Before the first Trump administration upended nearly every piece of common knowledge about the Middle East, figures like former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry set the tone. In its relentless pursuit of a peace process that would end the Israel-Palestinian conflict—viewing Israeli concessions as the key to peace in the entire region—that tone was often quite negative. As in, “No, no, no and no,” Kerry’s infamous conclusion about the possibility of Israel reaching out to its other Arab neighbors. Trapped in a mindset shaped by abstract academic ideas about how to conduct diplomacy, U.S. administration after administration would get stuck on arranging frameworks for the possibility of negotiations for a sketch of what could someday, eventually, lead to discussions about a two-state solution. Palestinian intransigence and the Israeli public’s plummeting risk tolerance after decades of terror campaigns were simply an afterthought.
For all its imperfections, the Trump administration offered at least one indisputable positive. The 2020 Abraham Accords, which proved Kerry wrong (or contradicted his wish, depending on how you interpret his comments) by establishing peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, have endured as a resounding “yes” to the possibility of progress without obsequiousness to the Palestinians. The question is now how many more Arab and Muslim nations will join. The Abraham Accords have brought cooperation and clarity to a region in desperate need of a unified front to counter Iran, which uses weapons and proxies to foment chaos and distrust.
Unfortunately, American leadership’s posture towards the region has been uneven in the intervening years. The Biden administration’s bipolar approach to Israel and the Middle East, especially since Oct. 7, has represented a muddle of geopolitical, ideological and domestic political considerations. It may have even played a role in pushing the American people back towards Trump and the Republican Party in the recent elections.
The Biden administration offered strong rhetorical support for Israel, allowed many useful weapons to reach the Israel Defense Forces, and doubtless provided much more support behind the scenes. At the same time, it restrained Israel from prosecuting its war quickly, prolonging the conflict. It has done little to force Hamas to free American hostages held in Gaza or strong-arm the intermediaries to do so. It has pressured Israel to concede more in each round of sham hostage negotiations rather than threatening Hamas with swift annihilation unless they do what the United States says. It has engaged in faux humanitarian campaigns like the Gaza pier based on a bizarre claim that Israel isn’t doing enough to facilitate aid to Palestinians. It “studied the maps” before warning Israel not to go into Rafah (and threatening to cut off arms if Israel disobeyed), beneath which Hamas would soon execute hostages, including a young American.
Does this seem like the well-executed plan of an administration that sees the world clearly? No, no, no and no.
What’s the game plan for getting back on track? Several books have been written analyzing the Trump administration’s successes in thinking outside the box. But the most helpful one is neither a tell-all nor a didactic work of political science. Jason Greenblatt’s In the Path of Abraham: How Donald Trump Made Peace in the Middle East—and How to Stop Joe Biden from Unmaking It declares its relevance right in the subtitle. U.S. President Joe Biden did not “unmake” peace in the Middle East, but he has not made it more stable. Perhaps he could have benefited from reading an account about bucking conventional wisdom. Greenblatt has a playbook for avoiding the same muddled thinking that confounded Kerry, Biden and so many incurable peace processors and no-no-no-ers before them. There is cause for optimism that the playbook will have some important readers as Trump assembles a foreign-policy team of stalwart Israel supporters, who are sure to consult Greenblatt’s blueprint as they fashion their own approach to the region.
Fully understanding Greenblatt’s approach requires appreciating why he was motivated to write in the first place. He repeatedly emphasizes that the obsessive focus on Israel itself tends to obscure what goes on behind the scenes.
Greenblatt has harsh words for those who “put their heads in the sand” about the forces currently responsible for prolonging the conflict in its bloodiest manifestations: Iran, its clients in the Palestinian leadership and its sympathizers in the West. Whether for material or ideological reasons, they do not seek to end the conflict because they don’t care primarily about Palestinian welfare. If they did, they would have recognized long ago that the Palestinian future grows only bleaker with each rejection of Israeli overtures. Their primary goal is Israel’s elimination, which is obviously a non-starter. Any negotiations that do not address that elephant in the room upfront are a sham.
From there, an approach crystallizes. Greenblatt helped spearhead the “Peace to Prosperity” plan, an initiative that aimed to circumvent the usual tactic of show negotiations in favor of establishing economic and political conditions necessary to build a popular front for stability. The initiative is quite remarkable to revisit in retrospect, especially for its spot-on assessment of “the problem of Gaza” being “held hostage by Hamas,” whose violent kleptocracy runs on Iranian support and the promise of Israel’s destruction. The contrast between Greenblatt’s path and the Biden administration’s pier to nowhere—and the kind of analysis that could lead it to conclude that it was a worthwhile initiative—could not be starker.
The “Peace to Prosperity” plan, whose premise the Palestinian leadership proved correct by rejecting it after the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, laid the groundwork for the Abraham Accords. Greenblatt says he was not deterred by the prospect of “losing” Palestinian leadership and their cooperation because the United States and Israel were operating from a place of strength. They would be happy to strengthen their own positions by other means.
One of the most remarkable motifs of In the Path of Abraham is the recurring willingness of leaders to put aside real, serious differences in the face of larger shared interests. The Arab states that eventually signed on to the Abraham Accords have serious gripes with lots of things Israel and the United States do. But as long as Greenblatt and his team could get them on board with what Israel and the United States are—the world hegemon and a Jewish state that will not be lost to history, respectively—they could move their focus to Iran and building the economic and security apparatus to help shore up their defenses. Accepting the reality of American power was crucial. If other states thought that the United States would simply lose interest in the prospect of having to assert its influence or would waffle on its support for Israel’s claim to Jerusalem, the whole thing would have fallen apart.
It’s no Harvard graduate dissertation—and thank God for that—but it’s a framework for success: Don’t bury your head in the sand about the real issue that everyone knows presents an obstacle to the proximate goal. Talk about it. Think about who is aligned in removing that obstacle. Work with them honestly and find avenues for cooperation and trust-building. And remember, America has the power to shape the world for the better if it believes in itself and its mission. Stand firm in support of our principles and our allies. Do not be discouraged when one weaker partner tries to scuttle the whole thing.
Every one of these prongs has an equal-and-opposite analog in America’s approach to the region since Greenblatt and his team left Washington in 2021. So, while it’s not a perfect scientific conclusion, it’s reasonable to infer that these approaches had something to do with the wildly different outcomes emerging from the two time periods. Recent history, in other words, vindicates the choice to return to Greenblatt’s book for a sound understanding of the Middle East.