On Feb. 15, 2017, then-US President Donald Trump hosted then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time at the White House. They had known each other for years, but now they were both heads of state.
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Two years earlier, at the height of the Obama years, Netanyahu and his advisers had reached the conclusion that the Middle East was ripe for the establishment of peace between Israel and the Gulf States. In direct contrast to what had been the prevailing thesis for decades both in Israel and the West, they believed that this could happen prior to an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Following the upheavals of the "Arab Spring;" the rise of Islamic State, the United States' withdrawal from the Middle East; the reduction of global dependence on oil; Iran's growing power on the one hand, and Israel's on the other; and Netanyahu's 2015 speech to Congress, Jerusalem had received clear messages from the Gulf States regarding their desire for closer ties. Cooperation under the table also increased.
But the Americans rejected Netanyahu's thesis. Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, actively worked to prevent a breakthrough, inter alia, because they didn't want Israel to receive any remuneration from the Arab states without first paying in hard currency to the Palestinians.
Trump and his advisers, even though they were very pro Israel were also sceptical initially. During that first White House meeting with Trump, Netanyahu brought up the secret meeting that had taken place on board the USS Quincy on the Great Bitter Lake along the Suez Canal between President Theodore Roosevelt and Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia. It was at that meeting that the alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States was born (although Ibn Saud rejected Roosevelt's request that the king acquiesce to 10,000 permits for Jews to enter Palestine). Netanyahu told his hosts "Take us (meaning him, to Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, and Mohammed Bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates) to a ship on the Red Sea and let's sit together. You will make history."
Trump and his entourage were sceptical. They lacked diplomatic experience and what they were familiar with was the prevailing opinion that there can be no deal without the Palestinians. There were also good souls such as the president's friend Ronald Lauder, who visited the White House several times and repeated the message that an agreement with the Palestinians could be achieved, and that Netanyahu was simply stalling.
Trump, as he indeed stated publicly, very much wanted to achieve what he labelled the "deal of the century" – a deal he had begun working on with his peace team headed by Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. Over the course of two years of work on the plan, they met with many regional leaders. Over the course of those talks, as trust grew and masks were unveiled, Kushner and Greenblatt began to see what the Gulf states were really seeking.
A senior Israeli official involved in the contacts said that "it took two whole years for the Americans to be persuaded that the Arab rhetoric on the Palestinian issue was mostly just lip service." The Palestinian refusal to talk with the Trump administration contributed to the sobering of American opinion. "Unlike Obama's people, who were very set in their ways, Kushner and his team had an open mind. They were willing to listen and then check out the direction we had suggested," says the Israeli official.
Setting a high bar
But Trump was determined to push forward a move vis-a-vis the Palestinians, and it was clear to the Israeli side as well that in order to make it easier for the Gulf states to make their ties with Israel public, they too had to do something on the Palestinian front – even if an agreement could not be reached.
Israel's then-ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, the person closest to Netanyahu on the issue, presented Israel's position several times during the period from 2018-2019. At the American Jewish Committee convention in June 2019, Dermer said:
Incidentally, Dermer was first seen in public with UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef al Otaiba at an event held by the Odaiba Jewish Institute for National Security of America in November 2018. It was the first public sign, and it was one of many, that Israel and the UAE were moving closer.
The messages coming from Arab states led Netanyahu and his advisers to the conclusion that in order to make things easier for the Arabs, any peace plan with the Palestinians had to include three elements: The words "Palestinian state" – even if the term "state" was emptied of any meaning; Israeli concessions in Jerusalem as part of a permanent status agreement – which was how the idea of handing over to the Palestinians the two and a half Arab neighborhoods within the city, but beyond the security fence, and even then under strict conditions, came about; and the third component, maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount.
The Israeli side was certain beyond doubt that the Palestinians would reject the plan, and that its main advantage would be in the following stage: Normalization with Arab countries. Early contacts by the Americans with the Arab side indicated that a breakthrough was possible.
The Israeli's didn't know which country would be the first to jump on the bandwagon. "The assumption was that the UAE was the most likely candidate, but there was no secret agreement with MBZ (Mohammed Bin Zayed) or any other leader," says the former Israeli official.
The Americans saw things differently. For them the Palestinians were the goal, not the means. A former senior White House official, who played a major role in the normalization process, tells Israel Hayom that the US intention when it published the peace plan in January 2020 was to reach an agreement that included the Palestinians, which was what they were focused on. "Nobody thought and nobody knew that things would work out as they did eventually," he says.
"Even the issue of sovereignty wasn't included so that we could get something for that later. At the time we were already working on normalization between Israel and the Arab state, but there was no connection between things, and the Emirates weren't the first candidate. If you would have asked me in January 2020, I would have said Morocco."
The American administration had intended to present the "Deal of the Century" at the beginning of 2019. According to the original timetable, from the Israeli perspective at least, the Arab countries would give the Palestinians a few months to digest the plan. If by chance the Palestinians came to the negotiation table – all the better. If not, the Gulf countries would say something along the lines of "we've waited for the Palestinians long enough; they have a reasonable American offer on the table. We are progressing to normalization with Israel."
An election minefield
There was another thing. Following the presentation of the plan and normalization, a third stage was planned – sovereignty. The understanding between the Israelis and the Americans was that after the plan had been presented, and after the hoped-for breakthrough with the Gulf states, the administration would let Israel extend Israeli law to parts of Judea and Samaria in line with the Trump map.
"Such a step taken at the right time would in no way have led to the collapse of agreements with the Gulf states," says a senior Israeli official who was in the loop on the contact. "They did want to see progress on the Palestinian issue, but they were not willing to give [Abbas] veto power over their progress on ties with Israel. That was the core of the matter. We understood that from talks with them. Especially from 2015 onwards, we knew it was possible and that contrary to what others thought and said, a breakthrough with the Gulf states was not dependent on an agreement with the Palestinians."
Israel's slide into an election campaign at the beginning of 2019 played havoc with the timetable. The administration didn't want to be seen as interfering with internal Israeli political affairs and therefore decided to postpone the launch of the "Deal of the Century."
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But then came a second election campaign, and the administration again decided to wait. However, in order to get the process in motion, Kushner convened an "economic workshop" in Bahrain in the summer of 2019. Israelis. Arabs, and international representatives publicly discussed massive plans for the development of the Palestinian economy. Abu Mazen and his people boycotted the event, which was a milestone in the emerging process.
At the end of 2019, when it transpired that Israel was sliding toward a third election, and with the US presidential elections also approaching, the Trump team came to the realization that it was now or never. They decided to present the plan they had been working on, but the implication was that a process that had been planned to take place over a period of at least two years now had to be compressed into a few months.
The more dramatic development was bringing forward the sovereignty move and normalization of ties with the Arab countries. The Americans and Israelis agreed that immediately after the presentation of the peace plan, Israel would apply sovereignty to some 30% of the territory of the West Bank designated to it under the Trump plan. On the flip side, Israel would not apply sovereignty to any additional territories (some 70% of the West Bank designated for the Palestinians under the Trump plan) for a period of at least four years, in order to enable negotiations. This dramatic event was not supposed to prevent the UAE or any other country from making peace with Israel.
"Their interest in peace with Israel doesn't change because of the application of sovereignty," says an Israeli source. "It's true that the political process in Israel and in the United States changed the original timetable. But as long as there was a political program for the Palestinians supported by the United States and other elements in the international community, and that the Arab states did not reject it, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu was talking publicly about his willingness to give them a state as part of a true peace agreement – they could have lived with it."
On Jan. 28, 2020, a ceremony was held in the White House to present the peace plan. Three Arab ambassadors, from Oman, Bahrain, and Yousef al-Otaiba from the UAE, honored the ceremony with their presence. Two hours after the ceremony, a member of Netanyahu's close circle called a senior official from one of the Gulf countries and made it clear what Israel planned to do. "We plan to pass a resolution on sovereignty. The quicker we do it, the less pressure there will be on you. After that you do what you need to," he said to the Gulf official who replied, "that sounds reasonable." The tacit understanding between the two was that a while after the application of sovereignty, but before the elections in the US his country and perhaps others would declare their desire for reconciliation with Israel.
Sunday never came
Application of sovereignty ran into trouble for a variety of reasons. We can now reveal that one factor that contributed to the misunderstandings between the government in Jerusalem and the administration in Washington was a snowstorm in Switzerland. Jared Kushner was in Davos with Trump at the World Economic Forum and had planned to fly from there to Israel to coordinate the final details with Netanyahu. The weather prevented him from doing so.
Cancelation of the meeting, along with the fact that no final coordination meeting was convened at the White House on the eve of the ceremony, as well as other factors, led to serious differences in understanding between Netanyahu and Kushner. The prime minister had received an explicit promise from Kushner and others that sovereignty could be applied immediately. Kushner on the other hand claimed that he had spoken of a slower process, and had even made his position clear in the American media. While Netanyahu was briefing the Israeli media about "sovereignty on Sunday," Kushner was speaking about "sovereignty after the elections."
The differences in their positions were clear for all to see and caused Netanyahu enormous embarrassment. He operated according to the understandings that had been made. But a communications short circuit inside the administration led to him being presented again and again as someone who was making false promises.
The anger within Netanyahu's entourage was palpable. One of his close advisors held a tough conversation with a senior Trump team official and demanded that he take responsibility and go to the president to clarify that the misunderstanding had been on the American side, and that it was thus incumbent on the White House to rectify the situation and enable Israel to apply sovereignty as had been agreed. However, the senior American official declined to do so. Despite the severe blow, the Israeli side hid its criticism from the media which was covering events closely.
Netanyahu returned to Israel, stopping on the way to pick up a young Israeli woman, Naama Issachar, who had spent several months in a Russian jail and was being freed after a pardon given by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a complex diplomatic exchange . Over the coming months, the Americans and Israelis tried to reach new understandings over application of sovereignty. Meanwhile, in Israel, the coalition agreement with Benny Gantz stipulated that as of July 1, Netanyahu could present to the Cabinet the annexation framework he had agreed upon with the American administration. It was the only issue that had been exempted from the coalition protocol that all issues on the unity government's agenda must be agreed on. Various propositions were raised, among them two-stage application of sovereignty, and partial and symbolic application in Maale Adumim, a city east of Jerusalem.
Three weeks prior to that date, on June 12, 2020, Al-Otaiba surprised everyone by publishing an extraordinary op-ed in Yedioth Aharonoth in which he warned that application of sovereignty would threaten the possibility of closer ties between his country and Israel. However, the threat did not achieve its purpose. Despite Otaiba's warnings, the American's decided to progress with sovereignty and in late June, Trump's special envoy Avi Berkowitz travelled to Israel. In meetings with Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, he was told they opposed sovereignty. Netanyahu, on the other hand, was demanding that the administration keep its word.
The meetings with Netanyahu weren't leading to progress, says the senior American official. He wanted sovereignty but wasn't willing to make any counter gestures to the Palestinians that Berkowitz wanted in exchange, he adds.
After each meeting with Netanyahu , Berkowitz updated Kushner on developments. During one of their meetings the idea of Israel giving up on application of sovereignty in exchange for normalization of relations with the UAE came up for the first time. Kushner authorized Berkowitz to pursue the idea with Netanyahu, although he too brought it up during the discussions.
At that stage, at the end of June, the whole thing was completely speculative, says the former senior American official. At that stage, he adds, there had been no concrete offer from the Emiratis.
Suspension, not cancellation
Berkowitz returned to the United States, and on his way from the airport to the White House, he received a call from Otaiba with a concrete proposal of normalization for annexation – the Emirates would normalize ties with Israel if it gave up on annexation. It wasn't clear from the conversation what exactly normalization would include and what exactly Israel would have to drop in regards to sovereignty. But the call led to a marathon of meetings throughout July and the beginning of August in which the details were hammered out.
The talks were led by Berkowitz on the American side, Dermer for the Israelis, and Otaiba on the part of the Emiratis. In Israel, only two people were in the loop: Netanyahu and his national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat.
The Emiratis were demanding that the idea of sovereignty be called off once and for all, but the Americans and Israelis rejected their position. After some back and forth, the term "suspension" was adopted. In exchange, the Emiratis at first wanted to make do with just partial normalization. Here as well the Americans and Israelis put up a united front, demanding full normalization.
One thing that wasn't discussed with the Israelis during those intense days at the White House was the UAE's expectation that it receive advanced American weaponry, including the F-35 stealth fighter jet. The Israelis were aware however of the issue. "The Emiratis had been asking for those kinds of systems for years. We knew that as soon as we normalized relations, they would bring it up again and try to get what they had tried to in the past. For that reason, we didn't agree to discuss it prior to the signing of the peace accords," says a senior Israeli official.
To make its message clear, Netanyahu, prior to the White House talks, sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating categorically that Israel continued to oppose the sale of arms that would counter the American obligation to maintain its qualitative edge vis-a-vis the rest of the region, a statement whose significance was a clear objection to sale of the fighter jets. Israel refused to even discuss ways to maintain its qualitative edge until the official White House ceremony was over.
Toward mid-August conditions had matured for an agreement. Aryeh Lightstone, a senior adviser to Ambassador Friedman, says that the title given to the agreements, "Abraham Accords," only came up an hour before the three-way call between Trump, Netanyahu and MBZ on Aug. 13, 2020. All the rest is history.
We wanted this to be a peace agreement between peoples, one that would lead to business ties and entrepreneurial connections – not just an agreement between ministers or leaders, recalls the American official.
In that spirit, Berkowitz insisted that the agreement include direct flights between the two countries. "That proved itself. Over 200,000 Israelis flew to the Emirates that year. Despite COVID, there are agreements and collaborations between the countries and between individuals in a wide range of fields. That is something we are going to be proud of all our lives."
