sign in sign up
<<
Home , Arab Peace Initiative, Avi Berkowitz, Danielle Pletka, Yousef Al Otaiba

WTH is going on with peace in the II? Ambassadors of UAE and on their new peace with Israel

Episode #72 | October 1, 2020 | Danielle Pletka, , Amb. , and Amb. Shaikh Abdullah bin Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa

Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka.

Marc Thiessen: I'm Marc Thiessen.

Danielle Pletka: going on?

Marc Thiessen: Well, we've got part two of our podcast series this week on the historic peace deals with the and Bahrain and Israel and the . This is, as you've said, one of the most seismic events in the history of the Middle East. And maybe it's because of who brought it about and people who don't like him, or maybe it's because we've moved on to the fight over the Supreme Court, and we're in the middle of an election. But this deserves a lot more attention than it's gotten. We've got the ambassadors of the UAE and Bahrain here today. Can you ever have imagined, when we started this podcast, that we'd have the ambassadors of Israel, UAE and Bahrain with us on the podcast, talking about peace?

Danielle Pletka: As I said in the interview with the Israeli ambassador as well, this is truly ... It's a watershed. And it is a mark of a change in the Middle East that I don't think anyone would have predicted. And that the professional class of Middle East peace processors has never managed to achieve.

Marc Thiessen: But did.

Danielle Pletka: I know. Look, well I said this to you earlier ... I think I was among those who was just sort of gobsmacked, the president's son-in-law. Really? What is this, the Kennedy administration? I didn't have confidence in him, and I didn't have confidence in his team. And I was wrong. And you know what? Everybody else was wrong, too, on this one. This Bahrain/UAE peace deal with Israel is something incredible. It is a testament to how much the Middle East has changed. It is a testament to how scared everybody was by 's favoritism towards Iran. It is a testament to how scared everybody in the region is of what's happening in Iran, and what is happening in Turkey. And it just opens all sorts of doors. It could be the beginning of a really great new era.

Marc Thiessen: I think it's also a testament to the value of having outsiders, a team B take on a

2 challenge that has eluded the experts for a long time. Everyone talked about how Jared Kushner said he was reading 27 books on the Middle East, like learning about it. And people-

Danielle Pletka: That didn't sound good.

Marc Thiessen: And people made fun of him about that. But he and the president didn't come in attached to all the conventions that have governed how we do business in the Middle East, and how we pursue peace in the Middle East, both by Republicans and Democrats, for decades. And the conventions were that, "There's no separate peace. It has to go through Ramallah. That you can't move the US Embassy to because that'll upset everything. You can't actually put sanctions on Iran and push back on Iran, because that'll start a cataclysmic war."

Marc Thiessen: And the Trump administration came in, and they were like, "We didn't sign up to all these conventions. I understand that's how it was done, but we're going to do things differently." And they started breaking china, and everybody set their hair on fire, that this was going to inflame the region. And it did the exact opposite. Certain things just in government happen because that's always how it's been done. And sometimes it takes an outsider to come in and say, "Well, that's not how I'm doing it." And that's what happened here.

Danielle Pletka: I said exactly what you just said when the US moved the embassy to Jerusalem. If we can just go back in the way-back machine, when the United States and the Trump administration finally decided to move the US Embassy from to Jerusalem ... not to , disputed, but to West Jerusalem ... There was an absolute outcry. Not so much from the , but from American aficionados of the peace process and of the left. And the predictions about what would happen, and the Arab street would rise up ... None of that was true. So, you are right. A lot of the truisms, a lot of the conventions, a lot of the frozen thinking of people who are in my business, the Middle East people, has really been upended.

Danielle Pletka: Not only that, but another thing worth discussing is just the gross partisanship that this has, again, revealed. You know what? I couldn't stand Barack Obama. But when he made some hard decisions on Afghanistan, I applauded him. And I applauded him because I thought it took courage to stand up to the people in his own party and to do the right thing. No one, almost no one, is standing up courageously on the left, and saying, "This was an unbelievable accomplishment."

Danielle Pletka: Instead, I got asked, "Isn't the United States really just bargaining away Israel's qualitative military edge, and just buying the Emiratis by selling them F-35s?" I'm sorry, what? There's just so much garbage out there. Attacks on Israel, as I mentioned in the Dermer interview, attacks on Israel for not caring about democracy in the Arab world, and making peace with these two autocratic regimes, number one. And then, number two, that the US doesn't care about Israel's qualitative military edge because we're selling these advanced aircraft to the Emirates. This is just grasping at straws, trying to deny Trump and Jared Kushner, the credit that they deserve for this.

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

3 Marc Thiessen: Well, good for you for not denying them credit. But again, the partisanship, Nancy Pelosi called this a distraction. You know, seriously? Literally could nothing right, including ... It would have been a joke two years ago, if Trump had come out and said, "I could come out and have peace in the Middle East and they'd attack me." And we'd all laugh, "Ha, ha, ha, ha." He did come out and have peace in the Middle East and they still attack him.

Marc Thiessen: And here's the other thing I want to get into with you, and I want to get into with our guests, is that unlike the previous peace deals, there are two previous peace deals. One with in 1979, one with in 1994. In both of those cases, there really wasn't a huge deepening of relations between the country, huge exchanges, true peace between the peoples. This strikes me as something that's going to be a lot more substantive and a lot more real. That there really is a desire on the part of these two Arab countries to deepen their relations and deepen people-to-people relations with the countries. Deepen economic relations between the countries with Israel which is something that was absent in previous accords.

Marc Thiessen: You said to me at one point that the 1979 deal was really a fake deal. Talk about that.

Danielle Pletka: It was a deal that created peace between Israel and a country with which it had gone to war multiple times. And so, in that sense it was a breakthrough in the sense it took a lot of courage for Sadat. Don't forget Sadat not only signed the , he then went to Israel. I mean, that was just something else. That's something even our friends in the UAE and Bahrain have not done. It was remarkable for its time. I don't want to take credit away from that, either. But it involved a real quid pro quo, right? Israel gave back territory, now let's all note that Egypt didn't want Gaza back even though...

Danielle Pletka: But at the end of the day, it wasn't a real peace. And it was also a peace that has caused the United States in too many ways to look away at how the Egyptian government has behaved towards its own people. Our measure of a government shouldn't just be whether they make peace with Israel. It should also be the kind of government they are. We've given hundreds of billions of dollars to the Egyptian government and they're an okay ally, they're in a very cold peace with Israel, but damn. These are not good, these are not democratic leaders.

Marc Thiessen: Amen. Well let's turn to our guests, because we have the ambassadors of the UAE and Bahrain with us today.

Danielle Pletka: Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba is the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States. He's been in that job for 12 years now and I know he's extremely well regarded in the diplomatic community. Prior to that, he was an advisor to Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the Crown Prince in the UAE. He was 26 years old when he was in charge security, anti-terrorism, and defense liaison with other countries. He's a force to be reckoned with.

Danielle Pletka: Ambassador Shaikh Abdulla bin Rashed Al Khalifa is the ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the United States. He is a member of the royal family. He has been involved in diplomacy and work in the royal court for many years. He

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

4 was a governor, actually, in one of the governorates in Bahrain. And he has been engaged also in cooperation with the United States for many years, long before becoming ambassador. It's a real pleasure to have both of them.

Marc Thiessen: Here's our interview.

Marc Thiessen: Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the podcast.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: It's our pleasure, thank you.

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: Nice to be here.

Marc Thiessen: Let me start with Ambassador Otaiba. These are the first Middle East peace deals in more than a quarter century. And not only one, but two of them which is unprecedented. How did this happen? How did we come to this great moment?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: Well, you got a good deal. Two for the price of one. I think a lot of things happened, you know? You said 26 years ago was the last peace agreement. A lot has happened in 26 years. The region has been changing, attitudes have been changing, mindsets have been changing. Young people are frustrated, they want to look forward, not backward. Everyone wants a solution to the Palestinian problem. Everybody wants to see a two-state solution. That hasn't changed. But people are looking for opportunities. People are looking for a better future. Had there been no annexation debate, maybe this would have happened in a year or five years or longer. We don't know.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: But the reason this happened now, at least in the case of the UAE, was because of annexation. We've had these conversations for years and years. I think annexation would have made a lot of things more challenging. You've seen over the past few years more visible and overt cases where Israeli athletes or officials would come and visit or participate in competitions. You saw going to be an Israeli pavilion and expo, which is now next year. All of these things would have been much more challenging with annexation. So, we desperately tried to find a way to prevent annexation and this is the solution we came up with.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: We are very proud because it ended up being a win-win and from the UAE perspective, this is really what drove this decision. The mindset and changing attitudes in the region, but also the potential impact of annexation.

Danielle Pletka: Let me turn to Ambassador Khalifa. First let me congratulate the both of you and your leadership. I've said this to you both personally, but I think that people have not recognized just how much courage this step took. Just how much leadership this step took. This a seismic event in the Middle East and I feel convinced that these steps weren't taken lightly. So really, kudos to both your countries for doing this.

Danielle Pletka: Now one of the things that I think is so interesting is that the context has also changed. Ambassador Otaiba talked about the annexation being an impetus, but another thing that's changed is that you are looking to a new set of threats in the region. An extremist leadership in Iran, the threat of the Islamic Republic, and

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

5 also the drift towards the Salafis of the Sunni leadership in Turkey.

Danielle Pletka: Ambassador Khalifa, how much of a factor was that?

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: Well, I think for us in Bahrain, we've been long advocates for an active participation in efforts to further stabilize the region. Be it our hosting of the Peace and Prosperity Conference or tolerance of all religions within Bahrain. It's always been a part of who we are, it's our DNA. So, this agreement just fits into that vision of His Majesty's he had for two decades now. Obviously, we will be facing a risk in the region, but to face it collectively will definitely deter the position of Iran.

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: I think we have two things to look at. The internal issues that might arise from proxy activities and whatever happens in the region as well from external threats. It is one of the issues that has been discussed, but when we waited with the positive outcomes of the Accords, it outweighs them. That's why I think Bahrain took a very quick step in the same direction as the UAE to make sure that both countries are moving the same direction, but we're also unlocking a lot of potential for the region. A lot of potential, not only for us in Bahrain, but also for other parts of the region.

Marc Thiessen: This is a question for both of you, but I'll start with Ambassador Otaiba. So what are the chances of this being not just peace, but a warm peace? Ambassador Michael Oren had a piece in The Wall Street Journal the other day where he talked about how in 1979 there was the peace deal with Egypt and there was a few months of tourism and then after that the anti-Israeli sentiment continued to grow. And there was never really any deep engagement between Egypt and Israel. Similarly, in 1994, in Jordan, there was brief engagement and sort of gone downhill in terms of the relations between the countries. At least between the populations.

Marc Thiessen: You're hoping for something better here, I think. Why will this time be different?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: That's a really good question. And yes, I did read Michael's piece, it was remarkably accurate and insightful. I think there's a couple of differences between Jordan and Egypt's agreements with Israel versus UAE's and Bahrain's. Egypt and Jordan came at the tail end, the back end, of wars. In the case of Egypt, there were territorial concessions. In the case of Jordan, it came right in on the tail end or the beginning, sorry, of the . So, it wrestled with much more challenging issues.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: I grew up in Egypt, I was born and raised in Egypt, and most Egyptians like myself grew up thinking Israel's the enemy. You grow up with that programmed in your head. It's not something you learn. It's something you accept as a reality. So, in the case of the UAE and Bahrain, it's very different. We've never had a war with Israel. Most of our populations were not alive to witness the 1973 or '67 wars. They don't see that part of history.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: We don't share borders, so we don't discuss controversial issues like refugees and borders on the Palestinian issues. So, we don't have a lot of that baggage in our agreements. So not only do I know it's going to be a warm peace, I already

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

6 see it. In the five weeks since the announcement was made, we've had MOUs on COVID research, on AI, on self-driving vehicles between two private sector companies, yesterday. About a week ago, there was an announcement on a joint film festival between the UAE and Israel.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: So, there's a lot of interest in exploring opportunities that are going to be mutually beneficial, whether it's on the cultural, on the business side. I just think there is a lot of hope. I think people in the UAE want to get to know people in Israel and people in Israel want to get to know people in the UAE, without the history.

Marc Thiessen: Ambassador Khalifa, the same question for you, but one more point from Michael's op-ed. He said one of the reasons for the failure to have a warm peace in the previous accords was, "A refusal to recognize the Jewish people as indigenous to the Middle East." And Bahrain's foreign minister said that Israel is part of the heritage of the region, which is a bold statement about Israel. Do you feel that's part of the key to making this peace agreement work?

Danielle Pletka: I don't want to answer for Ambassador Khalifa, but one of the first Jewish ambassadors from an Arab state, correct me Ambassador Khalifa if I'm wrong, was the Bahraini ambassador to the United States. Am I right? Am I remembering correctly?

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: That's absolutely correct. Not only was she posted as the first Arab ambassador, a woman ambassador, but also, she came from the Shura Council, which is a consultative council where she served as appointed by His Majesty, so she had a lucrative professional career. She came into Washington. We do have an indigenous Jewish society in Bahrain. So, it was just very important for them as well.

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: But as we speak, today, entering it with much enthusiasm from both sides. Our governments have already gone to work, both countries have established working groups in different areas. And we're in the process of creating a framework, maybe it's very similar to the UAE, by which we will collaborate on identifying, implementing shared initiatives. Now trade, tourism, direct flights are all given, but like Ambassador Otaiba stated, there are other fields of cooperation like energy, healthcare, technology. I think those areas, one can still hope, will open and unlock opportunities for both our peoples. And we do look forward to working with one another.

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: Now as we go forward, I think that there will undoubtedly be hurdles along the way. And that's why it's going to be very important for us to work closer together to harness that enthusiasm with which our nations have entered these agreements.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: By the way, Ambassador Houda Nonoo is not just a dear friend, we came to Washington together in the summer of 2008. We served together for a few years and she was in town for the signing last weekend. It was really, really nice to see her again.

Danielle Pletka: Let me ask both of you, and this is a difficult question, so I'll let you two argue

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

7 about who's going to answer it. For me, as someone who grew up and studied the Middle East, there was almost a truism in Middle East policy and Middle East studies that the road to peace was going to always go through Ramallah or Jerusalem, if you wanted to argue that. That in short, without a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem that there could never be peace. And for a whole variety of reasons, some of which we've discussed, that has changed.

Danielle Pletka: I wrote a piece earlier this week in which sort of laid out why I think the Palestinians have, in part, played a role in ensuring that the road no longer goes through them. That they've missed a lot of opportunities to move forward. The Palestinian current chairman of the stepped down from his position as chairman of the Arab League in protest against this . Why this sorry history and why has the region in some ways needed to move on without progress on this other front?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: So, let me take first crack at this. I am a big fan of the Arab Peace Initiative. The Arab Peace Initiative was brilliant, it was simple, straightforward, and I thought it was very fair. It was launched almost 20 years ago, 18 years ago to be exact. Nobody on this call can point to any tangible progress that the Arab Peace Initiative had actually mustered in 18 years. We are exactly the same place where it was launched in 2002.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: So, I would respond by simply saying, "Would you like us to wait another 18 years with no progress before we try a different approach?" Clearly, even though it's a brilliant idea, and it's fair, and most people supported it, it still didn't solve the issue. So, we don't have a solution. Maybe this provides another alternative way of thinking of the issue. Maybe it doesn't, we don't know.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: But had we not done what we did, had we not negotiated what we did, we would be discussing on this podcast today how much annexation was going to harm Israel and the region. We would be discussing whether annexation was supposed to be 10, 20, or 30% of the territories. So, it's important to put things in perspective and we've had this debate. Look, this may or may not have happened minus the annexation debate, but the truth is we actually preserved the two-state solution. We bought time and space. Now how that time and space gets utilized, that's ultimately up to the players, not to us.

Danielle Pletka: Ambassador Khalifa, the Palestinians accused both your leadership and the leadership in the UAE of betraying them. Fair?

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: I think our foreign minister was very clear and the message was very clear. We demonstrated our support to the Palestinian people time and time again. And we do believe the establishment of relations with Israel does not undermined our commitment to the two-state solution. It was part of what the foreign minister stated last week at the event. And, in fact, we believe that interaction rather than exclusion will help get us closer to the realization of that goal by incentivizing both sides to seriously engage in negotiations. So, let's hope the ball will start rolling with a fresh approach to this ongoing issue.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: Normalization doesn't mean we ignore the two-state solution. Look, there's Jordan and Egypt have a relationship with Israel, they still support the two-state

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

8 solution, as will we. That's not a blank check. But I also think, Dany, you mentioned the Arab League meeting. I think it was really important to also highlight what happened in the meeting. There was a demand by the Palestinian Authority, the chair of the meeting, to insert language condemning the normalization rules.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: Do you know how many countries supported inserting that language?

Danielle Pletka: Nope.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: Zero. Zero. Not one single country backed adopting condemnation language in the meeting. Not one.

Danielle Pletka: Wow.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: I think it's just important to note, like your first question was, "How did we get here?" This is September 2020. Things are changing. The attitudes are changing. The Palestinian issue is very important, the two-state solution is very important. But not one single country backed the Palestinians when they asked for condemnation language to be inserted into the statement. I think that's important to note.

Marc Thiessen: When we were talking earlier about why this will produce a warm peace versus a cold peace, the reason we all agreed was that both of your countries have recognized the Jewish people as indigenous to the region, and obviously, you recognize the right of Israel to exist. Is the reason why you have succeeded while the Palestinians have failed to reach a two-state solution is their refusal to do the same thing essentially? This is just the fundamental principle that allows peace to go forward. The Palestinian leadership doesn't really recognize Israel's right to exist. Is that the impediment? And can that change?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I mean, I think there's a lot of tension in the Palestinian leadership, right? There's two sides of this coin between Fatah and that have not reconciled. A few days ago, I saw news that there's going to be plans for a vote for the first time, I think, since 2006 throughout the different territories. So that's a positive step. So, I think if the Palestinian factions can reconcile on issue...

Amb. Yousef Al ...: Unlikely that we make progress until there some kind of consensus within the Palestinian factions, whether that happens or not is totally up to them. That's one of the questions they have to wrestle with. That's hard for us to, I think, kind of judge on whether that's what they should or shouldn't do. They need to come to that conclusion themselves.

Danielle Pletka: So, let's talk a little bit about the region. The United States has been in the region willingly and unwillingly now every decade going back for a conflict, whether relating to the aftermath of 9/11 or to other challenges that Iran has posed. One of the things that I wonder, looking forward, is whether Israel can actually play a role in the collective defense of the Mediterranean against what I think we can all

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

9 agree is a very serious and growing Iranian threat. I mean, in the wake of the Iran deal we saw Iran escalating in Bahrain, we saw Iran seeking to destabilize a number of Gulf States. We saw the challenge of the Houthis, not to speak of the Hashd al-Shaabi, their popular mobilization units in and , we could go on quite a while about the bad things that Iran is up to. Can Israel play a role in helping defend US allies?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: I don't know. Honestly, I think it's too early to tell how engaged or not engaged the Israelis are, at this point I don't know. I can't speak for them. We haven't had that conversation as far as I know. The conversations that we've been having with Israel like Ambassador Khalifa has said is been mostly on opportunities, trade, investments, civil aviation, technology, COVID, things like that.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: So, we're trying to create these opportunities for our young people who want better futures and better jobs. We haven't really tackled the geopolitics and the national security elements yet. I suspect that if both sides are willing to have a cooperative relationship on these types of issues, I'm sure it will be well received, but I don't think we've ... As far as the UAE is concerned, I don't believe we've had that conversation yet.

Marc Thiessen: So, let me ask you a question, when Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel, he paid for it with his life. The Salafi-jihadis of the day assassinated him. Are you worried about blowback from the Salafi-jihadi movement and also from the Shia extremist movement?

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: That challenge was obviously on the table when the issue was discussed. And the dynamics are shifting very quickly. The challenges seem to be more or less the same. I think with time we have been able to mitigate the threats that were coming from extremist ideologies within the country. Education is very important. We try to reach out to different sectors within the community to make sure that social fabric of the community is protected.

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: This deal was a very optimistic and hopeful deal. A lot of the Bahrainis understand that, and that's why you see those other have been outspoken in the past couple of days are those that are related, one way or another, to these external parties. And the majority of people are starting to understand it. We don't see an issue with it going forward, but for us, it was a sovereign decision and a step forward that will benefit our people and the region as a whole.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: We don't need to theorize on this, the Iranians came out and publicly said that UAE is now a legitimate target just after we announced normalization with Israel. So, we don't need to debate it, they've said it. Just anecdotally here in the US, in our embassy, after the announcement our cyber team came and briefed me and said, "The attempts to hack and penetrate systems here in the embassy have basically just multiplied." The number of people trying to get in, harm, or attack us, whether here in the embassy or in the UAE, I think definitely significantly increased. We know this, I think, most folks here in the national security world know this, but it was something we anticipated. It wasn't a shocking discovery. Of course, whenever you embed further in the US camp, there are some people who are going to continue to target you even more.

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

10 Danielle Pletka: So, for me, exit question. It's not revolution, it's an evolution, but it's a real change in the dynamics of the Middle East. The President of the United States has said that he's talking to other countries about ending the state of conflict with Israel and new peace agreements. Do you think we're going to see ... I'm not going to put you on the spot and say, "Who?" But do you think we're going to see additional such accords in the coming months?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: I know there is lot of efforts with several countries in various stages, so I can't speak to how likely it is to happen next week or next month, that's ultimately up to that country. They have to decide based on their own sort of interests, their own judgments, their own public opinion, and so on. So, is there an effort with multiple countries? Yes. How close or how far, I think it's not my place to comment, but it's a perfect subject for a few other ambassadors maybe in your next podcast.

Danielle Pletka: Marc, just FYI, this is what's called diplomacy.

Marc Thiessen: Oh, okay. Thank you, I'm learning. I'm here with three diplomats.

Danielle Pletka: I think Marc got an exit question, too.

Marc Thiessen: My exit question is, as the in-house Trump defender, talk a little bit about the role that Jared Kushner played in this. Because when the news came that President Trump had appointed Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, in charge of peace in the Middle East, it was met with a lot of derision in Washington. And like all the, "Oh, he doesn't know anything about the history of the Middle East, he's not steeped in all the conventions, he doesn't know this stuff. He's never going to be able to achieve Middle East peace," and well, all of a sudden we got two peace deals within 29 days of each other. And he seems to have helped usher in something that has eluded the entire Middle East expert class in Washington. Is that fair and what kind of role did he play?

Amb. Yousef Al ...: So, it's very fair and in our case, not just Jared, but Jared and his team were instrumental. Most of our negotiations were done, at least in my situation was with and General Miguel Correa, from the NSC. In the span of the four or five weeks, I've probably spoken to each one of them multiple times per day, meetings in the White House, meetings at our house, meetings everywhere. But really between the three of them, they got this done. And just to put a note on it, it's important to recognize that most of these negotiations were all done within the span of really like five weeks. This was probably one of the fastest deals negotiated and completed that I've ever witnessed.

Amb. Yousef Al ...: We basically understood what we both wanted. It was a very simple, and a very logical transaction. It was normalization in exchange for no annexation. And I just want to give credit where credit's due. It was really Jared and Avi and Miguel who managed to pull this off in record time.

Amb. Shaikh Abd...: I just want to second what Ambassador Otaiba stated. Maybe our deal was a little bit faster, because of the timing, it had to be done in time for the ceremony. It was the same team, they worked with us here, worked with folks back home, and we were just happy to wrap it up in time. And now take it forward with the same

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

11 people to make sure that we are also seeing similar agreements to what the UAE had put out.

Danielle Pletka: Fantastic. Well, speaking for myself, I can't wait to fly from here to Dubai, to Bahrain, to Tel Aviv. That's just going to be incredible. So, to really both of you, thank you for taking the time. Thank you for this amazing work. We're really grateful that you were able to take to us.

Marc Thiessen: Thank you.

Marc Thiessen: Okay, Dany, so Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing. Does Donald Trump or Jared Kushner deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for this?

Danielle Pletka: Honestly, I think it's an insult to say that anybody deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, given who's received it over recent years. So, I'm not going to touch that one. The things that I think you and I can talk about, are A, the Palestinians and B, who's next. So, the word on who's next is , , and after that I don't know. I think we could potentially see others.

Marc Thiessen: Well, there is some interesting reporting about tensions within Saudi. That the king wasn't told about this before it actually happened and was none too pleased that MBS would actually like to do this and it's the king that is resistant. And the king gave a speech to the UN General Assembly, didn't mention this deal.

Danielle Pletka: Did he mention Palestine? I didn't read his speech.

Marc Thiessen: I don't know if he mentioned Palestine. I just saw that he didn't mention the deal made by Bahrain and UAE. So, I think that's ... There's interesting internal dynamics and generational dynamics going on in Saudi. But peace begets peace. It would not be surprising at all if this set off a chain reaction in the coming months. And then that throws the ball into the court of the Palestinians, because the root of the reason why there is not a two-state solution today is because their refusal to accept Israel as a legitimate Middle Eastern country, whose people are legitimate, it's existence is legitimate, and the existence of a Jewish state, and that we now have four Arab countries that have done this. And it's up to the Palestinians to decide. They no longer have the entire peace process in the broader Middle East in their control. So, they have to decide whether they're willing to do the same thing that UAE and Bahrain did or not.

Danielle Pletka: Well, when the Palestinians established the Palestinian Authority in 1993, they actually accepted the right of Israel to live in peace and security. But that was just the one faction, that was Fatah, the problem is we've also got Iranian-backed Hamas that governs Gaza. And obviously, what happened in 1993 was not followed by a sustained track towards peace.

Danielle Pletka: The problem for the Palestinians is that they're just mired in history. They're always looking backwards. They're living in a Middle East that hasn't existed since 1980 and won't exist again, and history is passing them by. I don't care about , the president for life of the Palestine Authority.

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

12 Danielle Pletka: I care actually about the well -being of the Palestinian people and they have been screwed up one side and down another by their own self-appointed representatives. Whether it's the PLO or Fatah as the leadership of the PLO is called, or Hamas, or the Iranian-run Hezbollah. None of these people actually care about Palestinians. None of these people actually care about Palestine. All they care about is the conflicts they can continue in order to sustain themselves.

Danielle Pletka: That's all the more reason why the UAE and Bahrain were courageous in kind of saying, "You know, we support a two-state solution. We want what's right for the Palestinians. But you know, if they don't want to move on with their lives, are we meant to be trapped forever?" That's what Yousef Al Otaiba said. That ought to be a wake-up call to them. The fact that it hasn't been is just a tragedy.

Marc Thiessen: So one other shift in policy that I think contributed to a lot of this, Donald Trump gets a lot of grief for being so tough on the NATO allies, and that he's not as committed to NATO as you and I would like him to be, which is true. But one of the things that Barack Obama did was pivot towards Iran and really weaken our alliances with countries like the UAE, like , and other countries. He gets a pass on that.

Marc Thiessen: But it was really Trump's commitment to restoring and reviving those alliances that in many ways made this possible. So, Donald Trump the alliance breaker may be so in Europe, maybe he has a blind spot when it comes to , but in the Middle East he has shored up our alliances. And that gave these countries the confidence to go ahead and do this.

Danielle Pletka: Well, maybe too much confidence in the case of Saudi Arabia. But, look, what you're saying is right. The reality is that Barack Obama could have done this as well. After he signed the disastrous Iran deal, he said that he recognized that it would lead Iran to feel empowered in the region. And that we were going to have to work with our allies and friends to push back, but he didn't.

Danielle Pletka: That's one of the reasons why, everyone forgets this, why the United States started supporting Saudi Arabia's war in was for this sort of notional idea of balance, but that wasn't what was necessary. What was necessary was to actually stop Iran from trying to take over the rest of the region. And instead, the Obama administration just sat there and sort of said, "Eh, well, you know."

Danielle Pletka: And I remember the infamous quote, "Saudi Arabia and Iran will just have to learn to share the region." Hell to the no. I don't want to share the region between Saudi Arabia and Iran. No way, these are legitimate countries that have their legitimate interests and they don't want to be governed from or Tehran. So, kudos to them for waking up and recognizing that the United States isn't always going to be in the right place and they need to make their own alliances and their own friendships in order to stand up for their shared interests.

Marc Thiessen: Well, we're going to take up these ambassadors and their offer to come back in six months and see how this is going. And what will be interesting to me is to see ... We know there is going to be a lot of economic cooperation, we know there's going to be a lot of cultural cooperation, it'll be fascinating to see how much military and security cooperation results from this. Because Israel is going to be a

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org

13 bulwark against Iran, and I think these countries recognize that. And that's going to be critical to the future peace of the Middle East.

Danielle Pletka: Well, I like talking about peace. I like talking about good stuff. It's so rare on this podcast. You know where to send your complaints. You can send all the flattery to me, problems with the technology, that's Alexa's fault. Thanks for listening.

Marc Thiessen: Alexa, fix this.

Danielle Pletka: Thanks for listening.

Marc Thiessen: We'll see you soon.

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org