COMMENTARY: President Trump’s Middle East accord is the real deal
Today, President Donald Trump will convene top delegates of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for the most consequential Middle East accommodation in a quarter-century.
Keep this simple fact in mind when you hear the inevitable chorus of naysayers trying to cast the ceremony as a trifling formality rather than a formal peace accord, or as a kind of window dressing for a White House beset by domestic challenges.
No, this is the real deal: the solemnization of an agreement crafted over years of careful, discreet and serious negotiation and bearing the imprimatur of our president — the ultimate guarantor and, in President Trump’s case, a master deal-maker to boot.
How do we know this deal satisfies the gold standard of international diplomacy? Because it not only addresses the cold-eyed interests of all countries involved — including the United States — but also sincerely warms the hearts of their peoples.
Like any Israeli, I was delighted when my country made peace with Egypt in 1978-79 and with Jordan in 1994. Having served as a military officer and lost loved ones to war, I was desperate to see normal relations with Israel’s neighbors.
But while those treaties have borne fruit in terms of regional security, a true peace between the peoples has been elusive. All too many Egyptians and Jordanians still resent Israel and wish it gone.
Not so with Israel’s new partners in the Gulf. Neither the United Arab Emirates nor Bahrain has left any doubt as to their desire for the deepest, cordial connection with Israel and the Jewish people, a connection that transcends geopolitics and taps into the very spirit of the Middle East.
That part of the world is, after all, where the great monotheisms were born. Hence the Trump administration’s wise decision to dub its peace drive the “Abraham Accord,” after the biblical patriarch shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians.
And it will be Jews, Muslims and Christians who gather today in the White House for the sake of a better future, putting aside their differences and focusing on what unites them — from the need for renewable energy to job creation to anti-desertification.
It seems astounding that anyone would oppose such peacemaking. But, of course, we will hear the usual condemnation and threats from Iran and its proxies and, sadly, from a Palestinian leadership growing more irrelevant by the day.
Perhaps we should be grateful for them, however: They are making clear that the Middle East conflict is not between rival sides that are equally right or wrong, and all vying for the capricious backing of world powers.
No, it is a conflict between those who seek peace and progress and those who prefer the familiar, retrograde misery of hate. And the United States — especially under this president — knows which side to back.
Dr. Miriam Adelson’s family owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
