Trump’s Big Deal Part II: From Secret Alliance to the Abraham Accords

How It Happened

Axios

News, History, Politics

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After Donald Trump’s peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians failed, there was a desperate attempt by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates to stop Israel from annexing part of the occupied West Bank. That effort led to the most significant Middle East peace agreement in a generation. With exclusive reporting, Axios Middle East correspondent Barak Ravid tells national political correspondent Jonathan Swan what led to Trump’s success and its effects. Note: This episode contains some explicit language. Credits: The senior producer is Ariana Gharib Lee. The senior editor is Ted Robbins. Dan Bobkoff is the executive producer. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the editor-in-chief. Our managing editors include Alison Snyder and Margaret Talev. Dave Lawler is the world editor. Sound design and mixing by Jeanne Montalvo and Alex Sugiura. Our series theme music is by Michael Hanf. Fact checking by Jacob Knutson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Not many foreign policy deals in the Trump administration really mattered.
0:04.5	But the Abraham Accords did. They fundamentally reshaped the Middle East.
0:09.2	And when Donald Trump signed the Accords on September 15th of last year,
0:13.7	even he didn't realize how much they changed things.
0:17.2	Yes, here are just a few things that have changed in the last year.
0:21.3	250,000 Israelis went to Dubai last year. They couldn't do it before.
0:26.7	Cyber experts from Israel and Morocco are working together now.
0:30.9	Soldiers from Israel and Bahrain and the US are training together in the Red Sea,
0:36.2	sending a signal to Iran. And all of those unprecedented things happened after the lowest
0:42.5	point in relations between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government.
0:49.0	The Abraham Accords happened almost by accident last year, in a desperate attempt to stop
0:54.5	Israel from illegally annexing parts of the West Bank and destabilizing the region.
1:00.6	We're going to take you behind the scenes with never before reported accounts from the key
1:05.9	players who negotiated the deal. They took the failed peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians,
1:12.4	which we told you about in episode one, and used it to create a different deal between the United
1:18.0	Arab Emirates and Israel. Three other Arab countries have joined the agreements, and the Biden
1:24.4	administration is now trying to expand it even more. I'm Barack Roveed, Axios Middle East correspondent.
1:32.6	And I'm Jonathan Swan. This is how it happened. Trump's big deal, part two, from secret
1:39.5	alliance to the Abraham Accords. Our story begins in March of 2019. It's a Sunday morning,
1:51.6	and a man shows up at Jed Kushner's house in Washington. His name is Yusuf Al-Tabah.
1:57.7	He's been described as the most powerful man in Washington that you've never heard of.
2:02.5	He's the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States. Kushner has been expecting him.
	...

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