JERUSALEM POST
Israel, UAE reach historic peace deal: ‘We can make a wonderful future’
by Lahav Harkov, Omri Nahmias
August 13, 2020

Israel and the UAE agreed to full normalization of relations in a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Thursday, marking the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country in 25 years. Israel agreed to suspend its planned extension of sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria to facilitate relations with the UAE and potentially other Arab and Muslim countries. The agreement will include establishing embassies and exchanging ambassadors, investments into the Israeli economy, trade, direct flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, an investment in Israeli efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine…and cooperation in matters of energy and water. READ MORE

THE HILL Richard Grenell: Israel-UAE breakthrough proves Trump’s critics wrong — again For nearly four years, Washington foreign policy experts and Obama administration alumni warned that the Trump administration was jeopardizing any prospects for Middle East peace…With such a grim record of prediction, Thursday’s historic announcement that the U.S. brokered a normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates – the first Gulf Arab state to announce formal relations with the Jewish State – has the D.C. establishment with its tail between its legs once again.

WALL STREET JOURNAL Editorial Board: Trump’s Mideast Breakthrough The Israel-UAE accord discredits Obama’s regional vision…Re­call that man­darins of Obama for­eign pol­icy said mov­ing the U.S. Em­bassy to Jerusalem would cause an Arab back­lash. In fact, it is be­ing fol­lowed by some of the clos­est Arab-U.S.-Is­raeli co­op­er­a­tion on record. Larger strate­gic re­al­i­ties in the Mid­dle East are more im­por­tant and are dri­ving this change.

COMMENTARY Noah Rothman: There Is No Going Back In a momentous announcement on Thursday, President Donald Trump revealed that Israel and the United Arab Emirates had agreed to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. This is not merely a dramatic victory for the region’s peace-loving peoples but a political coup for the Trump administration, though they must share this success with their predecessors in the Obama White House. If the 44th President’s efforts to isolate Israel and reconfigure geopolitics in the Middle East hadn’t backfired so spectacularly, none of this would be happening.