Annexation plan not a deal-breaker for Saudi deal, says ex-Trump advisor

Deputy National Security Advisor from first Trump administration says president-elect will push new policies vis-a-vis Iran, the Palestinian Authority, and the Abraham Accords.

By Anna Epshtein, TPS

A former advisor to Donald Trump promised on Monday that the President-elect will change policies towards Iran, the Palestinians and normalization with Arab states.

“Oslo failed. We need a paradigm shift,” said Victoria Coates, former Deputy National Security Advisor during Trump’s first presidency.

“This rigid formula of the two-state solution in the last thirty years has got us nowhere,” Coates insisted. The Oslo Accords of 1993, she said, were “well-intentioned, but didn’t work.”

“It is Israel’s and Palestinians’ business now to figure out a solution.”

Coates was invited by the Jerusalem-based Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy to present her new book The Battle for the Jewish State about Israel-US relations.

She speculated that the incoming Trump administration will take a harder line on Iran.

“Trump said after October 1 that Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear and energy sites. This is not something he used to say previously, and I don’t think he said it lightly.” Israel retaliated for Iran’s October 1 missile barrage with airstrikes on the Islamic Republic’s air defenses, missile production facilities and a nuclear research site.

Coates also mentioned that the incoming Trump administration will likely harden sanctions on Iran.

Asked about possible normalization between Israel and moderate Arab countries, Coates said she believed the Abraham Accords still have the potential to be expanded.

“I would leave the details for negotiations, but it is clear to me that the veto that the Palestinians have held since essentially 1973 over the foreign policy decisions, particularly of our Gulf partners and allies, that veto no longer holds,” Coates said.

She added that Israeli sovereignty over parts Judea and Samaria would not necessarily deter Saudi Arabia from normalizing ties.

“I don’t see it as a deal-breaker for Saudi Arabia if it is not a deal-breaker for Washington,” she asserted. “I would rather pay attention to what the Saudis do than to what they say.”

The Abraham accords, signed in September 2021, normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Morocco joined the accords in December. Sudan, which signed the Abraham accords in January 2021, has not made any moves to normalize ties, keeping relations focused on security and intelligence cooperation.

Israel and Saudi Arabia were moving closer to normalizing ties before the diplomacy was disrupted by Hamas’s October 7 attack.