“Rather than focus on the Palestinians, which is what every president has thought they had to do to negotiate peace, he focused on Iran,” she said.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the UN, praised President Donald Trump’s achievement in helping bring to fruition a peace deal between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in a Fox News interview on Wednesday.
Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, has been named as a possible future presidential candidate for the GOP.
In answer to the question how Trump succeeded where other presidents failed, Haley pointed to the president employing a different strategy.
“The difference was, go back to the first foreign policy speech the president gave, it was to the Arab community, and he said: Let us all work together in the name of peace. And he did something no other president has done,” Haley said.
“Rather than focus on the Palestinians, which is what every president has thought they had to do to negotiate peace, he focused on Iran,” she said.
Her comments echoed those of Trump himself, who at the White House shortly before the signing ceremony, referred to the fact that unlike other administrations which failed in their peace efforts, his team went through the “back door,” or as he also termed it, “the smart door.”
Building trust
Haley said that Trump laid the foundation for success by building trust with the Arab leaders.
“He brought all of the Arab countries together and said: Let’s all fight against terrorism,” Haley said.
“This was about the fact that this peace deal came together simply out of the fact they trusted the president. They trusted him because he got out of the Iran deal; they trusted him because he was honest with them; they trusted him because he showed strength in a time when we needed it,” she said.
“The president’s idea to peace was being honest and acknowledging truths, which was moving the embassy to the capital of Israel, which was Jerusalem,” she added.
“It was getting out of the Iran deal… And it was bringing them together in the name of: Let’s do away with terrorism. The number one sponsor of terrorism is Iran, and if we’re going to all get together and do this, we have to start acknowledging the truth. And that’s what the president did,” she said.
“I’m telling you, if you go back to my first year at the United Nations at the start of this administration, the hurdles that it took to get from that moment, where the Arab countries were condemning Israel every other day, to the idea that we’re watching the leaders of Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates come together in the name of peace — absolutely monumental, historic, definitely a legacy point for President Trump,” she said.
Trump’s roundabout way toward the peace deal dovetailed nicely with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach. He also used a different strategy than what has been accepted until now. He referred to it in an interview with Israel’s Channel 20 just after the signing.
Netanyahu said the accepted paradigm was that no peace with Arab countries was possible without first solving the Palestinian problem. He called it the “inside-out” paradigm whereas he advocated the opposite, the “outside-in” approach, in which Israel went around the Palestinians to directly deal with the Arab states first.
“And today, many people are eating their hats,” Netanyahu said.
Together, Netanyahu and Trump have notched several diplomatic triumphs.