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Journal of Middle Eastern and Policy A Harvard Kennedy School student publication

Beyond Borders: In Empire, Diaspora, And Global Transitions Tis issue is dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Syrian revolution

Spring 2021 Kissinger, Kerry, Kushner: Making and Missing Peace in the Middle East

By Martin Kramer

After (class of 1950), the riding an unpredictable wave Harvard undergraduate alumnus who has in American politics. Tese twists of fate are had the most profound effect on the Middle not rare; to the contrary, they are par for the East to date is Jared Kushner (class of 2003), course of history. Te events that put Kissinger son-in-law of President and in the Middle Eastern cockpit fifty years ago architect of the 2020 Abraham Accords. Ponder were no more predictable. the irony. Harvard has produced a cavalcade of Still, being in the right place is never experts on the Middle East, both practitioners enough. One has to grasp the meaning of the and scholars, with far more knowledge of the moment. Jared Kushner understood something region than Kushner’s. “I’ve been studying fundamental about the Middle East that had this now for three years,” Kushner said of the eluded the long line of secretaries, deputy Israeli-Palestinian conflict last year. “I’ve read secretaries, advisers, envoys, and ambassadors 25 books on it, I’ve spoken to every leader in who had preceded him. Having read his 25 the region, I’ve spoken to everyone who’s been books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, involved in this.”1 Tat was his primer for his he realized that not all Arabs were in its grip. role as broker, first, of Trump’s “Vision for This was a truth that ’s Peace” (aka “Te Deal of the Century”) and , , hadn’t fathomed. later, the breakthrough agreements between Kerry, who had tried his hand in the Middle and four Arab states. East right before Kushner, will never live down By conventional standards, Kushner was his 2016 statement, preserved on YouTube “winging it.” But in policy making, as in real and gleefully retweeted thousands of times estate, success begins with location. Kushner this past year: (and his sidekick, Harvard Law alumnus Avi “Tere will be no separate peace between Berkowitz, class of 2016), ended up in the Israel and the Arab world. I want to

44 Journal of Middle East Politics and Policy make that very clear with all of you. I’ve he answered, “the path to peace in the Middle heard several prominent politicians in East goes through Jerusalem.” In the estimate of Israel sometimes saying, ‘Well, the Arab the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national world is in a different place now. We just security adviser, “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have to reach out to them. We can work is the single most combustible and galvanizing some things with the Arab world, and issue in the Arab world.”4 And to be fair, in the we’ll deal with the Palestinians.’ No. No, past the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was both no, and no.”2 combustible and galvanizing. Kushner didn’t dismiss the view of Israel’s But it ceased to be that over time. Tanks to “prominent politicians,” but actually put it to the deal-brokering begun by Kissinger, Israel the test, and ended up eliciting four “yeses,” first stopped being regarded in the Arab world as from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the prime threat to the integrity and stability then followed by Sudan and Morocco. of Arab states. Peace agreements and American Why did Kerry miss what Kushner saw? patronage hemmed Israel in. In the place of Some commentators have portrayed Kerry, and the Israeli danger, other threats arose: Saddam indeed the entire “peace process” establishment, Hussein’s Iraq, which in 1990 briefly erased as blinded by bias. But the simpler explanation an Arab state, Kuwait, from the map; and is a generational difference in the American Ayatollah Khomeini’s , which energized view of the Arabs. Tere is an older generation Shiite minorities against Arab governments. for whom the Arab world appeared driven When Kushner, born in 1981, came to study by ideologies and passions, and a younger at Harvard, the Middle East looked entirely generation who see it governed by states and different than it had to Kerry at Yale. Te interests. Palestinians had lost their privileged position Kerry, born in 1943, studied political science among the Arabs, first by allying with Saddam, at Yale when Gamal Abdul Nasser was still and then by entering the Accords. State riding the crest of pan-Arab sentiment. After interests had washed ideology and passion out 1967, following the emasculation of Nasser, the of Arab politics. Arabs seemed to have invested every thought Of course, Arab states had been making and emotion in the cause of the Palestinians, their own calculations for years. Egypt and who violently burst upon the world scene Jordan had reached peace agreements with beginning with Black September in 1970. Israel, and other Arab states had low-profile Kerry belonged to the tail-end of the ties. But while the trajectory was clear, the old generation that saw the Arabs through the hands still couldn’t trace the arc. Kushner, on Palestinian prism. “Is the Israel-Palestine conflict the other hand, saw the obvious: many Arabs still the key to peace in the whole region?”3 had more important priorities than rallying was once asked. “Without doubt,” around the Palestinians.

Spring 2021 45 He also located the tipping point of this another on the scrimmage line, and neither sentiment in the Arab Gulf states. For had full confidence in the parade of American Americans of Kerry’s generation, “the Arabs” quarterbacks, each with a different game plan. came from Beirut and Cairo, Damascus and A question facing any future historian will Baghdad. Americans had a foothold in oil- be this: was the “Deal of the Century,” with its producing , but the rest of the implicit endorsement of Israeli annexation of littoral of the Arab Gulf was “flyover country” parts of the West Bank, designed in advance run by the British. as a throwaway, to facilitate the Abraham Te United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Accords? Whatever the answer, that is precisely Qatar didn’t gain independence until 1971. the purpose it ultimately served. “We had been Even then, they weren’t much to write home talking to both sides for 18 months,” said a about. The late Roger Owen, professor of senior American official, “but the annexation Middle Eastern history at Harvard, evoked issue created the atmosphere which was the ambience in recalling a visit he made to conducive for getting a deal.”6 If it was so two of the Emirates in the 1970s: “Abu Dhabi designed in advance, then far from being a and Sharjah seemed only to come alive when “dead-on-arrival” plan, it was a strategic feint a British Overseas Airways—after 1974, a worthy of a Kissinger. If not, it was a deft British Air plane—arrived at dusk, when Land last-minute shift of gears. Rovers raced out to meet it, and the passengers Whatever the back story, however, the disbursed slowly in the evening heat.”5 Abraham Accords and their sequels have By Kushner’s time, these same emirates introduced a new vector in the Middle East. had become the Arab world’s glittering “Gold The most creative and dynamic shorelines Coast,” centers of fabulous wealth wedded to on the Mediterranean and the Gulf are now unashamed pragmatism. Te old ideologies linked. Tey are the counter to the forty-year that had grown like weeds elsewhere in the bond between Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Arab world never struck root in the sands which also links the Mediterranean and the surrounding the skyscrapers of the Arab Gulf. Gulf. Tere is much potential in this fledgling Here were places that had “come alive” in a alignment; how much of it will be realized spectacular way, and where Arabs broke taboos depends on the ingenuity of Israelis and Gulf every day. Arabs alike. Yet even this wouldn’t have sufficed to But it also depends on the attitude of the produce a breakthrough. Kushner understood United States. Certainly, it has been hard the dread felt by these small Arab states over for the old hands of the Democratic foreign Iran, and how Israel’s sounding of the alarm policy establishment to concede that Kushner, resonated with them. In the game with Iran, wet behind the ears, achieved something that Arab Gulf states and Israel stood near one had eluded them. They should get over it.

46 Journal of Middle East Politics and Policy One doesn’t have to believe that Kushner Endnotes (and Berkowitz) deserve the Nobel Peace 1 Kushner interview with Sky News Arabia, January Prize, though Harvard emeritus professor 29, 2020. Alan Dershowitz has nominated them for one, 2 “Remarks at the Saban Forum,” U.S. Department of but one must admit that they got this right. State, 4 December 2016, https://2009-2017.state. gov/secretary/remarks/2016/12/264824.htm . Remember that Jimmy Carter didn’t toss 3 Nathaniel Gardels, “Jimmy Carter takes on out the Middle East achievements of Richard Israel’s Apartheid Policies and the Pro-Israeli Lobby in the US,” Huffington Post, 12 Decem- Nixon and Kissinger, but built them out into a ber 2006. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ new security architecture for the Middle East. jimmy-carter-takes-on-isr_b_36134 President Biden should consider that precedent 4 Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Lowered Vision,” Te New Republic, 7 June 2004. https://newrepublic.com/ and think hard about how to capitalize on the article/67609/lowered-vision achievements of Trump and Kushner. Tat 5 Roger Owen, A Life in Middle East Studies (Fairfax, VA: Tadween Publishing, 2016), p. 117. need not mean abandoning the quest for a 6 Barak Ravid, “Behind the scenes: How the resolution of the Palestinian question. It need Israel-UAE deal came together,” Axios, 13 August not mean locking the door to Iran forever. It 2020. https://www.axios.com/how-the-israel-uae- recognition-deal-came-together-d0d45b2e-b2c7- does mean nurturing the cooperative spirit of 4593-b72a-0ef99ec96233.html . the Abraham Accords. Tese US-brokered agreements give the United States a strategic edge. In the Middle East, America needs that more than ever.

Martin Kramer is chair of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at Shalem College in Jerusalem, and the Walter P. Stern Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He co-founded and edited the website Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH) in the late 2000s.

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