Kushner warns to set aside the Abraham Accords at a one-year anniversary event

WASHINGTON – Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner warned Tuesday that the benefits of the Abraham deals that helped brokerage a year ago could disappear if the deals are not “nurtured.”

“If these [normalization] agreements are not nurtured, we run the risk that they may backfire, but if we nurture them properly, the potential of what can come out of it is huge and exceeds our expectations, “Kushner said at an event in Washington on the occasion of the anniversary of the signing of the Abrahamic covenants.

The comments were not explicitly addressed to the Biden administration, which sent a U.S. State Department representative to the conference room full of Trump allies and substitutes at the Georgetown Four Seasons Hotel. But Kushner’s successors in the White House will determine whether Abraham’s agreements will become a partisan initiative associated solely with the Republican party or whether they can be advanced by administrations on both sides of the aisle.

U.S. President Joe Biden has expressed support for the effort and told Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the White House last month that he will work to develop the existing agreements Israel signed with the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and Kosovo last year, in addition to expanding agreements to include new countries in the Arab and Muslim world willing to establish diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.

However, he has not appointed any specific envoy to head the issue, as was the case with Trump. Some of its officials have also avoided referring to standardization agreements as the “Abraham Accords,” in an apparent attempt to break away from the previous administration.

However, Yael Lempert, acting Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs, was sent on behalf of the administration to the Kushner event. She turned down an interview request, but said she was “proud” to attend.

On Tuesday, separately, the U.S. State Department announced that on Friday Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host an event on the occasion of the anniversary of the Abraham Accords, using the term created by the Trump team to describe the initiative. Blinken will be joined virtually by Israel’s foreign ministers, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, “and will discuss ways to deepen ties and build a more prosperous region,” a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said. State.

Get Sudan above the finish line

At the official commemoration on Friday, which will be remarkably absent, Sudan will be the new civilian-backed government, desperate for U.S. financial support, promised Trump that it would move forward in its ties with Israel, but has since hesitated. in the face of public opposition.

Khartoum signed a preliminary normalization agreement with Israel last October, but the agreement has not yet been finalized.

Barbara Leaf, director of the Biden National Security Council for the Middle East, told Jewish leaders last month that the White House is working to get the Sudan-Israel agreement to “cross the finish line.” but no progress has been reported.

Sudan declined the invitation to attend a Monday event hosted by the Israeli mission to the United Nations on the occasion of its one-year anniversary with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. However, his ambassador to the United States, Nureldin Satti, attended on Tuesday and received a shout from Kushner. However, he withdrew soon, managing to avoid a group photo of representatives of countries involved in the standardization agreements.

Nick Kaufman – a British-Israeli lawyer who advised the Sudanese transitional government in its proceedings in the International Criminal Court and handed out letters between former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudanese leader General Abdel Fattah al- Burhan, who produced the breakthrough in ties between the two countries – told The Times of Israel on Tuesday that the Sudanese normalization deal was categorically different from the others Israel signed last year.

“Sudan is not part of the Abraham Accords and the agreement was not initiated by the United States. It was the other way around, ”he said in a phone call. “Sudan wanted to come down from the [State Department’s list of state terror sponsors] and I saw Netanyahu as a way to get to the White House. ”

Kaufman said the slow progression of Sudan’s normalization deal, compared to Israel’s other new allies, has less to do with the United States and external factors and more to do with the country’s domestic policy.

“The leadership there is divided between the military council, which [initiated the warming of ties with Israel] and the civilian government, which has communists and [Palestine Liberation Organization]”Root that supports,” he said.

However, Kaufman predicted that the deal would eventually end, noting that it was in the US interest to separate Sudan from Russian influence in Africa, but that it would “take time.”

Peace without Palestine

Tuesday’s meeting was organized by the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, which Kushner established earlier this year to promote normalization agreements between Israel and a number of Muslim and Arab countries, which helped negotiate on behalf of the Trump administration.

Critics of Trump’s approach have said the agreements should not replace a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, as the previous administration strongly supported the Jewish state, including its right to annex West Bank lands.

The Palestinian issue did not even reach the 10-minute statements prepared by Kushner and only received a shout when a heckler burst into the ballroom of the Georgetown Four Seasons Hotel, shouting “peace will not pass until the Palestinians are free”.

A pair of security guards quickly led her out of the room, after which Kushner remarked that “today there is a lot available for the Palestinians and for their leadership if they only focus on what is best for their people “.

Following Kushner’s speech, AAPI Executive Director Robert Greenway moderated a group with US Ambassador to Israel Gilad Erdan, UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba and Bahrain’s ambassador to Sheikhs Abdullah bin Rashid al-Khalifa.

Each of the envoys highlighted the benefits that the standardization agreements had brought to their respective countries.

Otaiba referred to a goal set by his economy minister a day earlier to increase economic ties with Israel to more than $ 1 trillion in a decade.

“This is a pretty ambitious forecast, but I think it’s achievable and it’s exactly what we need to get out of the pandemic,” the Emirate envoy said.

Khalifa noted that visits by citizens of his country to the al-Aqsa Mosque over the past year “have changed the way Bahraini interacted with each other and with Israelis.”

Erdan said the Abraham Accords provide an opportunity for the formation of an anti-Iran coalition of “moderate” countries in the region that can take a united diplomatic initiative to combat Tehran’s nuclear threat.

“I learned from Yousef [who says], we all talk about the JCPOA as if this were the only diplomatic solution. It is not. We all oppose the JCPOA and think differently, “said Erdan, who spoke on behalf of other countries in the chamber that have not been as forceful as Israel in its opposition to Iran’s nuclear deal. that the Biden administration seeks to revive.

“It would sound different if our countries together … hopefully, with Saudi Arabia, adopted a different diplomatic solution from the world [would] be exposed to this from our coalition, ”the Israeli envoy said.

Can the Knesset play a role?

The furthest to attend Tuesday’s ceremony were CEOs Ruth Wasserman Lande (blue and white) and Ofir Akunis (Likud), who co-chair a parliamentary caucus for the promotion and implementation of the Abraham Accords.

Lande told The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the event that the caucus is indicative of the “bipartisan” support for normalization agreements in the Knesset, with all parties, including Islamist Ra’am, represented in exception of the Arab majority. Joint list.

He said the panel would serve as a platform to invite grassroots officials, experts and activists to advance Abraham’s agreements.

Lande said the caucus could also be used to develop previous peace agreements that Israel signed, including the one with Egypt. The first-year blue-and-white lawmaker, who was appointed as a diplomat in Cairo during the early 2000s, said Israel could offer to help Egypt resolve its dispute with Ethiopia over the Nile dam and demand warmer ties with Egypt and greater pressure on Hamas to return civilian captives and the bodies of fallen soldiers the terrorist group maintains in Gaza.

Lande rejected the idea that only the US could play a central role in advancing normalization. “The caucus can be an engine. Each person can make a big difference. Look at what Otaiba did and the tremendous role he played in the Abraham Accords. ”

“It simply came to our notice then. It is more than possible, “he added.