Published: 24 December 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
In an interview with The Jewish Independent's editor about his explosive book, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid says Trump got sick of Netanyahu’s arrogance over annexation, but helped him save face with the Abraham Accords
IT’S HARD TO believe that one of most significant international peace agreements in recent memory started with a brief conversation in an airport taxi ride.
But that’s what happened in 2018, when the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, rang Avi Berkowitz, deputy to US Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, en route to the White House after another frustrating trip to Israel.
“What do you think about proposing to the Israelis to drop annexation in return for normalisation with the UAE?” Al Otaiba suggested cheekily.
Berkowitz, who had just flown back from Israel after telling Benjamin Netanyahu that President Trump would not agree to his plan to annex the West Bank, replied: “you might not believe it but this is exactly what I thought the other day.”
This equivalent of a bar room chat between two friends, who happened to be influential diplomats, quickly developed into a landmark geopolitical strategy known as the Abraham Accords, which were announced to the world just 45 days later.
This revealing anecdote about how modern-day diplomacy operates is one of many memorable insights that Israeli journalist Barak Ravid has revealed in his bombshell book, Trump's Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East, which has been making news around the world since its release this month.
In an exclusive interview with The Jewish Independent last week, Ravid said “if I split the book into different stories, I could write front page headlines for three months”. The most shocking, in Ravid’s opinion, was Trump’s use of the F-word against Netanyahu, which revealed to the world that the so-called “bromance” between the two leaders was a myth, a cover for an intersection of pragmatic political interests.
Among other significant revelations from the book, Ravid also told The Jewish Independent:
The prospect of annexation was “very very real”: One day before the Accords were announced, Netanyahu told the White House he was backing out because he wanted to use annexation to appeal to his right-wing voter base in an election he planned to call two weeks later.
Netanyahu saw Trump as a “useful idiot”, like an “all you can eat buffet in Vegas, for $6.95”. At a certain point Trump realised it, and he didn't like it, and that was the beginning of the end of their political relationship.
Trump and Jared Kushner knew the Palestinans would reject their “Deal of the Century” out of hand. But theyintentionally “left more meat on the bone – eg the Jordan Valley - for the Palestinians if they chose to re-engage”.
Trump thought the Accords would eventually bring the Palestinians back to the table because it would be unsustainable to continue holding back when more and more countries join the Accords. “At a certain point, he thought the Palestinians would not have any other choice.” Ravid said he thinks Trump’s strategy would have worked if he had been elected to a second term.
Trump did not realise how significant the Accords were during his first interview with Ravid. He called them “a significant achievement” but not his biggest foreign policy legacy. Only in his second interview, did he admit “wow, this thing is huge”.
Barak Ravid, a former Haaretz reporter who now works for Axios, says that although Trump was famously antagonistic towards the media during his presidency, he was receptive to Ravid’s approach for an interview and a book (one of a series of interviews he gave to journalists after leaving office).
“I sent a request and within a week or 10 days, I got a positive answer. I wasn't shocked. I think I had a good working relationship with the White House during the Trump presidency,” Ravid says.
“Like anybody else in the world, I'm interested in what's going on in America, but I'm not involved in domestic US politics. That gave me an advantage because I didn't come there to talk with Trump about January 6, or his policy on immigration or on abortion. It's just not my beat.
“I fell into this box of being the guy who came to talk to him about the more positive parts of his legacy. My interview was his chance to make sure that narrative is documented.”
Ravid had a 90-minute face-to-face with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in April (there were two aides in the room) followed by a second interview for 30 minutes over the phone. He says he was surprised by the ex-president’s demeanour and tone. “He was really down to earth. There was no distance; he was very open. It was very warm, frank, open.”
He approached both Netanyahu and also the former Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, five or six times for an interview. Both of them said no.
TRUMP AND THE PALESTINIANS
Trump’s approach to dealing with the Palestinians was quite balanced, according to Ravid. “In Trump's orbit the person who was the most balanced about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was Trump. It was not a surprise [to me] because during the election campaign in 2016 he said that was really neutral.
“He understood that for to get a deal, both sides will have to compromise and he was ready to press Bibi to make those compromises and those concessions.
“I think he got ready when he presented his “Deal of the Century” peace plan in January 2020. He didn't do this because he thought there would be negotiations the next day; he knew the Palestinians would reject it out of hand. But I think he was putting it out to prepare for a possible second term.
“He thought: ‘if I'm there for another four years, I won't have any political constraints on me whatsoever. I can do whatever I want.’ The Palestinians would know that if there another four years, they would have to go back to the table. The Israelis would know that there's nothing holding them back, which would put pressure on them. So everybody would have to engage.”
the Jordan Valley was left as meat on the bone for the Palestinians if they were willing to engage.
Trump thought the Palestinians might genuinely come to the table despite all their rhetoric, says Ravid. “When you know you're facing now another four years of Trump in office, it's a pretty bold own decision to say, ‘I don't care I am continuing to boycott him and not engage’.
“By the way, I agree that it wasn't a viable policy by the Palestinians. If Trump won the election, burying your head in the sand was just not going to work. And I think they knew it.”
The peace plan involved offering the Palestinians parcels of non-contiguous land in the south of Israel, a meagre offering which the Palestinians rejected out of hand. Did Trump really think they would accept it?
“I'm not sure Trump was really across the details of the peace plan. But Jared Kushner for sure knew.
“The plan that was presented on January 28, 2020, was a plan that was based just on talks with Israelis, and the White House inclination was not to give the Palestinians anything, as long as they're rejecting everything out of hand and not engaging.”
Kushner intentionally looked at the plan as an opening gambit, Ravid says. “For example, the Jordan Valley, which is 70% of the West Bank, which was perceived to be part of Israel in the future, was actually left as meat on the bone for the Palestinians if they were willing to engage.
“The White House thought that once the Palestinians engaged and saw that they [would] get the Jordan Valley, it would be a huge win for them, and it would encourage them to continue this engagement.
“At the time, I don't think Netanyahu realised that this was the state of mind in the White House. He thought he's just going to get the Jordan Valley, which was not the case at all.”
As for the argument that this initial offer was such a “low-ball” offer that it made the Palestinians feel so insulted and alienated that there was no point in engaging, Ravid says the Palestinians had already “left the building” once Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognised it as the capital of Israel, two years earlier in December 2017.
“That was it for them.”
NETANYAHU AND TRUMP
Netanyahu completely underestimated Trump, saying his brinkmanship over annexation was a reflection of disrespect for him, according to Ravid. Netanyahu thought he could bulldoze his way through the door that Trump had opened and he was not going to care.
“But Trump understood after he announced the rollout of the peace plan in 2018, that Netanyahu was not [with him]. He saw that all Netanyahu was interested in was in a land grab. And he wasn't going to let Netanyahu implement this land grab whatsoever.
“This is why when Netanyahu announced that he would bring a resolution to the Israeli cabinet, five days after the peace plan was presented, Trump told me he got angry and he stopped it.
“[Trump] did the same thing in July 2020, when Netanyahu put this artificial deadline on July 1, 2020, to start annexation of the West Bank. Trump said ‘I don't feel bound by this deadline. It's not my deadline. I'm not supporting annexation at all.’
“I think Trump would be very happy if Bibi would come back and kiss his ring. At the end of the day, the relationship wasn't a friendship. It was a very politically-centred connection.
“Netanyahu realised that he couldn't [go ahead with annexation] and he had to look for a ladder to climb down from the tree and the Emiratis gave him this this ladder to change course and to move from annexation to normalisation.
Ravid says that Trump was responsible for stopping annexation, and then worked together with Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of the UAE, to turn a negative into a positive. “We have to remember the Accords stopped annexation. If it had taken place, the two-state solution would be off the table for good.”
With the idea hatched by Yousef Al Otaiba and Avi Berkowitz, Bin Zayed “gave Trump the ammunition to use in order to get Netanyahu down from the tree.”
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS
In their first interview, Trump told Ravid: “it's an achievement, but I don't know if it's the biggest achievement”. But in their second interview, three months later, Ravid says Trump thought that this will be one of the things that 50 years from now, people will look back and will say, “wow, this was a huge, huge thing”.
Ravid says he experienced a similar dawning of its impact. “If you asked me today, how I see the Abraham Accords and how I saw them a year ago, I can tell you that a year ago, I was very excited. I thought there was a lot of potential but I didn't think it would mean such a huge change in the region.
We have to remember the Accords stopped annexation. If it had taken place, the two-state solution would be off the table for good.”
“I have to pinch myself You see the Israeli Minister of Defence in Morocco, discussing with the Moroccans military cooperation, or Israeli Navy with the US Fifth Fleet and soldiers from the UAE and Bahrain.
“You see the trade figures with the UAE or the flights that now you can take. There are more than a million Israelis of Moroccan background who, all of a sudden, can go [to Morocco] whenever they want.
“Some 250,000 Israelis went to the UAE during the past year. This means that every tenth family in Israel was touched directly by those agreements. It's incredible.”
TRUMP’S ATTITUDE TO ISRAEL
Ravid says Israel was already part of Trump's world outlook when he was elected president. “I don't think it was forced on him. I think Trump visited Israel only once when he was president he never visited before. But I got the sense that he saw Israel in a very positive way. He stated it was also good politics for him. I think it was genuine.
“He even said several times that a lot of what he did was to help Netanyahu politically. But he also said that he did it because he thought it would be good for Israel. And he said, ‘I did it for Israel, not for Netanyahu’.”
A key example, says Ravid, is Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
“He thinks it’s the most important thing he did. He said several times: ‘I did it for Israel, not Netanyahu’, and that even if Netanyahu had not pushed him, he would have withdrawn anyway.”
REACTIONS TO THE BOOK
Ravid says he has not spoken to Trump since the book was published. “But from what I understood from his people, he was very happy.
The only reaction that came from Netanyahu was a statement in response to Trump’s anger that Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory, which was documented in the book.
“In the statement he said he appreciates Trump but that he had no choice; that he had to do what's right for the country. By the way, I think he's right. It's not like he could do anything else other than congratulate Biden.
“But Netanyahu’s people told me that he didn't try to reach out after the interview and the book were published. At least not yet. He regrets what Trump says but he doesn't think that from his side, there's any bad blood.”
Does Ravid think there is any bad blood on Trump‘s side?
“I don't know. If you ask me, if Netanyahu calls him tomorrow, will Trump take the call? Yes. He's going to take the call. Is there a good chance that afterwards, he will issue a statement saying that he likes Bibi and they're all good?
There’s a good chance he will.
“I think Trump would be very happy if Bibi would come back and kiss his ring. At the end of the day, the relationship wasn't a friendship. It was a very politically-centred connection.
Bibi is very important for Trump’s evangelical base. And Trump was very important for Bibi’s right-wing settler base. And so for them to show what good friends they are, was just a very lucrative political thing to do.”
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Photo: Israeli journalist Barak Ravid
