really bad governance for decades now, with Palestinian authority and with Hamas. And people just don't find the need to work with them anymore. They're being left behind.
Israel, meanwhile, one of the most effective advanced industrial democracies in the world. A great judiciary, media, open, transparent, educational system, healthcare system, as long as you're not Palestinian. And the fact that that is leading not only to no challenges at home, but even to changing the geopolitics in the region to their favor, breaking through in a way that no one could have anticipated 10 or 20 years ago, just shows you how much the Middle East is changing.
And does give President Trump one of the larger wins he's had diplomatically. And Lord knows we can point to a lot of failures. But this one is one he's going to run a couple laps around because they've seen the change in the Middle East and their pivot away from the Americans being the sheriff in the region, instead recognizing the new geopolitics, is something we're all going to coming to terms with over coming years.
What happened to Israel's annexation plan?
For those who follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict closely, July 1 has long been a date to watch. After the Trump administration presented a blueprint for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians earlier this year, Israel's emboldened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would start the process of annexing parts of the West Bank starting on July 1. That day has now come and gone, but...nothing happened. Why?
The background. The White House's Middle East peace plan, unveiled in January after years in the works, details Israel annexing around a third of the West Bank (meaning it would incorporate that territory as part of the official state) while giving Palestinians autonomy in the remaining 70 percent of that territory. The move would not extend citizenship to Palestinians in those areas even though they would be subject to direct Israeli rule. The Palestinian camp flatly rejected the proposal.
The Trump administration wavers. While at first the White House appeared to give the green light to unilateral annexation — breaking from previous US administrations by appearing to recognize Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of Israel — it has also given mixed messages on how Israel should proceed. Consider that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, the plan's main architect, said in an interview with GZERO earlier this year that the US does not support annexation of wide swaths of the West Bank until a new Israeli government is in place. Israel now has a government but the Trump administration is still stalling.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said that only if Israel agreed to resume direct negotiations with the Palestinians would the US recognize Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank. (Spoiler: that hasn't happened.) While it's unclear whether the White House will give Netanyahu the green-light anyway, in recent weeks the Trump administration has made it clear that Netanyahu does not have its blessing to move ahead with annexation right now, reportedly telling the Israelis to "greatly slow the process."
This is a problem for Netanyahu because the US is the only major world power that has supported Israel's ambition to annex the settlements outright. Pushback from allies in the UK, EU, and much of the Arab world may have also shaped the Trump administration's calculus on this. (UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Netanyahu ally, penned a strongly-worded op-ed in an Israeli newspaper this week where he said "annexation would represent a violation of international law.")
Netanyahu also faces internal opposition on multiple fronts. When Netanyahu formed a coalition government with his rival Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party in April — after three previous elections failed to break the country's political stalemate — Gantz said he supported the Trump peace plan notionally, but that he would not back annexation unless the plan gained broader support. He recently told a White House liaison that they need to come up with "an outline that benefits all sides in a responsible, proportional and reciprocal manner," a tacit reference, it seems, to the Palestinians and the broader Arab world, suggesting that Gantz is certainly feeling the weight of international condemnation.
Netanyahu, for his part, can't move ahead without the support of Gantz, who is slated to become prime minister as part of a rotation agreement in over a year's time. For now, it's not looking promising for Netanyahu: In recent days, Gantz said that any further discussion on annexation should be on the back burner while Israel deals with an explosive coronavirus outbreak.
Cake at gunpoint. In an interesting turn of events, many within Israel's hardline settler movement, an important part of Netanyahu's base, have also voiced opposition to Trump's peace plan (even though it's broadly considered favorable to Israel) because it envisions an eventual Palestinian state, which they strongly oppose. "If someone comes to me with a cake while holding a gun to my head will I just take some cake and then say goodbye?" one settler leader recently said.
November looms. Netanyahu may feel pressure to move ahead with at least parts of the planned annexation before the US election in November because Joe Biden, now leading in national polls, says he would not support the move. But as the Trump administration is grappling with dual public health and economic crises — and a tough reelection bid —Netanyahu has his work cut out for him in trying to convince a very distracted president to give him the go ahead in the near term.