Juno News - The historic Middle East agreement explained

00:00:00.000 so august 13th is definitely a historic day and all i can say about it is wow and it is wow because

00:00:13.380 of this president trump here announcing that he has brokered a peace deal between israel and the

00:00:19.340 united arab emirates now this is again this is historic this is monumental if you if you don't

00:00:24.440 think so you may not know that much about the middle east or you may simply hate trump or israel

00:00:28.100 and be blinded by that fact but it really is monumental to see israel signing a peace deal

00:00:33.040 with a major arab nation it's the first peace deal since it signed one with jordan in 1994

00:00:37.340 the only previous arrangements arrangements and peace deals that they had were with egypt and

00:00:42.000 then jordan so adding a third uae is a big big deal now this reveals a number of things number one

00:00:48.580 it's an exemplar of the changing dynamics in the region when president obama signed the iran deal

00:00:54.000 or the jcpoa the joint comprehensive plan of action that basically gave iran a free hand

00:00:59.520 it prevented them maybe on paper from pursuing a nuclear bomb within 20 years but it said nothing

00:01:04.480 about their ballistic missile program and gave them a whole lot of cash and opened up some cash reserves

00:01:08.860 that they had that had been locked in in foreign assets but it basically gave them a huge huge huge

00:01:14.760 war chest and they have used that war chest to fund organizations like hezbollah or hamas or cause

00:01:20.100 problems in yemen and so iran's neighbors rightfully became terrified that they would exert

00:01:24.520 influence that it would exert influence on them just like it has done in iraq and so countries like

00:01:30.160 the uae and saudi arabia suddenly realized well perhaps the enemy of my enemy is actually my friend

00:01:35.300 and so they have engaged in sort of back channel relations with israel there's been a lot of rumors

00:01:40.320 about uh uae and saudi arabia helping israel with some intelligence things or sharing intelligence

00:01:45.440 information about what's going on with iran's nuclear program but that is historic now it's

00:01:50.360 historic also for one more reason and there are definitely a lot but one more that i want to

00:01:54.640 highlight it's historic because when president trump moved the american embassy from tel aviv to

00:02:00.100 jerusalem so many critics so many critics of the president and of israel and just in general of

00:02:04.820 american foreign policy said that this would be a barrier to peace that no arab nation would

00:02:10.320 normalize anything with israel they would want nothing to do with the country because this was 1.00

00:02:15.460 simply unfair what israel was doing now this is you know it's been proven totally wrong the east

00:02:21.280 clearly doesn't care that the american embassy is in jerusalem and a lot of that is filled with

00:02:26.660 politics you have probably heard about east jerusalem west jerusalem these are all political

00:02:30.640 terms that take a lot of time to unpack and for example one of the ones that simply is relevant

00:02:35.280 here is east and west jerusalem countries like russia recognize west jerusalem as israel's capital

00:02:39.960 but a lot of parts of so-called east jerusalem are southwest of the city of jerusalem so again a lot

00:02:46.100 of political terms but what is important is the actual real deal between israel and the united

00:02:51.180 emirates united arab emirates that will allow opening of embassies direct flights bilateral trade

00:02:57.580 tourism it's simply a huge huge piece of news for the middle east because it's showing that a lot of

00:03:04.420 countries are simply interested they're they're perhaps tiring of the israeli-palestinian conflict

00:03:08.820 perhaps they feel that the israeli-arab conflict is again it's just time to end that because it's

00:03:14.100 no longer worth it for any of those countries and this is a historic historic day so there's a lot to

00:03:20.460 talk about but from a canadian context most important from a canadian context the question

00:03:25.700 is should and will canada move its embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem now again a lot of the same

00:03:31.980 critics said a lot of people in the house of commons or or in the news media when the conservatives put

00:03:36.680 that as part of their party platform and as the leaders for the um everyone running for the

00:03:40.920 conservative leadership when they said that they would move the embassy a lot of critics came out

00:03:44.620 of the woodwork saying this would cause problems but clearly clearly it does not cause any problem

00:03:48.840 uh putting a putting an embassy putting a canadian embassy in west jerusalem which for all intents and

00:03:54.300 purposes will remain part of israel has remained part of israel in any proposed peace agreement and is

00:03:59.420 the recognized capital of israel by countries like russia there's absolutely no danger and this is

00:04:05.500 evidence because uh you know the the um the oe would not sign uh diplomatic relations with uh israel if

00:04:12.900 they felt that that was simply a barrier so clearly some big news big happenings in the middle east i'd love

00:04:17.680 to talk more about that but what do you guys think do you think canada will and should move the embassy

00:04:21.600 i think it should perhaps i'll make another video about why but i'd love to hear what you guys think

00:04:25.460 what are the pros and cons so please do leave that in the comments for true north though i am sam

00:04:30.480 ashkenazi i hope you enjoyed this video you learned a little bit about the middle east and we'll talk

00:04:34.280 again later thanks so much

Juno News - August 14, 2020

The historic Middle East agreement explained

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