Jared Kushner reveals Washington’s efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states in the framework of the Abraham Accords in his memoir that is about to be published. The leaked, uncensored version of “Breaking History”obtained by Al-Sarira, reveals new dimensions about the Abraham accords.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and also his senior advisor, talks in his memoir about the Abraham Accords in length. Kushner explains how he and other high-ranking members of the Trump administration, including the former president himself, did whatever they could to normalize relations between Israel and as many Arab states as possible. The memoir that is about to be published next month covers a wide range of topics, including Kushner’s thyroid cancer which was diagnosed back in 2019 and was previously undisclosed.
Kushner was one of the key figures in the US efforts to give birth to the Abraham Accords. He was a lead negotiator in a U.S.-brokered normalization deal between Israel and several Arab countries in 2020.
In the book, we read Kushner as saying that “On June 24, 2020, I spoke to the UAE’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ). MBZ warned me that if Israel annexed areas of the West Bank, it would reverse the progress we had made to bring Israel closer to its neighbors.” Despite the grave concerns from bin Zayed, Kushner believes that it “was not a threat but rather a caution, as MBZ was hopeful about our progress.” However, Trump’s son-in-law explains that the UAE is not going to accept what the US Ambassador to Israel would propose regarding territorial disputes between Israel and Palestine; “My immediate concern was that we were about to disappoint him. This was because a few weeks earlier, Ambassador David Friedman had emailed me Israel’s proposed map for settling the territorial disputes in Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
But as Kushner further notes in the book that “the release of our peace plan, along with our unconventional diplomacy ultimately led to the reaching of the Abraham Accords. It offered the Palestinians a pathway to self-determination and a more prosperous future. It showed the Arab public that the decades-old conflict had become more about enriching Abbas and the Palestinian leadership than finding a lasting resolution for the people.”
Kushner also talks about his efforts and hopes to convince as many Arab states as possible to join the accords. He says in part of the book: “Now many started to wonder: If peace was possible with the UAE, why not with the other Gulf Arab states?”
Did the Abraham Accord resolve the historical Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
The unfortunate fact about the Abraham Accords is that it was not inked to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it was designed to help Israel normalize relations with Arab states. And the unprecedented increase in the clashes between Israel and Palestine from 2020 to today is very well proof of it.
The Abraham Accords were inked with the hope of bringing peace to the Middle East by putting an end to Israel’s expansionism in Palestine. However, and after nearly two years from the deal, there is no way for Arab states to claim that their purpose was to bring peace to the Middle East because the deal has only increased trade and military cooperation between Israel and Arab countries party to it.
Kushner himself admits in his book that what he and the Trump administration as a whole did was not an effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but merely to make the Arab world establish ties with Israel, whether the issue of Palestine will be addressed or not. “Our efforts ultimately allowed the Arab people to accept that there were in fact two separate conflicts—the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict—and that the cost of linking them was too high. This created the conditions for the beginning of the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Kushner explains.
Will the deal last?
But things are changing and Tel Aviv cannot count on the Abraham Accords for too long because people form the Arab world are beginning to realize the real intentions behind the Accords;
According to a newly carried out public opinion polling from the Washington Institute (TWI), the number of people in Arab countries supporting the deal has dropped significantly over the past year; “Apart from the people of the signatory countries, 40 percent of Saudis and Qataris also supported the Accords in 2020. Now, the percentage of those who see the agreement in a positive light hover between 19% to 25% in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE.” The poll says.
This is enough reason for Israel to come to the understanding that it cannot rely on the Accords to make the Arab countries forget about the historical conflict they still have with Israel over Palestine.
