Biden admits that Trump’s brokering of the UAE-Israel peace deal is good for the region.
By Paul Shindman, World Israel News
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden admitted Thursday that President Trump had made a positive achievement with the UAE-Israel peace deal.
In a video appearance to raise funds for the left-wing Jewish organization J-Street, Biden gave a backhanded compliment to his nemesis, saying the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that was brokered by the Trump administration was a positive thing for the region.
“Like the vast majority of American Jews, J Street’s top priority is to do all that we can between now and November to help defeat Donald Trump and his enablers, elect the Biden-Harris ticket and bring our country the new leadership it so desperately needs,” said J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami in a statement.
“We’re deeply honored to have hosted Vice President Biden for this event to support his campaign, and to hear some of his vision for how the next administration can promote peace and democratic values in the Middle East and counter the rising forces of xenophobia and bigotry here in the United States,” he added, making no mention of the Israel-UAE peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration.
“I think Trump is going to accidentally do something positive here,” Biden said in the video, cited by Times of Israel, suggesting that other Arab states might follow suit. The Times received a recording from the private event.
Biden also said that getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to indefinitely delay Israel declaring sovereignty over settlements in Judea and Samaria as part of the deal was “not a bad thing either,” Times reported
However, Biden then reminded his audience that the Israelis were aware of his position opposing settlement construction.
Biden blamed both Netanyahu and the Palestinian leadership for the stalemate in the peace process between the two sides, saying Netanyahu’s support of settlements “is wrong” and that the “the Palestinian leadership has not stepped up when given real opportunity.”
The Palestinians “have to be prepared to stop what’s going on in terms of their education system, railing against Israel in their schools. They’ve got to stop inciting violence and supporting it when it happens,” Biden said.
The Palestinians walked away in 2014 from the last round of peace talks initiated by then-Secretary of State John Kerry when Biden was serving as vice-president.
Netanyahu and Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, will fly to Washington for the September 15 ceremony at the White House, where the UAE will become the third Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.
Several other countries including Bahrain, Oman and Sudan, have been discussed as following the UAE in formalizing ties with Israel.