The Trump administration was closing in on agreements with Mauritania and Indonesia to be the next Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel, but ran out of time before the Republican president’s term ended, two US officials told The Times of Israel this week.An agreement with Mauritania was the closest to being reached, with US officials believing they were mere weeks away from finalizing a deal. The northwest African country was identified by the Trump peace team led by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Avi Berkowitz as a likely candidate to follow the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in normalizing with the Jewish state, given that it once had relations with Israel.The next most likely candidate to join the so-called Abraham Accords was Indonesia, the US officials said, claiming that a deal could have been inked if Trump had another month or two in office.With a population of over 270 million, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country. That gave it “extra symbolic importance,” to the Trump administration, which maintained that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict need not be a hindrance to peace between the Jewish state and the Muslim and Arab worlds, a US official explained.
We have been told for years that Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz were neophytes with no diplomatic experience who cannot be expected to accomplish anything. Yet they managed to broker peace deals between Israel and four Arab states.
So certainly the new, seasoned diplomats in the Biden administration will find it trivial to finish the work done with Mauritania and Indonesia and get them to recognize Israel.
We will see if the experienced dinosaurs of Oslo can learn something from the nobodies who did more for peace than any previous administration. Or if they will go back to business as usual.