Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, author of the book, “Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East,” revealed that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tried to withdraw from a historic agreement to normalize relations with the UAE, one day before former US President Donald Trump announced it.
The reason for his hesitation was the Emirati insistence on freezing the plan to annex areas of the West Bank to Israel. Thus, he clashed with the majority of the president’s staff, and dramatic contacts took place between the White House and Netanyahu’s office, until he was forced to move forward with the Abraham Accords.
Ravid said that the contacts between the two parties reached the level of tension and threat. The White House envoy for the peace process, Avi Berkowitz, warned Netanyahu, saying: “You’re going to take your greatest friend in the world, and make him an enemy. I can’t tell you what to do but I strongly advise you against it.”
Ravid stressed that the reason for Netanyahu’s retreat from the agreement was due to the results of opinion polls that indicated that he would lose the upcoming elections.
On the other hand, the UAE was exerting no less intense pressure, closely linking the annexation with the cancellation of the normalization agreement. White House officials, who were familiar with the developments, wondered how Netanyahu could put partisan political considerations over such a historical event.
At the time, Jordan announced that implementing the annexation plan would undermine the peace agreement with Israel. In parallel, the UAE ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba, published his famous article on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, in which he clearly asserted that Israel cannot implement the annexation while at the same time normalizing relations with Arab countries. This article came as a slap to Netanyahu, who was declaring that the Arab world did not oppose the annexation plan.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was pushing hard in favor of Netanyahu’s annexation plan, Ravid said. As Netanyahu and Gantz disagreed on the issue, Friedman even tried to mediate between them to move it forward.
Ravid recounted that on June 24, a week before Netanyahu announced the annexation, Friedman met with Trump.
At the end of the meeting, Trump said that he had no problem with pushing the annexation plan forward, and demanded that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, make the decision, but added: “But if anything bad happens, it’s on all your heads.”
It was agreed that Friedman and White House envoy Avi Berkowitz would travel to Israel in order to meet Netanyahu and Gantz, and try to reach understandings about an agreed-upon annexation plan, or remove the issue from the agenda until after the US elections.
Kushner laid some groundwork for the trip by telling Netanyahu annexation must not happen without a green light from the White House or without any concessions to the Palestinians. “I told Netanyahu the goal was to implement Trump’s plan, not unilateral annexation," Kushner told Ravid.
According to the book, Netanyahu threatened to advance the annexation step in the West Bank without a green light from the White House. In another meeting two days later, Netanyahu told Friedman and Berkowitz that he wanted to annex 13 percent of the West Bank, including settlements, and refused to grant anything to the Palestinians.
On July 1, Berkowitz returned to Washington and received a call from Otaiba, who presented the possibility that Israel would not implement annexation in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel.
Negotiations began several days later, during which Netanyahu asked to change the terms of the deal, and said that he would stop the annexation plan, only, if three Arab countries agreed to normalize relations with Israel, not just the UAE.
