Architects of Peace: Episode 2 - Behind the Breakthrough

Tune into the second episode of AJC’s newest limited podcast series, Architects of Peace. Go behind the scenes of the decades-long diplomacy and quiet negotiations that made the Abraham Accords possible, bringing Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and later Morocco, together in historic peace agreements. 

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, U.S. Army General Miguel Correa, and AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer Jason Isaacson unpack the first Trump administration’s Middle East strategy, share behind-the-scenes efforts to engage key regional players, and reveal what unfolded inside the White House in the crucial weeks before the Abraham Accords signing.

Full transcript: https://www.ajc.org/news/podcast/behind-the-breakthrough-architects-of-peace-episode-2

Resources:

AJC.org/ArchitectsofPeace - Tune in weekly for new episodes.

AJC.org/AbrahamAccords - The Abraham Accords, Explained

AJC.org/CNME - Find more on AJC’s Center for a New Middle East

Listen – AJC Podcasts:

AJC.org/ForgottenExodus

AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

Follow Architects of Peace on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/ArchitectsofPeace

You can reach us at: [e-mail]

If you’ve appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Transcript:

Donald Trump: I think we’re going to make a deal. It might be a bigger and better deal than people in this room even understand.

Manya Brachear Pashman: In September 2020, the world saw what had been years – decades – in the making: landmark peace agreements dubbed the Abraham Accords -- normalizing relations between Israel and two Arabian Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain. Later, in December, they were joined by the Kingdom of Morocco. Five years later, AJC is pulling back the curtain to meet key individuals who built the trust that led to these breakthroughs. Introducing: the Architects of Peace.

Shortly after he was elected in 2016 and before he took office, President Donald Trump nominated his company’s former bankruptcy attorney David Friedman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel. He gave Friedman two simple tasks. 

Task No. 1? Build peace across the Middle East by normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Task No. 2? Solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict that a half dozen previous White House residents had failed to fix. 

After all, according to conventional wisdom, the first task could not happen before the second. The future of cooperation between Israel and 20-plus other Arab countries hinged on peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. 

Here’s former Secretary of State John Kerry.

John Kerry: There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Ambassador Friedman disagreed with this conventional wisdom.

David Friedman: We were told initially by most countries that the road to peace began with the Palestinians. This was a hypothesis that I rejected internally, but I thought: ‘OK, well, let's just play this out and see where this can go. And so, we spent a couple of years really working on what could be a plan that would work for Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians, you know, rejected discussions early on, but we had a lot of discussions with the Israelis.

Manya Brachear Pashman: The son of a rabbi who grew up in Long Island, Ambassador Friedman had been active in pro-Israel organizations for decades, He had advised Trump on the importance of the U.S.-Israel bond during the 2016 presidential election and recommended nothing less than a radical overhaul of White House policy in the region. Not long after his Senate confirmation as ambassador, that overhaul commenced.

In February 2017, President Trump invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to