Former President Donald Trump oversaw the signing of the Abraham Accords, the first Middle East peace agreement in decades. It was a monumental achievement, worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.
But President Joe Biden and his administration have ignored it almost entirely and seem utterly unwilling to build upon Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments.
This kind of partisan bias is damaging our nation’s ability to make progress on key goals. But it’s not just bad for the United States, it’s bad for the Middle East and key allies in the region as well. Normalizing relationships between Israel and other Middle Eastern nations is essential to achieving peace in the region; we have no reason to waste the opportunity Trump gave us to make that happen.
With all that Trump accomplished, the U.S. is uniquely poised to help lead the Middle East into an era of peace and cooperation. Policymakers know this, and new legislation such as the bipartisan Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021, H.R. 2748, would be a great first step to building on Trump’s legacy of peace. We need the Biden administration and other Democrats in office to put cheap shots aside. It’s time to work together toward real policy solutions.
When the Abraham Accords were signed, Trump said they marked the “dawn of a new Middle East,” and he was right. The Abraham Accords achieved something unprecedented; it normalized the diplomatic relationship between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, two Arab states.
The accords obviously benefit Israel, a great democracy and America’s most important ally in the Middle East. But peace through normalization also benefits the region as a whole. Where there is war and hostility, instead of trade and diplomacy, no one wins.
Despite the importance of the Abraham Accords, Biden has all but buried their success. His administration has wasted a year now avoiding the topic — a year they could have spent bringing nations such as Sudan into the fold.
And why? They don’t want to give Trump credit. The Biden administration didn’t even want to refer to the accords by their name, preferring instead to use the term “the normalization process.”
Not only is Biden ignoring Trump’s accomplishments, he’s also directly threatening them. Biden’s election was characterized as a “demotion” for Israel with good reason. To give just one example, Biden campaigned on the promise he’d return to the strategically disastrous Iran nuclear deal that Trump abandoned. And while he has since waffled on U.S. recommitment to the Iran deal, his rhetoric itself sends a confusing and unhelpful message to Israel and the Middle East. At the very least, Biden is openly neglecting our relationship with Israel and undermining international confidence in U.S. leadership on the international issues that affect the Middle East.
This kind of partisanship and obfuscation threatens the future of good policy abroad. Peace in the Middle East is not a partisan issue, despite many liberals trying to make it one. The benefits of regional peace are clear, and attempts to sabotage peace efforts by making them about U.S. party loyalism are both juvenile and short-sighted.
That’s why H.R. 2748 is such an important step. H.R. 2748 is the first truly bipartisan effort to build on Trump’s peace deal. It shows that we can overcome partisan divides on this issue, both for the good of the U.S., the good of Israel, and the good of the Middle East as a whole.
That’s why it’s crucial that we remove the issue from the realm of polls, parties, political slogans, and cheap campaign promises. A bipartisan legislative effort like H.R. 2748 is a chance to build on Trump’s legacy, preserve what has been accomplished so far and provide a firm footing for future achievements. Let’s not waste the opportunity.
Timothy Head is executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
