Two years after the Abraham Accords, Jared Kushner, who was the most powerful man in Trump's White House, publishes a new book with many revelations about the historical breakthrough in which he himself was a decisive part.
In a book called "Breaking through History: Memories from the White House", Kushner reveals that he received the official notification of the United Arab Emirates' desire to recognize Israel about a year before the historic phone call between Trump, Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed.
According to Kushner, in a secret meeting at his home in Washington on May 26, 2019, the Emirates ambassador in Washington, Youssef Al Otaiba, told him that "MBZ asked him to convey to me personally an important message: he is ready to move forward for full recognition and normalization with Israel. He added that our efforts ( The peace team of the White House, AC) have changed the face of the region and based on the trust that was built, the time has come for normalization and he wants to be the first."
According to Kushner, El Otaiba added that the step is expected to draw harsh criticism towards his country and that "it is a huge risk".
Kushner also reveals that the ambassador delivered the same message to the then US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, that morning.
Next, Kushner describes the difficult dilemma he had between progressing with the application of sovereignty, as the administration promised to Israel, and the Emirati's threats to cancel the normalization process if sovereignty is implemented.
Kushner confirms that the administration and himself were committed to the sovereignty process and even reveals that the mapping committee, which drew the future border map, has completed its work.
It should be noted that Kushner's words are consistent with the descriptions of the former Israeli ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, as well as the "Israel Hayom" investigation on missing the sovereignty process.
According to him, a year later, on June 25, 2020, "Avi Berkowitz and Friedman to Israel to meet with Bibi. I sent my father with one goal: to finalize a mapping agreement that will advance our long-term goal of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Our offer was absolutely fair. The Israelis They will only annex areas where Israeli settlements currently exist. In return, they will give the Palestinian civilians control over some neighborhoods where the Palestinians lived in the West Bank. We could not imagine a scenario in which Israelis or Palestinians would be displaced."
": We had a plan to reach a decision that included an independent Palestinian state."
Trump and Abu Mazen in their meeting at the White House, photo: E.
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Islands
According to him, this proposal, "will allow Bibi to declare Israeli sovereignty in the disputed territories, but I hoped it would also show the Arabs that we had a plan to break the stalemate of the past and ultimately reach a decision that included an independent Palestinian state."
However, Kushner writes, at the end of three days of talks, Netanyahu "rejected our proposal for sufficient Israeli concessions. I could not recommend to the president to adopt the package. I felt we were at an impasse."
The failure of the talks, Kushner describes, gave rise to a series of consultations with the Emiratis.
Initially, they proposed partial normalization, if Israel renounced the annexation, but Berkowitz replied that such a move would not be satisfactory.
As a result, they proposed full peace with Israel.
"Until this phone call, the Emirates only said that if Bibi went ahead with the annexation, he would destroy any chance of normalization. But they did not specifically offer to go ahead with normalization in exchange for suspending Israel's annexation. At 5:00 p.m. On July 2, Yosef Al Otiwa came to my office And he described the proposal of the United Arab Emirates that he had, after it was reviewed with the leadership of the Emirates. The United Arab Emirates will go for full normalization, if Israel suspends the annexation plans," writes the president's son-in-law.
"We were on the verge of a breakthrough," he adds, but then Israel tightened conditions.
"Less than twenty-four hours later, Avi Berkowitz rushed to my office with a message from Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer: 'Bibi is not ready to settle for just the United Arab Emirates. He will cancel the annexation only if we can get three countries to normalize relations with Israel. I couldn't believe my ears,'" he writes Kushner.
According to him, he returned the message to Netanyahu that the expansion of the circle will increase the fear of leaking the contacts, which will lead to their complete halt.
"I don't blame him for asking, but it will be impossible to keep it a secret if we try to include other countries. The next day we heard from Dermer that Bibi agreed to postpone the annexation but he didn't say for how long."
At this point, in July 2020, the Israelis, the Emiratis and the Americans entered into intensive talks about the peace agreement.
However, "at no point did they talk directly with each other. Instead, my father and I acted as mediators."
According to him, Al Otiwa rejected his offer to speak directly with the Israeli representatives, headed by the Israeli ambassador in Washington at the time, Ron Dermer.
He adds that the talks were difficult and several times were on the verge of an explosion.
"Ten days of diplomacy, around the clock created more than 100 versions of the document. On several occasions, the negotiations almost stopped. Understanding the importance of the agreement on both sides, caused them to treat every word as a matter of life or death."
One of the difficult debates was on the question of whether sovereignty is "suspended" as the Emiratis demanded, or just "deferred", as Netanyahu wanted to write.
On August 7, a week before the phone call between the leaders, Kushner decided to cut off the arguments.
"Tell both sides that we are not in the business of diplomacy. We are in the business of results. Tell them to put down their pencils and that's it. This is the final version. This store is closed," Kushner sent the message through Avi Berkowitz.
The difficulties continued until the last moment, Kushner describes, until the historic phone call between the three leaders on August 13, 2020. "While the president was preparing for the phone call, General Miguel Correa (a senior member of the US National Security Council, and who played a crucial role in the talks, a) c) entered my office and said, 'We should call it the 'Abraham Accords.' Until then, we were so busy ironing out the details that we didn't think to name the agreement, but 'Abraham Accords' immediately seemed perfect to me. It would remind everyone of the original Abrahamic roots of brotherhood that united the The Arab and Israeli people".
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