Breaking Norms, Jared Kushner Scores Late-Term Success In Push For Stalled Mideast Peace Process

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is getting top-of-the-line fighter jets. Morocco is winning recognition for decades-old territorial claims. And Sudan is coming off the US terrorism blacklist. The Arab nations are suddenly achieving long-sought goals after agreeing to normalize ties with Israel, in a last-minute triumph for the unorthodox diplomacy of outgoing President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Widely mocked for more than three years as a boyish lightweight, who was best known for his famous wife, troubled property deals and his father’s stint in prison, Kushner is scoring historic breakthroughs lauded by Trump’s base with four Arab nations since September joining the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel.

“President Trump took a contrarian approach,” Kushner told reporters Thursday as he announced the latest deal, with Morocco, saying that the Arab-Israeli conflict “has been held back for so long by old thinking and by stalled process.” Veterans of Middle East diplomacy agree that Kushner moved nimbly after the (UAE) first signalled its willingness to recognize Israel.

“He had the authority; he was smart enough to develop personalized relations. I think he clearly deserves some credit for taking advantage of what the landscape showed was possible,” said Dennis Ross, who served as Bill Clinton’s Middle East envoy. Kushner, a family friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, broke decades of US norms on Middle East peacemaking by barely making a pretense of being evenhanded with the Palestinians. -Full Report