Qatar and Saudi Arabia are close to striking a preliminary agreement to end a dispute that has pitted the Gulf neighbours against each other for more than three years, sources told Al Jazeera.
The expected deal comes after United States President Donald Trump’s adviser Jared Kushner arrived in the Gulf region as part of a last-ditch effort to resolve the Gulf crisis, before the Trump administration leaves office in January.
The person who has been derided as an inexperienced, spoiled, rich real estate heir from a corrupt family who has no business being anywhere near the White House has proven to be the single most effective Middle East negotiator in history.
Here is a three year dispute that is on the way to being resolved after three days of Kushner arriving - representing a lame duck administration that can't offer any real incentives.
Still, Kushner gets little respect from the media and practically no respect from the "experts" who have spent decades spinning their wheels in the Middle East. Even the accomplishments themselves are downplayed and minimized. His Wikipedia page is filled with vitriol - it is perhaps the most biased Wiki I've ever seen - and its brief summary of his diplomatic achievements ignores Bahrain and Sudan and frames the UAE deal as Kushner opportunistically jumping in when such a deal would have happened anyway:
After Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, wrote a June 2020 opinion piece warning that annexation of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank would threaten better relations between Israel and the Arab world, Kushner saw an opportunity and stepped in to facilitate talks. The talks led to the August establishment of diplomatic ties between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.The agreement normalized what had long been informal relations between the two countries.
To state the obvious, if any one of Kushner's diplomatic victories had occurred under a Democratic administration, he would be on the cover of magazines every week like Kissinger was during his heyday.
But it is not even conceivable that any other White House - Democrat or Republican - would have given the role to anyone who had not already been indoctrinated the failed philosophy of traditional American diplomacy. Kushner took intractable problems and found solutions that every professional diplomat was blind to.
Before interviewing him, I had read dozens and dozens of articles about the 39-year-old Harvard-graduate in the US media. There was a quite negative and cynical labels about almost everything pertains to him, be it his competence, skills or even personal traits. There is a prejudgment that evidently turned into a bias against him.
My impressions of Kushner that I had met were kind, humble, soft-spoken and certainly a pragmatic. Having met several heads of state, top-level officials and many celebrities from different industries throughout my humble career, I can say his composure and emotional intelligence are distinctive. His ability to understand, give and take, turn old foes into brand-new friends, and embark on missions to resolve, what many previous American leaders and top officials could not, are evident through many outcomes, lately in his role in Israel’s peace accords with the UAE and Bahrain.
It is a breath of fresh air in the Washington, Abu Dhabi, and Tel Aviv today as a chapter of the old Middle East has ended and a new one has started.
It speaks volumes that it is difficult to find this sort of analysis of Kushner's skills in US media.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
This year’s Djerba pilgrimage is cancelled
-
After news that it was to be scaled back, the annual Lag Ba’ Omer
pilgrimage on the island of Djerba has now been cancelled, National News
reports. This...
Happy Passover
-
[image: Happy Passover]
Wishing all of my Jewish family, friends, and followers a Chag Sameach
v'Kasher. Blogging to resume Tues evening or Wed morning.
C...
Happy Pessah!
-
Wishing all our readers celebrating the festival of freedom a happy holiday
and hoping for the liberation of all the hostages.
The post Happy Pessah...
Happy Pessah!
-
Wishing all our readers celebrating the festival of freedom a happy holiday
and hoping for the liberation of all the hostages.
The post Happy Pessah...
The New Jihadists Are Our Kids
-
“I will use my knives and machete to slit their throats and kill them."
Coeur d’Alene, an Idaho city with a population of over 50,000, had too many
chur...
A Conversation on X with a Professor
-
Basically starts here, with him responding to me reaction so:
Re: "That is the least disruptive way of occupying space on a campus”
Actually, it's one of...
Confrontation with Iran: Who Won?
-
The West likes its Jews passive, dependent, and weak. When American
officials say “Israel has a right to defend [herself]” they mean that they
will allow h...
The Palestinian “Two-State” Plan: Duping the West
-
One of the great unsolved mysteries of the 21st century is why, given what
a catastrophe it proved to be, anyone, much less a whole phalanx of
politicians,...
06-Feb-24: Obituary: Naftali Gordon
-
The obituary that follows was published yesterday by *Times of Israel* under
the headline "*Master Sgt. (res.) Naftali Gordon, 32: A man of ‘honesty and
...
Closing Jews Down Under Website
-
With a heavyish heart I am closing down the website after ten years.
It is and it isn’t an easy decision after 10 years of constant work. The
past...
‘Test & Trace’ is a mirage
-
Lockdown II thoughts: Day 1 Opposition politicians have been banging on
about the need for a ‘working’ Test & Trace system even more loudly than
the govern...