Will the normalizations continue if Trump isn’t reelected?
The Trump administration has pushed hard for more countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel since the United Arab Emirates announced it would do so on August 15.
By LAHAV HARKOVFROM LEFT: Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed display their copies of signed agreements, while US President Donald Trump looks on, as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham A(photo credit: REUTERS//TOM BRENNER)
US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin had a message for the reporters on the first El Al flight from Israel to Bahrain this week: More of US President Donald Trump means more normalization between Israel and Arab and Muslim countries.“We are very hopeful there will be other announcements,” he said. “Our expectation is, obviously, that President Trump wins and this continues… There is a lot more in the works.”Would a Trump loss mean the end of the wave of normalization with Israel?Mnuchin’s answer was: “I surely hope not.” But the question remains.The Trump administration has pushed hard for more countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel since the United Arab Emirates announced it would do so on August 15. It is hoping for an October surprise from Sudan in the coming days. Each state normalizing ties with Israel is another victory for Trump and another way to present himself as a peacemaker and a dealmaker.This could raise concerns that if Trump is reelected, he will lose interest in the topic since he will no longer have to appeal as much to the pro-Israel sectors of his base as a second-term president.But there is more to the Trump administration’s fostering of these new ties than just a campaign strategy. Its approach has been very different from the norm in recent decades.Special adviser to the president Jared Kushner and former Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt talked about the possibility of the secret relations between Israel and Gulf states becoming open and official long before it really happened and when it seemed like a pipe dream.The momentum to make open UAE-Israel relations came from Abu Dhabi and its ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, who wrote an op-ed in Yediot Aharonot stating that there are opportunities for such ties to be established, but only if Israel abandons its plans to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria.The Trump administration seized the opportunity. After all, Trump is uniquely willing to debunk conventional wisdom; he and members of his administration clearly relish the times when their new approach works when the old ways didn’t. And making peace between Israel and an Arab country before the establishment of a Palestinian state overturns decades of foreign-policy mandarins’ assumptions.
Since the administration succeeded with the UAE, it proceeded to push for other countries to take the same step. They pulled it off again with Bahrain, and Sudan is likely to be next. They’ve talked about Saudi Arabia eventually taking the plunge – though that seems far off – and Trump has said several other states are weighing ties with Israel.The Trump administration seems uniquely focused on this goal that helps Israel and, as State Department Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus posited last month, is also good for US national security.But that doesn’t mean the dominoes will stop falling if Democratic candidate Joe Biden is reelected.Though it seems unlikely that he will make what has become one of Trump’s top foreign-policy successes into a top priority of his own and push as hard as the Trump administration did, Biden has taken a refreshing approach of not bashing his opponent in this case.Biden did say Trump “accidentally” stumbled upon these normalizations in remarks at a J Street fundraiser last month, but he still welcomed them.“It is good to see others in the Middle East recognizing Israel and even welcoming it as a partner,” Biden said after the UAE and Bahrain signed agreements with Israel at the White House in September.A Biden administration will “build on these steps, challenge other nations to keep pace and work to leverage these growing ties into progress toward a two-state solution and a more stable, peaceful region,” he said.Then there is the “silver lining” view of how a Biden could bring Israel ties with more countries. Biden does not have to directly foster these relations for them to happen; his actions can bring Israel and some Arab states together in other ways.Former US president Barack Obama’s administration, in which Biden was vice president, led the charge for a nuclear deal with Iran, the results of which left Israel and Gulf states alarmed. Israel suddenly had shared interests with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, among others, and ties between them flourished, albeit quietly.Biden has said he wants to return to that Iran deal and then negotiate adjustments to it to “ensure [Israel] can defend itself against Iran and its proxies,” he wrote in an op-ed for CNN. But as former ambassador to the US Michael Oren said last week, reflecting the view in the top echelons of Israel’s government and defense establishment these days, a deal “that looks a lot like the JCPOA [would be] terrible for Israel and a prescription for war and a nuclear-armed Iran.”It could also be a recipe for closer cooperation between Jerusalem and more Middle Eastern capitals that view Tehran as a rival.However, other parts of Biden’s stated policy plans could push Israel and Gulf states apart, such as his plan to distance the US from Saudi Arabia.“Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil,” Biden said on October 2, the two-year anniversary of the Saudi’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.“America’s commitment to democratic values and human rights will be a priority, even with our closest security partners.”Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states may see ties with Israel as less of a priority if those ties don’t help bring them closer to the US. Alternatively, Arab and Muslim countries could continue to see relations with Israel as a way to get closer with Washington and deflect pressure on their human-rights records.Would a Trump loss mean the end of the wave of normalization with Israel? The answer, like much else, remains unclear until after the presidential election.
