Washington Times opinion editor Charlie Hurt championed President Trump’s off-kilter approach to foreign policy amid a flurry of potential peace deals between Middle Eastern nations and Israel that the president helped broker.
During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday afternoon, Hurt said that Trump’s out-of-the-box negotiating style led to the “Abraham Accords,” which seek to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
“President Trump’s critics are always going into hysterics about how he does things differently. They don’t like who he talks to. They don’t like how he talks, but this right here, this is the fruit of somebody doing something differently,” Hurt said.
In August, the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relationships with Israel. Last week, Bahrain followed UAE’s lead and agreed to sign a peace deal with Israel.
Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a delegation from Bahrain at the White House on Tuesday. Hurt accused news outlets such as the New York Times of downplaying the achievement because of their disapproval of Trump.
“I think a lot of people in the media are loath to give him credit for anything,” Hurt said. “The New York Times tried to sort of dismiss this development today as some sort of a gift from Bibi Netanyahu to President Trump in an election year, as if Bibi Netanyahu hasn’t fought for peace for his country for his entire political career. But it’s just that stinginess that we see.”
Hurt said the deal could lead to a number of peace deals and normalization agreements in the Middle East that, if written about truthfully by the media, would cast Trump as “one of the great masterminds of peace” in world history.
“When you develop a real economy in the Middle East that Israel is sort of a linchpin in, that really opens up an opportunity for others to come out into the light of peace, and if that happens and the media can be fair about it, President Trump will go down in history as one of the great masterminds of peace in the world. Again, if he gets credit for it.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he expects a half-dozen more Middle Eastern countries to sign some sort of peace agreement with Israel.
“We’re very far down the road with about five countries, five additional countries. Frankly, I thought we could’ve had them here today,” Trump said. “But we’ll have at least five or six countries coming along very quickly, and we’re already talking to them, and they want to see peace. You know, they’ve been fighting for a long time, and they’re tired. They’re warring countries, but they’re tired of fighting.”
