The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 279. Middle East: Peace Beckons | David Friedman

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Dr. Peterson's extensive catalog is available now on DailyWire+: https://utm.io/ueJdKAs the Ambassador to Israel under President Donald Trump, David Friedman accomplished many things including the historical passing of the Abraham Accords. Ambassador Friedman joins to discuss his time under President Trump and how the accords came to fruition.David Melech Friedman (born August 8, 1958) is an American bankruptcy lawyer and the former United States Ambassador to Israel. He joined the law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman (then known as Kasowitz, Hoff, Benson & Torres) in 1994, where he met and represented Donald Trump, then chairman and president of The Trump Organization.He was an advisor to Trump during his successful presidential campaign. In December 2016, President-elect Trump's transition team announced that Friedman was Trump's nominee for ambassador. He was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, officially sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on March 29 and presented his credentials on May 15 to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.Read Sledgehammer: https://www.amazon.com/Sledgehammer-Breaking-Brought-Peace-Middle/dp/0063098113 // SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL //Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/jordanbpeterson.com/youtubesignup Donations: https://jordanbpeterson.com/donate  // COURSES // Discovering Personality: https://jordanbpeterson.com/personality Self Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.com Understand Myself (personality test): https://understandmyself.com  // BOOKS // Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life: https://jordanbpeterson.com/Beyond-Order 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-meaning  // LINKS // Website: https://jordanbpeterson.com Events: https://jordanbpeterson.com/events Blog: https://jordanbpeterson.com/blog Podcast: https://jordanbpeterson.com/podcast  // SOCIAL // Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson Instagram: https://instagram.com/jordan.b.peterson Facebook: https://facebook.com/drjordanpeterson Telegram: https://t.me/DrJordanPeterson All socials: https://linktr.ee/drjordanbpeterson  #JordanPeterson #JordanBPeterson #DrJordanPeterson #DrJordanBPeterson #DailyWirePlus

The effect it's had on the people of Israel, the people of UAE, the optimism and opportunity is brought to the Middle East. None of that has been covered at all. And I think it's all because it came from us, from the Trump administration. Yeah, but that's no bloody excuse here. That's no excuse. This transcends the political as far as I'm concerned, and I think as far as anybody reasonable would be concerned. And

it's important to give the devil his due, and that's the case, even if the devil happens to be Trump and his damned minions. And the fact seemed to me to be clear on the ground that this represents a significant and very unexpected move forward on the piecefront in the Middle East, and that's been a problem that has threatened all of us for for 70 years, for longer than that, on all sorts of fronts. Hello, everyone. It's my great pleasure and privilege to have with me today Ambassador David Friedman. As the United States Ambassador to Israel from March 2017 until January 2021, Ambassador Friedman successfully guided unprecedented diplomatic advancements in the US-Israel relationship, including moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem,

moved that was promised by many previous administrations but never occurred, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He is also among a very small group of American officials, signally responsible for the Abraham Accords, comprehensive peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, for which he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. Ambassador Friedman was recognized

in each of the past five years by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world, coming in first in 2020. He also was named one of the 20 most impactful persons of the past decade by the Jewish telegraphic agency. Ambassador Friedman was honored by President Trump with a rare national security medal in September 2020 and by the US joint chiefs of staff

with the Meritorious Civilian Service Medal in April 2019. He has received numerous other honors, recognitions and awards, including honorary doctorates from Ushi the University in New York and aerial university in the Shomron. On February 8th, 2022, Harper Collins published Ambassador Friedman's memoir, Sledgehammer, how breaking with the past brought peace to the Middle East.

And his first week, Sledgehammer broke sales records how breaking with the past brought peace to the Middle East. And it's first week, Sledgehammer broke sales records for a book on the state of Israel. Ambassador Friedman is also the founder of the Friedman Center for Peace Through Strength, which works to build upon the ambassador's achievements in strengthening the US-Israel relationship. Welcome, Ambassador Friedman, David. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

I'm very pleased that you're willing to share what you've done with me and my audience and welcome to the discussion. Thank you, Jordan. It's an honor to be on your show. So let's start. let's jump right in. Let's start with an overview of the Abraham Accords and people are, I'm sure that my ignorance is shared by many people. We can start right from the beginning.

What did you do and why and what does it mean? Well, the Abraham Accords is a series of agreements between Israel, four Muslim countries. If you had Kosovo in Europe, it's actually five Muslim countries. And people have heard for years, for decades about the Arab-Israeli conflict, the most intractable, if you will, of all the conflicts.

And there was some progress made in the 1970s with Egypt and then in 1994 with Jordan. And that was it, 25 years, and there was no progress. And you had the Arab League consisting of about 22 countries that reflexively would oppose Israel, not just at the United Nations, but in every diplomatic attempt made by the United States. So the United States accepted this conventional wisdom that had been around for 50 years,

that until Israel made progress with the Palestinians, there could be no progress among any other of the Arab nations, which was, in many respects, a counter-retuitive, we proved it to be flat out wrong. And as a result, the Middle East remained a very dangerous place with really no opportunities for any advancement, notwithstanding the fact they were, they're more than 20 Arab countries, all with different issues, different populations, different concerns. We knew that Israel and some of these countries already had covert contacts. We knew that most of these countries didn't hate Israel.

Some of them didn't even know why. They didn't like Israel. Some of them just reflexively acted against Israel. But you couldn't do anything because of this conventional wisdom. John Kerry was the biggest cheerleader for this point of view, that until Israel makes peace with the Palestinians, you can't move forward. And when we came into office in 2017,

we were given a mandate from President Trump to try to bring some greater modicum of peace to the Middle East. What we recognized was that virtually everything that was in the playbook of the State Department for the past 50 years was just wrong. It was just wrong. It was stale. It had done nothing but increased the misery of the

people's living in the region. And we started to take a different tack. And there's lots of pieces to that. I'm happy to go through them as you like me to, but we basically just changed all the rules of the game. Okay, so what accounts for this remarkable intransigence on this front lasting 50 years? The evidence for the validity of your viewpoint is that when you challenge this presumption and you said the central presumption was there was no movement possible on the Arab Israeli front, or let's say on the Muslim Israeli front, maybe to broaden it to some degree if that's not appropriate.

There was no progress possible on that without movement in relationship to peace with the Palestinians. And so that was accepted dogma, and it put things into stasis for five decades. Now, you pointed out that the countries that are relevant to such an agreement are diverse and share a very diverse range of opinions, let's say, towards Israel. And so, why was this accepted dogma on the State Department's part? And why was that accepted, in some sense, without question by President's other than Trump until recently. I mean, this is the biggest peace issue in the world. And since I've been alive, I would say with the possible exception of the constant clamoring on the Cold War front.

So how do you count for this? Well, I found that I found that disturbing in at times amusing. I, you know, I entered government from the outside. I had briefings early on when I was confirmed as ambassador with people in the State Department. And to them, the entire Arab-Israeli conflict was simply boiled down to Israel and the Palestinians. Now, first of all, that was just the accepted dog.

I challenged it. I challenged it on numerous occasions. And they said, look, it's a great question. You're wasting your time. You're completely wasting your time. The Palestinians are the issue. If you solve the Palestinian issue, you can unlock the rest of the Arab world,

the rest of the Muslim world, as you say. If you can solve the Palestinian issue, nobody else of the Muslim world, as you say, if you can solve the Palestinian issue, nobody else will even talk to you. Now just to put that into a bigger context, when you say the Palestinian issue, you're talking about Israel not just making peace with the Palestinian authority, which in and of itself is a corrupt organization whose leader, as people like to say, is in the 17th year of his four-year term. He was elected for four years. He hasn't had election since.

He stayed on another 13 years with no democratic mandate. He runs a corrupt government. He respects no human rights. The justice system is non-existence, the financial transparency is non-existent. There is extraordinary subjugation of women. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. I mean, those are the good guys.

Then you have Hamas, which operates in the West Bank, but primarily controls the Gaza Strip. Take all that, and they're extraordinarily violent, and they don't even accept the notion that one Jew should live anywhere between the Mediterranean, see and the Jordan River. So these are the people. These are the organizations that the State Department says

until you get them on board, all right? You can't move any further within the region. And there's really no way to get them on board. I mean, they're releasing them anyway. Okay, so there's two issues that work there from what I understand. Then the first is what appears to me to be an oversimplified rationalization for failure to move forward, which would be the acceptance of a low-resolution ideology that you can boil

down all the complexities of the Arab-slash, Muslim-slash, Palestinian relationship to the issue of Palestine. And that because that's intractable, there's no point wasting effort on the attempt to take a more differentiated approach to bringing peace to the Middle East, combined with, and this is a mystery that we could also delve into, the fact that there seems to be a reflexive identification for many on the west with the Palestinians on the side of this conflict. And it seems to me that's fueled by this equally global and vague, reductive notion that the Palestinians are oppressed and oppressed people are always virtuous and since oppressed people are virtuous, the Israelis must be oppressors and wrong, despite whatever sins, let's say the Palestinian leadership manifests, which are justifiable in any case because of the fact that they're oppressed and couldn't possibly know better.

Is that too cynical? No, no, it's not that it's not even cynical enough. You could take it another step, which is the Palestinian's apart from your point about, well, they must be right if they're weak, which is of course, one does not flow from the other. But the Palestinian leadership, the Palestinian Authority, which is again, as people say, the least dirty shirt in the closet,

the Palestinian Authority spends hundreds of million dollars from its budget that could otherwise be used to build a hospital or a school. They use that money to reward an incentivized terrorist to kill Jews. The United States funds the Palestinian Authority we didn't under Trump. We cut that all out, but Biden has recently resumed all that funding. Just to put this in perspective, the United States of America, the taxpayers of the United States, are paying the Palestinian authority to

incentivize their people to kill Jews. I mean, that's not too broad a statement. So, okay, so, okay, well, I don't often get accused of not being cynical enough, but I do appreciate that correction. So, let's return to the Palestinian issue later, because we don't often get accused of not being cynical enough, but I do appreciate that correction. So let's return to the Palestinian issue later because we don't want to get sidelined entirely by that as the whole world has been sidelined for five decades. Let's talk about the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, and you said, possible. And so these countries, for some reason, were willing to move beyond, let's say, the State Department, Dicta, and work with you to improve relations with Israel

and to improve the possibility of peace in the Middle East. And so why were they willing to do that and why them in particular? So let me focus. I'll share with you a conversation I had with, because I think it's the most telling, with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, who was the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates. And I sat with him, you know, this past summer after the Abraham Accords were already, you know, out for more than a year. And I said to him,

is this just about Israel having common enemies with Iran and Bahrain? He said just about the fact that everybody doesn't like and is threatened by Iran, or is there more to this? What in your mind got us started? And what he said to me, and he said something that I thought was very profound, although probably the Russian Ukraine

or maybe the exception that proves that rule. But what he said to me is in the 21st century, the real conflicts in the world are not really between nations anymore, they're really between ideologies. And primarily, they're between extremists and moderates. And we in the UAE were fighting that battle. And in the United States, you're fighting that battle. And in Israel, you're fighting that battle. You have roughly 80% of the populations are center, right center, left in the middle. In the past, they've always been able to find common ground.

But now, you've got 10% people crazy on the left, 10% crazy on the right, extremists willing to resort, to violence, to achieve their means. And that's the fight that we have to win. And Israel and UAE and America and Bahrain and Morocco, we're all on the same side of that fight. Our interests are completely aligned. And I thought, that's after the fact,

but that's as good as an explanation, as I've heard from anybody, as to why the Abraham Accords came together. But this is very important. Just because there are reasons for people to align, you have to create the right environment to do that. You have to create the political opportunity for it to happen. You have to create the kind of,

the United States has to create the coverage for these countries to move out of their comfort zone. And so it was a long process. And if I can, it began in May of 2017. I can share with you what I think was the first step and one of the most important if I could share that with you now. Please do, please do. So the very first trip that President Trump took

to the mid-east was in, I'm sorry, the very first trip President Trump took on foreign soil was to the mid-east, was in, I'm sorry, the very first trip President Trump took on foreign soil was to the mid-east, and he went to three places. First place he went was to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, where he assembled 50 Muslim nations. And he said two things to them, and the tape is extraordinary.

They were at wrapped attention. And he said two things, which I the tape is extraordinary. They were at wrapped attention and he said two things which I don't think any president has ever said before. The first thing he said was radical Islamic terrorism is your problem in the first instance. I don't want to have to deal with it. On my side of the Atlantic, don't make me deal with radical Islamic terrorism. You solve the problem, it's coming from here. And if you do, you will find the United States to be an extraordinarily good friend. That was the first thing you said, and a lot of people listen to it, and a lot of people acted on. The second thing you said is, for those of you still wasting your time thinking that Israel is going to be wiped off the mapper, they're not going to exist, you're wasting your time. Forget about it. It's never going to happen. Israel, you should be

seeking to emulate Israel as an economy, as a power, as a democracy. This is a solution. This is a solution in the Middle East. It's not a problem. And those of you who still think it's a problem and think somehow, you're going to shortchanges, real or get it to go away or push it into the sea. It's a pipe dream, you're wasting your time, it'll never happen. And it's inconsistent with the relationship with the United States. You said those two things. And let me tell you, at the time, we couldn't tell you how far that would go.

But now looking back from in hindsight, boy, was that an important speech. And he doesn't get any of the credit he deserves for it, but boy was that important. The next thing he does, he flies directly to Tel Aviv. Now they told him, Mr. President, we have to stop in Amman. Why? Because you can't fly from Riyadh to Tel Aviv, the Saudis won't let. And the President says, I just spent two days with the king. He's making me stop in Amman, he's making me kind of go out of my way, just for some symbolic gesture. Tell him I want to fly straight from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. And of course, when he made that request, it was granted.

And this was the first flight ever from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. You know, Biden's making a big deal now that he's flying straight to Saudi Arabia from Tel Aviv. The president of the United States under Trump did it five years ago. Okay, so then he comes to Israel. Where does he go? He does something no president has ever done before. He goes to the Western Wall. He's the only sitting president to go to the Western Wall.

Why is that important? Because you know, presidents used to like to come to Israel and go to Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Memorial. Yad Vashem is an extraordinary place. It's one of the most stirring places on earth. But Yad Vashem is not the state of Israel. Yad Vashem is not the DNA of the state of Israel. The DNA of the state of Israel is the Western Wall, is the Temple Mount. This is what connects the Jewish people to their 4,000-year-old history. At the Western Wall, you see Mount Mariah, where Abraham bound Isaac.

You have the two temples. This is the place where Jews have prayed for 2,000 years to be returned. Well, Trump went there. Again, the only sitting president ever to visit the Western Wall. Biden wouldn't go. He was too timid. You know, he reverted to that, you know, that kind of stale, you know, sense of even headinness. He wouldn't go. So the president goes to the to the Western Wall and he gave an incredible speech in Israel. Again,

recognizing, not just that the Jewish people have suffered, which of course, Jews have suffered throughout history. But they did more than suffer. They built something. They restored their people to the land of Israel, fulfilling not vengeance for the Holocaust, but fulfilling a 2000-year-old dream, unfulfilled dream of the Jewish people. And then last but not least, he went to the Vatican, okay? He met with the Pope, and he incorporated, you know, Christian theology into his overall message. So this was the seeds that were planted that eventually got us to the Abraham, of course.

Lots of steps then along the way. Okay, so you said that Trump went to Riyadh, he brought 50 Muslim nations together, and he made two very blunt declarations, which was to control terrorism, to place that back in some sense in the domain of the responsibility of the Muslim countries. And that is in accordance with the discussion that you described with the leaders from the UAE

that the people, civilized people of the world that say are suffering from the same problem, which is how do you control the minority of extremists? And we can just talk to that. And then Trump also said forthrightly, two other things that the Americans are going to throw their weight behind Israel permanently. And so any dream of eradicating Israel as a state is a pipe dream unless the consequences are unless you're willing to face the consequences, let's say. And that also that Israel should be regarded as a state to emulate given its democratic

structure and its thriving economy and its ability, let's say to regenerate the desert and all of that. And that it could be viewed as a partner to Learn from and appreciate rather than as an enemy. Yep, and then the emphasis on the necessity for the unbroken flight The visit to the Western wall and the visit to the Vatican and so what why in the world was Trump able to do that? Why was he willing to do that and what made him? Why in the world was Trump able to do that? Why was he willing to do that? And what made him, let's say simultaneously, a friend of the Jews and Israel,

but also someone that the Arabs and the Muslims more broadly were willing to deal with? Well, he was willing to do it because, he, first of all, he assembled a group of people that he respected and that I think, you know, we're all moving this direction. Primarily, I would say Jared Kushner and me, two guys, no government experience, but people that he had great respect for.

We explained to him that this conflict was going nowhere. And unless he radically re-aligned America's priorities, he would finish his term in office the same way everybody else did. And we have these discussions. And I think, look, he is the right president for the Middle East because he is strong. He is fearless. I mean, he worked that. Those actions were manifest throughout his four years, including the decision to assassinate

Kassam Suleimani, which was an extraordinary message. He sent to the Iranians. But the president is very strong. He's a strong leader, and in the Middle East, we have a saying, in the Middle East, you read their stronger, you're dead. Everybody, everybody, even the country is that didn't agree with them. Even the Palestinians that reviled him because he wouldn't agree with them, they respected him. Even the Palestinians said that the only guy who can make peace is Trump, because he wouldn't agree with them, they respected him. And even the Palestinians said that the only guy who can make peace is Trump,

because he's tough and you're strong and he backs up what he says, and none of us can pull the bull over his eyes. What we say on the Arab street in Arabic is gonna get translated, he's gonna find out about it, he's not gonna give us the wiggle room to say nice things in English for the American press and then say something different to the Arab street.

He's holding us accountable. It's very interesting. I mentioned to you just before we started this interview statement by Nietzsche that great men are seldom credited with their stupidity. And Trump is from the perspective of a psychologist, a person who's low in trait agreeableness, so highly disagreeable or at least highly impolite,

technically speaking, and that's not an insult or a criticism by the way, it just means that he's not, well, it means that he's forthright and blunt and brash and able to say no. And that does have the consequence of making him a divisive character on the domestic front. But it's an open question how much that forthright and stubborn strength of character is the prerequisite for the kinds of negotiations that you're describing. And that's really something that we don't understand. We don't understand the full complexity of human personality and what's necessary in

each situation. And so why do you think, okay, so now we know why Trump could do it, at least at a personal level, why do you think he cared and made this centerpiece of his policy? Because he's a businessman in some real sense, and it wasn't self-evident to me, and I think to many people that foreign policy would necessarily be an interest of Trumps. And yet, he pursued this Middle East policy asidiously and carefully. And with Melissa Forthot, let's say, and also very effectively.

So why was this so important to him? So look, it wasn't something he ran on. He ran almost entirely on a domestic agenda. He has a real interest in Israel, both because people that he's close to have a deep interest in Israel, whether it was Jared or Ivanka or me or many of his friends that he dealt with over years in the New York real estate market. He also, I think, was intrigued by the challenge because, you know, peace in the Middle East is sort of, you know, considered as likely as a solar eclipse

or maybe even less likely. So, you know, the challenge, I think, was something that he saw interesting. And, and look, I don't think he spent a huge portion of his time on this. What he did is he deputized Jared and me to work the region, Jason Greenblad as well when he was working there. We worked the region, we studied, we thought more about what to do. After that trip, we began to move forward with some real historic pro-Israel moves. Both because we wanted to do it, both because the president had promised he would do it

because they were extraordinarily important to many of the people that voted for him. And also because it would give us a real sense of how a pro-Israel policy could be harmonized with the pro-Moderatesunni policy as well. And it was interesting. My friend Jarred likes to talk about his conversations when he spoke to a few of his Arab friends in the region about potentially moving our embassy to Jerusalem, and they said to him, Jarrod, I'm not going to tell you to move the embassy or not move the embassy,

but what I am going to tell you is that if you move the embassy, you'll find out who your friends are. And that just struck me as an extraordinary observation. Because when we moved the embassy, we did. We found out who our friends were. You know, again, the State Department, the CIA, much to the consternation of Mike Pompeo who was running the CIA at the time. But the CIA analyst predicted that if we move our embassy, we're going to create an arc of violence from Morocco all the way to Pakistan.

And everything that we did on our own, all the conversations we had suggested exactly the opposite. But what do we know? What do I know? I'm a recovering lawyer and Jared is a real estate guy. But everything we knew, everybody we spoke to said, that's not going to be the case. Yeah, well, it was, it's also the case that, well, it's also the case that, you know, you'd think, if you were thinking about this strategically beforehand, in some sense, that the move of the embassy to Jerusalem would have scuttled any chances whatsoever.

That would be the accepted dog by any ways that would have scuttled any chances whatsoever of moving forward with a broader peace accord, you know, so much for expert prediction. But that's not at all what happened. No, not only is it not what happened, but, you know, in terms of the arc of getting from that trip that the president took in May of 2017 to the Abraham Accords, one of the most important steps along the way, counterintuitively, was moving around the city to Jerusalem. Why? Because what the president was saying and moving around the city to Jerusalem, he was delivering a few messages. The first is, I keep my campaign promises.

I'm a reliable ally. I told people I would move the embassy to Jerusalem, so did Obama, so did Clinton, so did Bush. I'm keeping that promise. You can trust me. Number two, I'm going to fulfill the will of the American people. The American people have, through their Congress, voted overwhelmingly to move the embassy to Jerusalem through the Jerusalem Embassy Act.

I'm taking that view seriously. I care what the American people think. The other presidents have all signed waivers. I'm going to do something different. Number three, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of, who would I be afraid of? I'm not afraid of rogue nations. I'm not afraid of the threats of rogue nations. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. Who would I be afraid of and do it? I'm not afraid of rogue nations. I'm not afraid of the threats of rogue nations.

I'm not afraid of terrorists. I'm not afraid of rogue actors. I'm going to do what's best for America. I'm going to do what I promised. And somebody wants to complain. You have my phone number. But I'm doing what I think is right. Right.

And as you said, you get to know then who supports you and who complains in a real concrete sense, right? Because it's no longer abstract. It's something that actually happened, something that was in some sense, let's say, provocative, but also justifiable, especially from the democratic legislative perspectives and she know who complained i mean apart from apart from some you know perfunctory words of complaint that were that were your kind of meaningless you know who complained hummus you know a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction nobody else complained even the p8 so we don't we don't we don't care about that in

fact we're happy about it because you always want to irritate the right people in some real sense. But and and and so you know we we now we now did a couple of things. We proved that we would keep promises. We proved that we would stand with our ally Israel and and and and and recognize what the American people have recognized for two decades that Jerusalem's the capital of Israel. We're not afraid. Okay, and we're willing to. So, what happened?

What happened was a lot of countries took notice and instead of being angry, they said, wow, America can really be a good friend to its allies. It can be counted upon under this president. How do we get in on this? How do we join this circle of trust that seems like a whole different America? This guy Trump, I want to be with him. I don't want to be against him. I see.

Okay, so let me ask you another question here that's a little bit of a sideways move. Okay, so as I mentioned, when I introduced you, you know, my ignorance knows no bounds, and I want to talk a little bit about Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblot. So, I'll tell you right off the bat that I know very little about Jared Kushner, but I can tell you what I do know and how I learned it. And what I know is that he's a reprehensible individual who was never suited for his job and he was a nepotistic appointee by the Trump administration and that there is nothing good about him on any front. And I learned all of that, I would say, from my casual interactions with the legacy media, who I've learned to

trust about absolutely nothing. And so what I'm curious about is, I need to know more, I would like to know more about Jared, and why you and Jason Greenblatt, and more about Greenblatt as well, why you outsiders, first of all, were brought in, and why you were able to, you know, what was Trump's justification for bringing you in? Why did you agree to do this? And why were you able to, and willing to, move the log jam? I can, in some sense, it makes sense, right?

If something's been stuck for 50 years, maybe you don't want to stay working with the same people who've been stuck for 50 years. And so outsiders arguably, at least can look at something different. The counter-argument would be, well, you guys were in some real sense. I don't think this is overstating it, but foreign policy and policy amateurs. And so why you, why did the teamwork between the three of you work? What positive attributes, I suppose, and negative attributes did you bring to bear on the problem? And why did it work? So, that's probably, that question is probably requires a book to fully answer. That question probably requires a book to fully answer. And I have some of that in my book.

But I would say that, first of all, starting off on a macro level, I don't think you have the Abraham Accords without Jared Kushner. I think Jared did two things that were essential for the Abraham Accords, the first of which was just generally, I think, he established really important relations of trust with these countries. Now, how do you know that? We announced the Abraham Accords, the first one with the UAE on August 13th of 2020. This was, we did it from the White House, we did it from the Oval Office.

This was an Oval Office that was plagued by leaks, you know, as well as me, leaks every day. I mean, every single day somebody was running to the press with something about Trump, what he was about to do, something on flattering, or even something good. I mean, but the leaks were just rampant, all right? When we were working on the Abraham Accords, really, you know, from the day we began, we were working on our agreement with the UAE for over a month. When we announced the deal with the UAE on August 13th, it really shocked the world.

Nobody saw it coming. Nobody. Why didn't I want to see it coming? Because Jared and I and Jason had already left the government at that point, but Jared and I, and the president and Mike Pompeo, Robert O'Brien, Mike Pence, that was it. That was the universal people in America who knew about this. Israel, you know, probably Netanyahu and Ron Durmer and his national security adviser,

three or four people in UAE, the level of trust that we established. And Jared was really, I would say, the Keto all that, that creating that level of trust. The trust was extraordinary. It wouldn't have got done without trust. The second thing that Jared did, which is I think maybe even more remarkable. So we put out a piece plan in January of 2020. Most people consider it to be extraordinarily pro-Israel. In my view, I think it was the maximalist position

that could be given to the Palestinians with, you know, in a deal that involved Israel. It had the support of a right-wing Israeli government, which, you know, the Palestinians, you know, ran to the Security Council and ripped it up. But we announced this deal. There were responses, you know, from Saudi Arabia, UAE, a bunch of Morocco, other countries, and Jared worked like, like, he worked day and night to make sure that even though the Palestinians were gonna trash this deal, we got, you know,

we got more of a positive response, you know, from the moderate Sunni and Asians, and we did. I mean, we got a response from Saudi Arabia that said, this is a good start. We think this should be the basis of future negotiations under the supervision of the United States. And that's from Saudi. Saudi was the author of the Arab Peace Initiative,

which had been there at the fault position for 30 years. I mean, it was a one-page document that Israel could never accept. So Jared was able to work these countries in a way that, how did you do it? So I actually think it was in the relationship. I think first of all, he had huge credibility because in the Gulf,

almost always the guy who's sort of the second and command at the Gulf in any of these Gulf countries is related to the king, right? So I mean, I think they saw Jared as a prince. This is a guy who really, we can trust him. He can deliver for the president. The president is never going to leave this guy hang. So he's credible. Okay, so he's credible. Very, very credible. Also, look, very, very smart. This, unfortunately, doesn't come across Jared, doesn't do much media, but very, very smart.

He's got a book coming out in August. I can't wait to read it. I think, oh, I should interview him. You should, because I have an, I don't know what it says, I'm really looking forward to reading it, but very, very smart. And with his eye on the bull, extremely loyal to Israel, you know, his grandparents are Holocaust survivors, his parents have invested huge amounts of their philanthropic dollars into Israel. But at the same time, made many trips to the Gulf and just developed credibility.

So I think that's really the heart of it. And this, okay, and so let's talk about this relation issue. So he was meeting people in person, I presume, and how did he pick the people and what is it that he offered them? We also haven't talked about the details, the specific details of the Accords themselves, which we have to get into, but I'm very interested in the process. And so, okay, so he was credible, he was close to Trump. People assumed that he had the power to do

what he said he was going to do. Yes. Then I think a lot of this was, face to face meetings and discussions. What are you concerned about? What do you guys need? What do you think is important for the relationship with the United States? I mean, it's really a lot of talking and a lot of listening

and a lot of getting to know each other and trying to find out where there was common ground. Now, you know, in the early years, in 2017 and 2018, you know, they were saying, some of these countries were saying to Jared, look Jared, you know, in the early years, in 2017 and 2018, you know, they were saying, some of these countries were saying to Jared, look Jared, you know, we need to find the way to get there. It's complicated, it's difficult, but you know, let's just stay in touch

and keep working this relationship and find ways to get closer. I mean, it wasn't like Jared said, here's what I want you, here's a piece of paper, sign this, here's what I want you to do. a piece of paper signed this. Here's what I want you to do. It was much more kind of touchy-feely in the first couple of years. Yeah, well, that's so important day.

I mean, it's also the case that it's very necessary not to have the details of this sort of process worked out on paper by bureaucrats who actually have no power whatsoever to transform it into policy, but to find decision-makers who like Kushner are close enough to actual sources of power so that when the discussions occur, the probability that the agreement is going to be transformed into action is extremely high. And that's a very difficult thing to negotiate if you're only dealing with

mid to lower level bureaucrats. Now, I mean, Jared was there often, and he had three or four major portfolios, and this is one of them. And, like Jason, while Jason was in government, would trek over there as well. He'd sit and listen, Jacob's a Jason's a great listener. He's very, very non-threatening. He's, you know, I would say I'm much pushier and more aggressive than him. So, you know, I'm sure that I'm sure people were happy to listen and host him.

And he listens and he heard and he would come back with thoughts. And we look, we were told by everybody, don't put out a plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians because it's not gonna go anywhere. And after all these conversations, we came to the conclusion that if we can come up with a plan which at least Israel is willing to accept and explain why this is reasonable

and if the Palestinians aren't going to go for it and they're going to kind of blow themselves up on the world stage even that I think will go a long way to convincing some of these other countries that the time has passed the Palestinians by. It's time to move on. I mean, we don't give up on making peace with the Palestinians, but if Israel is willing to really go forward with a serious plan, and the Palestinians just wanna rip it up, that gives everybody a certain amount of cover

to start doing what's best for their own people. Well, yeah, well, you guys removed the power they had in some sense if the State Department had assumed that peace was only possible through the Palestinians, then that put a tremendous amount of authority and power in their hands. And so by walking around them in multiple directions, you eliminated that ultimatum power in some sense that the Palestinians had always wielded. The first thing we did, I think your viewers might be interested in knowing, the first thing we did was back also in May of 2017, there were a number of people that were speaking to

the president and they were saying that the Palestinians were ready to make peace. It's Netanyahu who's the difficult one in this relationship. Go to Israel, beat up on BB and make him more reasonable, and the Palestinians will come to the table, and you'll win a Nobel Prize. And a lot of people were telling him that, including people inside government. And so, when the President comes to Israel, I went to, I did something which I got a lot of heat for afterwards, but I went and I told the, I said to an Netanyahu look, you just see another people, the president's being told that you're the problem, that you're the trouble maker, you're the guy that won't make a deal. And he said, well, that's

not true. And I said, well, look, if you want to convince the president, what I would suggest you do is let's make a two-minute video of some of the worst things that Mahmoud Abbas has said. I mean, he's supposed to be the peacemaker. Let's put together a film. Nothing out of context. Only the actual statements he's made about how the blood of every terrorist is holy and that one will never stop helping our holy terrorists.

And we won't give up one inch of Israel and we're going to take all of Jerusalem. Put that, let the president see it. And he said to me, David, I've met with countless world leaders. I've never made a video for them. I said, well, just make it. Maybe we won't use it. Maybe we will. We got into a room. We got into a room. And the video was there. I was there with Tillerson and the McMaster and Jared. And I said to the president, did you see the film? And he said, what film? And I said, let's play the film.

And he looked at the film, and he was shocked. And he said, this is the guy that I met with in Washington. This is the guy that everybody's telling me is ready to make peace. And then the next day, he goes to Bethlehem to meet with Abbas. And for starters, Abbas doesn't let me attend. He banishes me from the meeting. Yeah, I bet.

Which got the president very angry. And then the president just really let him pay for it. But also, signifies an intent, doesn't it, that the fact that he didn't let you come? That's a very interesting, and I would say counter strategic move on his part. It was a mistake. It certainly indicates the sort of person that he is.

Yeah, yeah. It was a mistake. And it got the president angry and the president said to him, look, you're not gonna pull the wool over my eyes. There's too many people watching you right now. You told me you wanted to make peace. I see this video, it says exactly the opposite. I want to know who you are.

Okay, don't do this to me. It's a big mistake. Don't play both sides. I'm not stupid. I can, you know, I form judgments very quickly. You know, who are you? And that also really changed the dynamics of the relationship. I want to move in two directions,

one after the other here. Let's talk a little bit more about the details of the accord. So what is it exactly that this agreement puts forward in principle or binds the signatory states to UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco? We can talk about the commonalities across the states and the differences. But can you give us all a description of the fundamental nature of the Abraham Accords? Sure. So the Abraham Accords are structured in two parts.

There is the Abraham Accords Declaration, which is the same for every country, in which there is a recognition that the parties will end their state of conflict and their state of hostilities. They will recognize each other's sovereignty. They will normalize relationships in all different ways, whether it's cultural, economic, political, they'll engage in strategic cooperation on matters of common interests for their respective national securities. They'll open up embassies, reciprocal embassies in the two countries in the exchange ambassadors.

So it's basically, it's a full normalization of peaceful relations. Then, and now that's the overall, if you will, common Abraham Accords. Now, with each country, if you look at it, the way I tend to look at it is each Abraham Accord is like a triangle. You have Israel and a Muslim country at the base, and you have America at the apex. And in each case, you know, something different is happening.

I'll give you some examples like with Sudan uh... with Sudan the um... they wanted to be taken off uh... the the terror list and and the Sudanese government had done significant things to uh... to combat terrorism um... by getting them off the terror list the terror watch list uh... the united states was able to help them with you know some basic humanism. They needed grain. They needed, I mean, it's a very poor country. So in the case of Sudan, we helped them end their status

as a terrorist pariah. They deserved it. And by the way, it's incredibly important for Israel because most of the arms that were heading up into Hamas were going up through Sudan, through the Sinai into Hamas and to the Gaza Strip. So that's Sudan. In the case of Morocco, Morocco had a longstanding territorial dispute with a group called the Policario in the Western Sahara. We had felt for years that Morocco was, the world was better off with Morocco having sovereignty over this territory.

A lot of other countries didn't recognize that sovereignty. We recognized Morocco's sovereignty over certain parts of the Western Sahara. That was sort of the lubricant that got them to the table. In the case of UAE, the really, UAE is looking for some advanced weaponry. We said, look, we don't, there is a, Israel is entitled by law to a qualitative military edge. That assessment will be done by professionals,

but clearly to the extent that there are no hostilities and you've normalized with Israel and you have diplomatic relationships, that's certainly going to go on a farewell in the calculus. It may or may not be enough, that's not for us to decide, but that will certainly farewell in the calculus of your relationship with the United States and the United States military.

In the case of Buckrain, they were actually the easiest. They didn't ask for, there was nothing in particular that was on the table, but they wanted, they thought, and I think correctly so, that their people would be advantaged by all the opportunities that stem from the relationship with Israel. Remember that, Israel has extraordinary advancements in technology, whether it's food tech, agrit tech, water technology, cyber defense, financial technology. I mean, they're a world leader.

I would say that in cyber, they're, they're, they're, they may be tied with America, you know, I mean, in water technology, they may be number one. So, I mean, there's a lot that Israel can provide once these relationships begin to bloom. As a trading partner, right, right, right. Yeah, okay, okay. So great.

Well, that all sounds extremely positive. And it's, it's very interesting to see the the commonality, the declaration of peace that's explicit, the mutual recognition of sovereignty. That's a big deal. The cooperation and normalization of political relationships, including the establishment of embassies and the opening of doors to communication. And then the cultural cooperation, which allows, for example, for Israel to be treated and to become a genuine trading partner, which you could see. I mean, if Israel is, in some sense, the Silicon Valley of the Middle East,

which I think is a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it, that could be of incalculable economic value for the surrounding Arab people. And so, Hareve, for that. Jordan, if you go to Ben Gori in Airport on any particular day today, and you look at the flight board, there are more flights leaving Israel for Abu Dhabi in Dubai

than I think almost any other location around the world. I mean, it's really extraordinary how this has blossomed over the last couple of years. And who do you think I like to give credit where credit is due? And so we've talked a little bit about the Americans who were signally important in bringing this about,

and including in the background from what I understand might pence. So who on the side of the UAE, you mentioned some of the leaders there, how about in Beren, Sudan, and Morocco, who played a signal role in those countries? So, you know, I think in Morocco, it was the foreign minister who was at all times taking his instructions from King Muhammad VI. In UAE, they have a very skillful ambassador to the United States, named Yusuf Alohtiba, who really took the lead, I think, on behalf of the UAE, but, of course, subject to the approval

of Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, who was the crown prince and the ruler. And Sudan, they had a civilian government and a military government as well. They had a reconcile in order to do this. They've since split. There's since been a military coup in Sudan. The United States, under Biden, doesn't seem to recognize anymore

the Abraham Accords with Sudan. But Israel does, and frankly, the military of Sudan continues to support the Abraham Accords in for Israel's purposes. That's the most important. That's enough. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But this was done, and I think you know this intuitively, but this was done at the highest levels of government of every one of the governments. Right, right, right. All right, so let's talk about consequences. So as far as you're concerned, what are the present consequences, what have been the present consequences of the Abraham Accords as they've rolled out so far?

Well, I think they've done enormous good for American national security, for Israel's national security, and for the national security of all the Sunni nations. Because with this surfacing of diplomatic relations has also come a good deal of additional cooperation with regard to sharing of intelligence. And when you look at the region and you see Iran as really a threat to everyone, including the United States, it's the largest state sponsor of terrorism anywhere in the world. And so the winners here are the moderate Sunni nations.

The loser is Iran. Iran now has a much more coordinated group of countries with regard to opposing their their malign intentions. So that's that's sort of number one. Number two, I think, look, I think if we if we were still in office, I think we would be able to scale these relations to a lot more countries, including I think in particular. Yeah, well, who who? Yeah, yeah. Well, look, who's who's next on the list? Well, including, I think, in particular. Yeah, well, who, yeah, who's next on the list? Well, look, it could be Oman, it could be Indonesia.

But the real big fish is Saudi Arabia. Because Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Muslim world. It's the custodian of the two holy sites in Islam. And I think that we backslid horribly over the last two years with Saudi Arabia. And you just saw that over the last couple of days when you saw a very, very unimpressive visit by Biden. He goes there and not only does he kind of fumble some complaints about the killing of Jamal Koshouji, but he gets a lecture from the Saudis in return about Abu Ghraib. So that didn't go well and got no relief at all.

So what should have happened in your estimation? So the Saudis, like I had certainly seen the Abraham Accords as, and I've talked to some Saudi leaders as well. And my understanding is that there's a quite a large contingent there that would like to normalize relations with the Western world more broadly and to move Saudi Arabia out of its relative isolation into something more approximating normative relationship with the rest of the world, potentially including Israel.

And you'd think that would be a big deal, you know. And so what should have happened in Saudi Arabia? Well, I put out a tweet a few days ago saying, if I were a Biden, after I went to Israel and met with the acting Prime Minister, Yard El-Apid, I would take him with me on Air Force One. I'd fly him off to Saudi Arabia and I would sit with him and MBS with Muhammad bin Salman. And I would do something big. I would announce some big trilateral agreement. That's there for the taking if you know how to do it. And Biden, you know, fumbled that,umbled that, obviously, miserably.

Why, why, why, why? This is obvious, this is obvious. Well, like if I can figure this out, and I don't know anything about this, if I can figure this out, I can't understand why Biden and his people can't figure this out. Because.

And I can't see anything that's more important than doing this in some real sense. Yep, and it's like, frankly, I don't say it's low hanging fruit, but it's not high hanging fruit. I mean, it's hanging fruit. Look, Biden, he boxed himself in during the campaign, saying that he would treat the Saudis as a pariah state.

He showed up here kind of hat and hand, and he got nothing on oil. Anyway, wouldn't it make a difference? Because inflation because inflation is at this point so rampant beyond oil I'm not sure what it makes a difference But but the main thing I think is that you know Biden is Has been told in no uncertain terms by sort of the progressive left You know you stay away from Saudi Arabia, you know like he he's he's politically boxed in on Saudi Arabia, which is- Yeah, well, he isn't boxed in. Unless he wants to continue to count out

to the radical elements of his party and the progressives. He's not boxed in at all, because as you pointed out earlier in this conversation, the radical types, you said 10% on each side. I think it's far smaller than that to be frank, although I think it's bigger on the left than on the right. There's a tiny proportion of radicals that he's cow-towing to, and he doesn't need them, and the fact that the Democrats will not separate themselves from the radicals has only ensured their electoral defeat in the fall,

and probably for the next presidential election. So like I just think that's complete rubbish, is we can't do this because the progressives don't want us to. It's like, no, that's not true practically. It's not true strategically. It's definitely a mistake ethically. There's no grounds for it whatsoever, especially as you pointed out,

given that this, the path forward with Saudi Arabia in relation to Israel and the rest of the Western world seems clear. So it's an abdication as far as I can see, an abdication, absolute abdication of responsibility on the part of the Democrats, let's say. So I agree with you and I think a lot of this is political. I mean, it starts with Barack Obama making this terrible deal with Iran that has insignificant verification rights and inspection rights and expires at this point would expire in just a few years. When Trump got out of that deal and Biden comes in, so

Biden politically says I'm going to go and try to reinstate this deal. He's been chasing the Iranians now for a year and a half trying to get back into the JCPOA, it makes no sense, but he's doing it because, you know, that's the deal that he and Obama, you know, came up with and they want to validate that. They want to, they want somehow to resuscitate that. The more Biden chases the JCPOA, which he'll fail at anyway. I mean, there's nothing to be achieved there, but the more he chases that,

and chases this, you know, this fantasy of diplomacy with the Iranians, he pushes the Saudis further away. He pushes the Israelis further, pushes everybody further away. And so it's this kind of misguided chasing after the fantasy of a diplomatic outcome with Iran that precludes Saudi Arabia. How much do you think this reflexive identification with the Palestinians as victims is driving the necessity of turning to the Iranians instead of the Saudis, or is that a separate issue? Well, it may be a separate issue, but it's the same people. It's exactly the same people who hold both views. Right, well that's why I'm curious about the connection.

Yeah, yeah, look, it was, I have to tell you, this was, the last few days I've been a frustrating experience for me, because what I saw over the last few days was a complete reversal of all the things that we did that made the Middle East a much more safe and stable place. All the things that we did that made the Middle East a much more safe and stable place. All the things that we did were kind of reversed in just a few days, throwing money at the Palestinians, not demanding any accountability,

refusing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital, all of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, then running to Saudi Arabia, and resuscitating complaints that just resulted, the Saudis aren't dumb, they have answers for this. So they go back and now Biden's on his heels trying to defend Abu Ghraib because he brought up Khashoggi. And from there, he just went nowhere.

He went home with his hat and his hand. Nothing. He got nothing out of it. And we could have gotten so much more on this trip. I don't even know why they had the trip. Why would you orchestrate a trip like this? If you're just going to insult your allies and come home, empty handed. Well, my prime minister, my prime minister Justin Trudeau tends to orchestrate a trip like that when the scandals and inflation on the domestic front get so unbearable that he needs to distract people. Yep. Yep.

Well, that sounds like that's exactly what happened here. Okay. So let's talk about an elephant under the carpet here. So you talked a lot about making peace with the Sunni moderates. Where are the moderate Shiites in all of this? And what is the fact that they're not at the table? Like what lurking catastrophes are associated with that and how might that be rectified?

Well, look, the Shiites that are relevant here are kind of half of Iraq or slightly more than half of Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran. In all three cases, but especially in Iran, but I mean, true of Hezbollah as well, they're not moderate. There's not the slightest thing moderate about them. There's nothing, there's not the slightest thing moderate about them. And they are, at this point, look, are there radical Sunnis, of course. You have ISIS, you have Hamas is a Sunni, although they're being funded by Iran. But the primary, and I'm not suggesting that there aren't moderate Shiites, I'm sure there are, but the ones that make noise are primarily in Iran and in Hezbollah, and they're

the father's thing for moderate. I mean, they represent existential threats to the state of Israel and elsewhere. So why did you guys have no luck with them? And what do you think might be done by someone who was competent if they were inclined to redress that that law? I don't think there's anything that can be done with either Iran or Hussabah except from a position of real strength. And Hussabah really is just a it's a proxy for the Iranians as are the Houthis in Yemen. And they're very dangerous. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and and, and, and, and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and and, and, and, and, and, and and, and, and and, and, and, and and and, and and and, and and and and and, and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and sure gas deposit. That could be commercialized very much for the benefit of the people in Lebanon. There's a question of who owns it. I mean, it's kind of right on the seam of Israel's territorial waters and the Lebanon's territorial waters. Israel is willing to make a deal to solve that

maritime dispute where, you know, they'll get some of the gas and Lebanon will get some of the gas. Lebanon will get a lot of gas. It will make a big deal for the economy. How is it possible that we won't let it make the deal? Yeah, that's it. What about behind-the-scenes negotiations? If the political leaders in the Shiite community can't pull this off, then is there another level of people in Shiite culture or in other countries as you reached out to the UAE and Sudan and Morocco, etc. Could you walk around Iran in the same way?

No, no, unfortunately not. I mean, I'm sure there are people of the Shiite faith who are reasonable, but those, the Shi'a who control weaponry are in Iran and in Lebanon and in Syria and in Iraq and in parts of Yemen. And they're all militant terrorists. They all take their instructions from Iran and there's, they really isn't an opportunity there. The opportunity is for the moderate Muslim world to unite with America and with Israel, and this threat can be defeated. I have no doubt this threat can be defeated, but I don't think right now it can be solved

except through the strongest of positions taken by our allies. OK, OK. So let's close this up maybe with two, with the discussion about the response in the West. I was a late learner about the Abraham Accords. I mean, the world's been pretty weird in the last couple of years. And I was also very ill.

And I sort of emerged from that and was informed about the Abrahamic records by some people on the ambassadorial front and became extremely interested in them for three reasons. First of all, because, well, look, peace is breaking out in the Middle East. And so that was one and isn't that surprising. And then also curious because given that this is as far as I can tell, truly historic accord, I would have hoped that it would have been like front page two inch type news on the New York Times, for example, and that everybody everywhere would know about all its details. And then furthermore, that the people who structured it were not only nominated for the Nobel Prize, which is not that difficult a process to be nominated, but actually awarded it since this actually constituted peace. And I couldn't help in my cynical, what would you say, musings.

Contrast that with the willingness of the Nobel Committee to give a peace prize to Barack Obama before President Obama even had a chance to demonstrate whether or not he was a peacemaker on the international scene. And so what in your estimation has been the response in the West among intellectuals and the press and then among, well, let's say the American people and people in the West more broadly. Well, look, the attention from the press has been disappointing. We had a ceremony on September 15th on the South lawn of the White House. That day, the picture of Trump and Netanyahu and the leaders of Bahrain and UAE, it made the front page of all the major papers. So we got

it. We got one good day out of it, but the way it's been expanded and the way it's flourished, the effect it's had on the people of Israel, the people of UAE, the optimism and opportunity is brought to the Middle East. None of that has been covered at all. And I think it's all because it came from us, from the Trump administration. Yeah, but that's no bloody excuse here. That's no excuse. This transcends the political as far as I'm concerned,

and I think as far as anybody reasonable would be concerned. And it's important to give the devil his due, and that's the case, even if the devil happens to be Trump and his damned minions. And the fact seemed to me to be clear on the ground that this represents a significant and very unexpected move forward on the peace front in the Middle East, and that's been a problem that has threatened all of us for 70 years, for longer than that, on all sorts of fronts. And so the fact that people don't want to give Trump credit for this because he's Trump, that is still utterly inexcusably. I really don't understand it because it means in some real sense that

the narrow political enmity that was directed towards Trump for better or for worse, for warranted or unwarranted. I don't really care. That's not the issue. The issue is that under Trump, this extremely significant event occurred. I think it's significant in the same way that the fact that Trump didn't entangle the United States in any stupid wars for four years was significant and also extremely underplayed. I mean, it least he managed that and that's not nothing. But then to also cap his four years,

which were definitely conducted under extreme duress and intense corrosive cynicism, again, regardless of his flaws, to cap that with the Abraham Accord and then to be ignored by intellectuals in the West, denigrated and at minimum damned with fake praise. And then also to be ignored by the Nobel Prize Committee, that's not just politics. That's a kind of willfully blind corruption that's unforgivable in its depth. You won't get an argument that of me. You know, I've, uh, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we,

we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we you and I aren't delving into why this hasn't been more celebrated. Because I don't want to devolve into the narrowly political here, you know? I'm really trying to understand this. The Abraham Accords, they're enough to bring a tear to your eye if you have any bloody sense. Well, look, let's just be clear. This was not a question of neglect.

This was an affirmative decision by the media and by the Democratic Party to minimize the benefits and the impact of the Abraham Accords. Remember, early on, the first year of the Biden administration, the State Department spokesman was asked about the Abraham Accords. And he would say, yes, these are normalization agreements. We're gonna work on advancing normalization agreements. And the reporter would say, why don't you just say the Abraham Accords? I mean, why don't you use that phrase? And he said, well, what do you mean?

I mean, I'm referring to them as normalization agreements. That's what they were. I mean, they played the silly game of cat and mouse. They wouldn't even use the words Abraham Accords because frankly, it's a very powerful brand for these agreements. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, it's a great phrase. It's great. It's a great title. Who came up with that, by the way? So that's a great story. So we were about to go live. Just on August 13th, again, there's five or six of us who know about this.

We're about to go live with a telephone call between Trump and the head of UAE and the head of Israel. And it's like 10 minutes before we go live. And the guy comes running in, he's a general Miguel Corea who's, who work with us on this, he's a two-star general, he came running in and said, we need a name. And I said, what do you need a name? And he said, well, you know, these agreements

all have names, Oslo Accords, Camp David Accords. And I said to him, do you have any ideas? He said, how about the Abraham Accords? Abraham was the father of the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, Christian faith. I said, wow, that's terrific. So we quickly called up the Israelis and the Emirates and they signed off on it.

And that's how we got the name. Yeah, well, getting the name right is really important. So that was a very wise move on, on his part. Yes. So, so I should mention to everyone that you wrote a book about this. Yes. Um, Sledgehammer. What's the full, what's the full name of the book? Sledgehammer, how breaking with the past brought peace to the Middle East. And when was that published? It came out a little over five months ago

on February 8th of this year. It had the biggest week of any book on Israel in the last 10 years as what the Publishers report. It was, it's, thank God, been a very successful book. Well, that's good. Have any of the intelligentsia, so to speak, which is a hated name as far as I'm concerned at the moment, has anybody reviewed it seriously?

And how has it been received? It's been received well. It didn't get, you know, it wasn't reviewed by, you know, the New York Times or some of them. Yes, well, why would it be? Right. It's just about peace in the Middle East. Why would you review a book about that

by one of the authors of the accord? It was also a book, I think, about the kind of the inner fortitude it took to fight the conventional wisdom, the head of wins, if you will, of the State Department and the Defense Department and how important it was that I had this support of the president, because whether it was moving the embassy or recognizing sovereignty over the Golemn Heights or the peace plan or changing our view on the legality of settlements in the West Bank, I mean, we did all these different things. And every one of them was opposed by numerous government agencies.

So it really was about the runaway, the support, the confidence I was given by the president because at the end of the day, if you have the president's support, you don't need the support of any of these agencies. It's only when the president goes on to some other thing, which you consider is more important that you're stuck in the morass of the agency. Well, the president gave me huge amounts of authority and runway, and that I think was the cutal out of the success. So, right. So, he gave you some autonomy and some trust. And so, well, Kudos to you, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. Anybody

else you want to include in that inner circle on the American side who was key to this success of this? You did mention Mike Pence. Anybody else you thought was, I know there's a huge team, but... Well, it wasn't actually, it wasn't the huge team. I mean, Mike Pompeo was essential, because at the end of the day, you know, you know, Jared and I, you know, we have a relationship with the president, we have authority, but we're not the secretary of state. We're not in charge of the U.S. foreign policy, so we needed Mike to really jump in and

engage and provide the types of assurances that, as much as we were trusted, I mean, the right messaging needed to come from the State Department. We had a young guy, Avi Berkowitz, who worked for Jared, who was on the phone day and night, you know, working the lower-level relationships, and was very helpful. And that's about it. I mean, that's about it. It was a relatively small group of people that worked, you know, really day and night, especially towards the end of the Trump administration to getting this done. Well, thank you, thank you to all of them. That's for sure from everybody in the world who

has any sense, I would say. So let me just summarize what we discussed and then maybe you can add a few additional comments. If you'd like, the Accords involve that minimum declaration of mutual peace, recognition of mutual sovereignty, the establishment of a framework of cooperation in principle and reality, including the exchange and establishment of embassies and also cultural cooperation that could bring the benefits of mutual trade to those countries. It's a major accomplishment. It looks expandable, perhaps, to countries like Oman, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, especially on the Sunni side. And it's an amazing achievement. And I would like to shame the Nobel Prize Committee for making a tremendous error in failing

to note with the prize that should have been awarded for what appears to me, a signal accomplishment of the first part of this new millennium. You know, my job was very much on the US-Israel side of the relationship. I think we proved something which I fear that the, you know, kind of the left wing elites are sliding back on, but what we proved, and I said it at the beginning and President Trump said it at the beginning, is that Israel really is a solution in the Middle East, not the problem. And for 70 years, the State Department viewed Israel

as a problem to be managed, not as an opportunity to be harnessed. And I think we're sliding back in that direction right now with the last few months of U.S. policy. But we advanced all these extraordinary initiatives on behalf of our share-stallied, the state of Israel, not only did they not bring violence, but they brought peace. And I think that message is one that we can scale

and extrapolate going forward. And I really hope we do. Well, let's say amen to that. And all pray that this does move forward as it should and that wise heads prevail outside of the domain of narrow politicking and partisan advantage. So I'm going to follow up this conversation for those of you who are listening.

I do a behind the scenes 30 minute interview with everybody I talk to now on the daily wire plus platform and I'm going to talk to Ambassador Friedman in a more personal sense, I would say, and detail out the development of his career across the span of his life. And so far as we can manage that in 30 minutes, I like to give people some insight into how people who have done, who have accomplished signal achievements have come to that position. Hello everyone. I would encourage you to continue listening to my conversation with my guest on

Hello everyone, I would encourage you to continue listening to my conversation with my guest on dailywireplus.com.