Ambassador David Friedman, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel from March 2017 until January 2021, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. Ambassador Friedman was recognized in each of the past five years by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 Most Influential Jews in the World, coming in first in 2020, and named one the 20 Most Impactful People of the Past Decade by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He was honored by President Trump with a rare National Security Medal in September 2020 and by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a Meritorious Civilian Service Medal in April 2019. On February 8, 2022, Harper Collins published Ambassador Friedman s memoir, Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past brought peace to the Middle East. In its first week, it broke sales records for a book on the state of Israel. He is also among a very small group of American officials, signally responsible for the Abraham Accords, which is a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. And that s been a problem that has threatened all of us for 70 years, for longer than that, on all sorts of fronts. We can start right now by asking: What are the reasons why the Arab-Israeli conflict has been so intractable? And what has been the United States done to solve it? And why is it so difficult to achieve peace in the first place? and why it s been so hard to achieve it? In this episode, Ambassador Friedman answers these questions, and explains why the problem is so difficult, and how we can begin to find a solution to it. And why we ve been stuck in the problem, and why we have been stuck with it for so long, and what we should do about it. And why the only way we can change it, not just with peace, but with a peace deal, but a deal that s not a deal, and not a peace agreement. And what we can do to make peace, and a peace that s actually a deal at all. And how we should be doing it, and an agreement that s a deal. And what that means, not only in the Arab and Jewish history, but also in the past, but in the future, and in the 21st century, and the future. This episode is a must-listen to this episode of Daily Wire Plus, hosted by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, featuring David Friedman.
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00:00:50.980The effect it's had on the people of Israel, the people of UAE, the optimism and opportunity it's brought to the Middle East, none of that has been covered at all.
00:01:08.020And I think it's all because it came from us, from the Trump administration.
00:01:13.060Yeah, but that's no bloody excuse here. That's no excuse.
00:01:17.040Like, this isn't—this transcends the political, as far as I'm concerned, and I think as far as anybody reasonable would be concerned.
00:01:24.280And it's important to give the devil his due, and that's the case even if the devil happens to be Trump and his damned minions.
00:01:31.100And the facts seem to me to be clear on the ground that this represents a significant and very unexpected move forward on the peace front in the Middle East.
00:01:40.020And that's been a problem that has threatened all of us for 70 years, for longer than that, on all sorts of fronts.
00:01:47.400Hello, everyone. It's my great pleasure and privilege to have with me today Ambassador David Friedman.
00:02:06.980As the United States Ambassador to Israel from March 2017 until January 2021, Ambassador Friedman successfully guided unprecedented diplomatic advancements in the U.S.-Israel relationship,
00:02:22.000including moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem, a move that was promised by many previous administrations but never occurred,
00:02:30.440and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
00:02:34.040He is also among a very small group of American officials, signally responsible for the Abraham Accords—comprehensive peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,
00:02:50.760Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, for which he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.
00:02:58.520Ambassador Friedman was recognized in each of the past five years by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world, coming in first in 2020.
00:03:11.180He also was named one of the 20 most impactful persons of the past decade by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
00:03:17.520Ambassador Friedman was honored by President Trump with a rare National Security Medal in September 2020 and by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff with a Meritorious Civilian Service Medal in April 2019.
00:03:33.240He has received numerous other honors, recognitions and awards, including honorary doctorates from Yeshiva University in New York and Ariel University in the Shomron.
00:03:44.240On February 8, 2022, Harper Collins published Ambassador Friedman's memoir, Sledgehammer,
00:03:53.080Sledgehammer, how breaking with the past brought peace to the Middle East.
00:03:59.540In its first week, Sledgehammer broke sales records for a book on the state of Israel.
00:04:06.420Ambassador Friedman is also the founder of the Friedman Center for Peace Through Strength,
00:04:12.300which works to build upon the ambassador's achievements in strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship.
00:09:30.440If you solve the Palestinian issue, you can unlock the rest of the Arab world, the rest of the Muslim world, as you say.
00:09:36.640If you can't solve the Palestinian issue, nobody else will even talk to you.
00:09:42.380Now, just to put that into a bigger context, when you say the Palestinian issue, okay, you're talking about Israel not just making peace with the Palestinian Authority,
00:09:55.140which in and of itself is a corrupt organization whose leader, as people like to say, is in the 17th year of his four-year term.
00:10:07.020You know, he was elected for four years.
00:10:26.000The financial transparency is non-existent.
00:10:29.300There is extraordinary subjugation of women.
00:10:33.420Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.
00:10:37.780I mean, and those are the good guys, right?
00:10:40.900Then you have Hamas, which operates in the West Bank but primarily controls the Gaza Strip.
00:10:48.020Take all that, and they're extraordinarily violent, and they don't even accept the notion that one Jew should live anywhere between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
00:11:01.160These are the organizations that the State Department says, until you get them on board, all right, you can't move any further within the region.
00:11:08.860And there's really no way to get them on board.
00:11:12.440Okay, so there's two issues at work there, from what I understand, then.
00:11:18.300The first is what appears to me to be an oversimplified rationalization for failure to move forward, which would be the acceptance of a low-resolution ideology that you can boil down all the complexities of the Arab-slash-Muslim-slash-Palestinian relationship
00:11:38.740to the issue of Palestine, and that because that's intractable, there's no point wasting effort on the attempt to take a more differentiated approach to bringing peace to the Middle East,
00:11:53.780combined with—and this is a mystery that we could also delve into—the fact that there seems to be a reflexive identification for many on the West with the Palestinians on the side of this conflict.
00:12:08.520And it seems to me that's fueled by this equally global and vague, reductive notion that the Palestinians are oppressed, and oppressed people are always virtuous.
00:12:22.240And since oppressed people are virtuous, the Israelis must be oppressors and wrong, despite whatever sins, let's say, the Palestinian leadership manifests,
00:12:33.480which are justifiable in any case because of the fact that they're oppressed and couldn't possibly know better.
00:12:46.000I mean, you could take it another step, which is the Palestinians, apart from your point about, well, you know, they must be right if they're weak, you know,
00:12:59.480which is, of course, one does not flow from the other.
00:13:04.420But, you know, the Palestinian leadership, the Palestinian Authority, which is, again, you know, as people say, the least dirty shirt in the closet,
00:13:12.660the Palestinian Authority spends hundreds of million dollars from its budget that could otherwise be used to build, you know, a hospital or a school.
00:13:20.720They use that money to reward and incentivize terrorists to kill Jews, okay?
00:13:25.540And the United States funds the Palestinian Authority.
00:13:53.580Well, I don't often get accused of not being cynical enough, but I do appreciate that correction.
00:13:58.820So let's return to the Palestinian issue later because we don't want to get sidelined entirely by that as the whole world has been sidelined for five decades.
00:14:08.860Let's talk about the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
00:14:14.940And so these countries, for some reason, were willing to move beyond, let's say, this State Department dicta and work with you to improve relations with Israel and to improve the possibility of peace in the Middle East.
00:14:32.120And so why were they willing to do that?
00:14:39.380I'll share with you a conversation I had with, because I think it's the most telling, with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, who was the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates.
00:14:50.460And I sat with him, you know, this past summer after the Abraham Accords were already, you know, out for more than a year.
00:14:59.060And I said to him, is this just about Israel having common enemies with, you know, Iran and Bahrain?
00:15:08.320Is it just about the fact that everybody doesn't like and is threatened by Iran?
00:15:14.880You know, what in your mind got us started?
00:15:18.320And what he said to me, and he said something which I thought was very profound, although probably the Russian-Ukraine war may be the exception that proves that rule.
00:15:27.200But what he said to me is, you know, in the 21st century, the real conflicts in the world are not really between nations anymore.
00:16:38.720Just because, you know, there are reasons for people to align, you have to create the right environment to do that.
00:16:45.400You have to create the political opportunity for it to happen.
00:16:48.440You have to create the kind of—the United States has to create, you know, the coverage, you know, for these countries to move out of their comfort zone.
00:17:10.520So, you know, the very first trip that President Trump took to the Mideast was in—I'm sorry, the very first trip President Trump took on foreign soil was to the Mideast.
00:18:01.160And if you do, you will find the United States to be an extraordinarily good friend.
00:18:07.480That was the first thing he said, and a lot of people listened, and a lot of people acted on it.
00:18:11.240The second thing he said is, for those of you still wasting your time thinking that Israel is going to be wiped off the map or they're not going to exist, you're wasting your time.
00:18:37.060And those of you who still think it's a problem and think somehow you're going to shortchange Israel or get it to go away or push it into the sea, it's a pipe dream.
00:18:51.920And let me tell you, you know, at the time, we couldn't tell you how far that would go, but now looking back from in hindsight, boy, was that an important speech.
00:19:06.100And he doesn't get any of the credit he deserves for it, but boy, was that important.
00:19:09.780The next thing he does, because he flies directly to Tel Aviv.
00:19:15.300Now, they told him, you know, Mr. President, we have to stop in Amman.
00:22:10.540Every time you connect to an unsecured network in a cafe, hotel, or airport,
00:22:14.800you're essentially broadcasting your personal information to anyone with a technical know-how to intercept it.
00:22:19.860And let's be clear, it doesn't take a genius hacker to do this.
00:22:22.740With some off-the-shelf hardware, even a tech-savvy teenager could potentially access your passwords, bank logins, and credit card details.
00:22:30.500Now, you might think, what's the big deal?
00:26:19.420And in the Middle East, you know, we have a saying, you know, in the Middle East, you're either strong or you're dead.
00:26:24.260You know, and everybody, everybody, even the countries that didn't agree with him, even the Palestinians that reviled him because he wouldn't agree with them, they respected him.
00:26:36.280And even the Palestinians said that the only guy who can make peace is Trump because he's tough and he's strong and he backs up what he says.
00:26:44.280And none of us can pull the bull over his eyes.
00:26:48.160You know, what we say on the Arab streets in Arabic is going to get translated.
00:26:56.160He's not going to give us, you know, the wiggle room to, you know, to say nice things in English for the American press and then say something different to the Arab street.
00:27:05.120You know, he's holding us accountable.
00:27:07.760You know, I mentioned to you just before we started this interview statement by Nietzsche that great men are seldom credited with their stupidity.
00:27:16.380And Trump is, from the perspective of a psychologist, a person who's low in trait agreeableness, so highly disagreeable, or at least highly impolite, technically speaking.
00:27:27.940And that's not an insult or a criticism, by the way.
00:27:30.500It just means that he's not, well, it means that he's forthright and blunt and brash and able to say no.
00:27:40.480And that does have the consequence of making him a divisive character on the domestic front.
00:27:47.880But it's an open question how much that forthright and stubborn strength of character is the prerequisite for the kinds of negotiations that you're describing.
00:28:01.500And that's really something that we don't understand.
00:28:04.500We don't understand the full complexity of human personality and what's necessary in each situation.
00:28:09.540And so why do you think, OK, so now we know why Trump could do it, at least at a personal level.
00:28:15.160Why do you think he cared and made this a centerpiece of his policy?
00:28:20.200Because he's a businessman in some real sense.
00:28:23.060And it wasn't self-evident to me, and I think to many people, that foreign policy would necessarily be an interest of Trump's.
00:28:31.540And yet he pursued this Middle East policy assiduously and carefully and with malice aforethought, let's say, and also very effectively.
00:28:44.920So, look, it wasn't something he ran on.
00:28:49.320He ran almost entirely on a domestic agenda.
00:28:52.260He has a real interest in Israel, both because people that he's close to have a deep interest in Israel, whether it was Jared or Ivanka or me or many of his friends that he dealt with over years in the New York real estate market.
00:29:13.480He also, I think, was intrigued by the challenge because, you know, peace in the Middle East is sort of, you know, considered as likely as a as a solar eclipse or maybe even less likely.
00:29:26.080So, you know, the challenge, I think, was something that that he saw interesting.
00:29:32.760And and look, I don't think he spent a huge portion of his time on this.
00:29:39.560What he did is he he deputized Jared and me to work the region, Jason Greenblatt as well.
00:29:48.920And when he was working there, we worked the region.
00:29:56.080We after that trip, we began to move forward with some some real historic pro-Israel moves, both because we wanted to do it, both because the president had promised he would do it because they were extraordinarily important to many of the people that voted for him.
00:30:17.300And also because it would give us a real sense of how a pro-Israel policy could could be harmonized with a pro-moderate Sunni policy as well.
00:30:34.540My friend Jared likes to talk about, you know, his conversations when he spoke to a few of his Arab friends in the region about potentially moving our embassy to Jerusalem.
00:30:46.700And they said to him, Jared, I'm not going to tell you to move the embassy or not move the embassy.
00:30:51.620But what I am going to tell you is that if you move the embassy, you'll find out who your friends are.
00:30:57.120And that that just struck me as a as an extraordinary observation, because when we moved the embassy, we did.
00:31:05.540We found out who our friends were, you know, the again, the State Department, the CIA, much to the consternation of Mike Pompeo, who was running the CIA at the time.
00:31:16.940But the CIA analysts predicted that, you know, if we move our embassy, we're going to create a an arc of violence from Morocco all the way to Pakistan.
00:31:26.940And everything that we did on our own, all the conversations we had suggested exactly the opposite.
00:31:35.920And, you know, Jared is a real estate guy.
00:31:37.980But everything we knew, everybody we spoke to said that's not going to be the case.
00:31:41.560Yeah, well, it was it's also the case that.
00:31:44.860Well, it's also the case that, you know, you'd think if you were thinking about this strategically beforehand, in some sense, that the move of the embassy to Jerusalem would have scuttled any chances whatsoever.
00:31:59.020That would be the accepted dog by anyways, that would have scuttled any chances whatsoever of moving forward with a broader peace accord.
00:32:05.740You know, so much for expert prediction, but that's not at all what happened.
00:32:11.660No, not only is it not what happened, but, you know, in terms of the arc of getting from that trip that the president took in May of 2017 to the Abraham Accords, one of the most important steps along the way, counterintuitively, was moving our embassy to Jerusalem.
00:32:30.000Why? Because what the president was saying in moving our embassy to Jerusalem, he was delivering a few messages.
00:32:38.980The first is, I keep my campaign promises.
00:33:43.420It's something that actually happened, something that was in some sense, let's say, provocative, but also justifiable, especially from the Democratic legislative perspectives.
00:34:16.340In fact, we're happy about it because you always want to irritate the right people in some real sense.
00:34:21.260Yeah, and so, you know, we now did a couple of things.
00:34:28.180We proved that we would keep promises.
00:34:30.900We proved that we would stand with our ally Israel and recognize what the American people have recognized for two decades, that Jerusalem's the capital of Israel.
00:34:43.640And we're willing to—so what happened?
00:34:46.520And what happened was a lot of countries took notice, and instead of being angry, they said, wow, you know, America can really be a good friend to its allies.
00:34:59.940It could be counted upon under this president.
00:35:15.880So, okay, so let me ask you another question here that's a little bit of a sideways move.
00:35:20.940Okay, so as I mentioned when I introduced you, you know, my ignorance knows no bounds, and I want to talk a little bit about Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt.
00:35:30.980So I'll tell you right off the bat that I know very little about Jared Kushner, but I can tell you what I do know and how I learned it.
00:35:38.140And what I know is that he's a reprehensible individual who was never suited for his job, and he was a nepotistic appointee by the Trump administration, and that there was nothing good about him on any front.
00:35:51.740And I learned all of that, I would say, from my casual interactions with the legacy media, whom I've learned to trust about absolutely nothing.
00:36:00.980And so what I'm curious about is I need to know more.
00:36:06.220I would like to know more about Jared and why you and Jason Greenblatt, and more about Greenblatt as well, why you outsiders, first of all, were brought in, and why you were able to, you know, what was Trump's justification for bringing you in?
00:36:21.180And why did you agree to do this? And why were you able to, and willing to, move the logjam?
00:36:28.140Like, in some sense, it makes sense, right? If something's been stuck for 50 years, maybe you don't want to stay working with the same people who've been stuck for 50 years.
00:36:36.780And so outsiders, arguably, at least can look at something different.
00:36:42.200The counterargument would be, well, you guys were, in some real sense, I don't think this is overstating it, but foreign policy and policy amateurs.
00:36:54.120And so why you, why did the teamwork between the three of you work?
00:37:01.300What positive attributes, I suppose, and negative attributes did you bring to bear on the problem?
00:37:18.020And I have, you know, I have some of that in my book.
00:37:21.320But I would say that, first of all, you know, starting off kind of on a macro level, I don't think you have the Abraham Accords without Jared Kushner.
00:37:32.700I think Jared did two things that were essential for the Abraham Accords.
00:37:38.920The first of which was just generally, I think he established really important relations of trust with these countries.
00:37:52.860We announced the Abraham Accords, the first one, with the UAE on August 13th of 2020.
00:37:58.940This was, we did it from the White House, we did it from the Oval Office.
00:38:03.580This was an Oval Office that was plagued by leaks, you know, as well as me, leaks every day.
00:38:11.240I mean, every single day somebody was running to the press with something about Trump, what he was about to do, something unflattering, or even something good.
00:38:19.740I mean, but the leaks were just rampant, all right?
00:38:23.140When we were working on the Abraham Accords, really, you know, from the day we began, we were working on our agreement with the UAE for over a month.
00:38:32.800When we announced the deal with the UAE on August 13th, it really shocked the world.
00:38:41.640Because Jared and I, and Jason had already left the government at that point, but Jared and I, and the president and Mike Pompeo, Robert O'Brien, Mike Pence, that was it.
00:38:54.780That was the universe of people in America who knew about this.
00:38:58.440Israel, you know, probably Netanyahu and Ron Dermer and his national security advisor, three or four people in the UAE.
00:39:05.520The level of trust that we established, and Jared was really, I would say, the key to all that, creating that level of trust.
00:39:15.620It wouldn't have got done without trust.
00:39:17.420The second thing that Jared did, which is, I think, maybe even more remarkable.
00:39:21.780So we put out a peace plan, okay, in January of 2020.
00:39:27.740Most people consider it to be extraordinarily pro-Israel.
00:39:31.520In my view, I think it was the most, the maximalist position that could be given to the Palestinians with, you know, in a deal that involved Israel.
00:39:43.820It had the support of a right-wing Israeli government, which, you know, the Palestinians, you know, ran to the Security Council and ripped it up.
00:39:53.180But when we announced this deal, there were responses, you know, from Saudi Arabia, UAE, a bunch of Morocco, other countries.
00:40:01.560And Jared worked like, like, he worked day and night to make sure that even though the Palestinians were going to trash this deal, we got, you know, we got more of a positive response, you know, from the moderate Sunni nations.
00:40:49.220I actually think it was in the relationship.
00:40:55.000You know, I think, first of all, he had huge credibility.
00:41:01.200Because, you know, in the Gulf, the, you know, almost always the guy who's sort of the second in command at the Gulf in any of these Gulf countries is related to the king, right?
00:41:13.240So, I mean, I think they saw Jared, you know, as a prince.
00:41:16.860You know, this is a guy who really, you know, we can trust him.
00:50:51.200So the Abraham Accords are structured in two parts.
00:50:55.080There is the Abraham Accords declaration, which is the same for every country, in which there is a recognition that the parties will end their state of conflict, end their state of hostilities.
00:51:10.840They will recognize each other's sovereignty.
00:51:15.280They will normalize relationships in all different ways, whether it's cultural, economic, political.
00:51:23.480They'll engage in strategic cooperation on matters of common interest for their respective national securities.
00:51:30.240They'll open up embassies, reciprocal embassies in their countries, and they'll exchange ambassadors.
00:51:37.500So basically it's a full normalization of peaceful relations.
00:51:42.520Then, and now that's the overall, if you will, common Abraham Accords.
00:51:49.900Now, with each country, if you look at it, the way I tend to look at it is each Abraham Accord is like a triangle.
00:51:56.400You have Israel and a Muslim country at the base, and you have America at the apex.
00:52:02.100And in each case, you know, something different is happening.
00:52:07.820Again, with Sudan, they wanted to be taken off the terror list, okay, and the Sudanese government had done significant things to combat terrorism.
00:52:21.180By getting them off the terror list, the terror watch list, the United States was able to help them with, you know, some basic humanism.
00:52:42.020And by the way, it's incredibly important for Israel because most of the arms that were heading up into Hamas were going up through Sudan, through Sinai, into Hamas, into the Gaza Strip.
00:52:54.720In the case of Morocco, Morocco had a longstanding territorial dispute with a group called the Palisario in the Western Sahara.
00:53:05.820We had felt for years that Morocco was, that the world was better off with Morocco having sovereignty over this territory.
00:53:16.340A lot of other countries didn't recognize that sovereignty.
00:53:19.200We recognized Morocco's sovereignty over certain parts of the Western Sahara.
00:53:23.960That was sort of the lubricant that got them, you know, to the table.
00:53:29.100In the case of UAE, in the case of UAE, they're really, you know, UAE was, you know, is looking for some advanced weaponry.
00:53:36.960We said, look, we, you know, we don't, there is a, Israel's entitled by law to a qualitative military edge.
00:53:45.260You know, that assessment will be done by professionals, but, but clearly to the extent that you, that there are no hostilities and you've normalized with Israel and, you know, you have diplomatic relationships, that's certainly going to, going to fare well in the calculus.
00:53:59.420You know, it doesn't, it may or may not be enough.
00:54:02.700That's not for us to decide, but that will certainly fare well in the calculus of your relationship with the United States and the United States military.
00:54:10.020In the case of Bahrain, they were actually the easiest.
00:54:13.520They, they didn't ask for, there was nothing in particular that was on the table, but, you know, they wanted, they thought, and I think correctly so, that their people would be advantaged by all the opportunities that stem from, you know, the relationship with Israel.
00:54:30.340Remember that Israel has extraordinary advancements in technology, whether it's food tech, agri-tech, water technology, you know, cyber defense, financial technology.
00:55:03.800Well, that all sounds extremely positive, and it's, it's very interesting to see the, the commonality, the declaration of peace that's explicit, the rec, mutual recognition of sovereignty, that's a big deal.
00:55:15.820The cooperation and normalization of political relationships, including the establishment of embassies and the opening of doors to communication.
00:55:23.860And then the cultural cooperation, which allows, for example, for Israel to be treated and to become a genuine trading partner, which you could see.
00:55:32.360I mean, if, if Israel is in some sense, the Silicon Valley of the Middle East, which I think is a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it, that could be of incalculable economic value for, for the, for the surrounding Arab people.
00:55:46.120Jordan, if you, if you go to Ben Gurion Airport on any particular day today, and you look at the flight board, there, there, there are more flights leaving Israel for Abu Dhabi in Dubai than I think almost any other location around the world.
00:56:03.460I mean, it's, it's, it's really extraordinary how this has blossomed over the last couple of years.
00:56:08.360And who do you, who do you think, I like to give credit where credit is due.
00:56:12.380And so we've talked a little bit about the Americans who were signally important in bringing this about, and including in the background, from what I understand, Mike Pence.
00:56:22.780So, who, on the side of the UAE, we meant, you mentioned some of the leaders there.
00:56:29.880How about in Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco?
00:56:32.100Who played a signal role in those countries?
00:56:35.940So, you know, I think in Morocco, it was the foreign minister who was at all times taking his instructions from King Mohammed VI.
00:56:45.180First, in UAE, they have a, a very skillful ambassador to the United States named Yusuf al-Otayba, who really took the lead, I think, on behalf of the UAE, but of course subject to the approval of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, who is the, who was the crown prince and the ruler.
00:57:04.740In, in, in, in Sudan, you know, they had, they had a civilian government and a military government as well.
00:57:10.680They, they, they, they, they had a reconcile in order to do this.
00:57:37.880And, and, you know, so, I mean, there's, but, you know, this was done just, and I think you, you know, this intuitively, but this was done at the highest levels of government, of, of every one of the governments.
00:57:53.560So as far as you're concerned, what are the present, what have been the present consequences of the Abraham Accords as they've rolled out so far?
00:58:02.280Well, I think they've, they've done enormous good for, for American national security, for Israel's national security, and for the national security of all the Sunni nations.
00:58:13.820Because with this surfacing of diplomatic relations has also come a good deal of, of additional cooperation with regard to sharing of, of intelligence.
00:58:26.000And, you know, when you look at the region and you see Iran as really a threat to everyone, including the United States, it's the largest state sponsor of terrorism anywhere in the world.
00:58:37.340And so, you know, the winners here are the moderate Sunni nations.
00:58:54.600Number two, I think, look, I think if we, if we were still in office, I think we would be able to scale these relations to a lot more countries, including, I think, in particular.
00:59:07.980Well, look, you know, the, you know, it, you know, it, it could be Oman, it could be Indonesia, but the real, the real, you know, big fish is Saudi Arabia.
00:59:18.380Because Saudi Arabia is the, Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Muslim world.
00:59:21.760It's the custodian of the two holy sites in Islam.
00:59:25.800And I think that we backslid horribly over the last two years with Saudi Arabia.
00:59:33.060And you just saw that over the last couple of days when, when you saw a very, very unimpressive visit by, by Biden.
00:59:42.240You know, he goes there and not only does he kind of fumble, you know, some complaints about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, but he gets a lecture from the Saudis in return about Abu Ghraib.
00:59:57.100So, you know, that was, that, that didn't go well and got, got, got no relief at all.
01:00:02.440So what should, what should have happened in your estimation?
01:00:05.880So the Saudis, like I'd certainly seen the Abraham Accords as, and I've talked to some Saudi leaders as well.
01:00:12.360And my understanding is that there's a quite a large contingent there that would like to normalize relations with the Western world more broadly.
01:00:20.520And to move Saudi Arabia out of its relative isolation into something more approximating normative relationship with the rest of the world, potentially including Israel.
01:00:29.800And you'd think that would be a big deal, you know.
01:00:33.040And so what should have happened in Saudi Arabia?
01:00:35.680Well, I, I, I put out a tweet, um, a few days ago, uh, saying if I were Biden, after I went to Israel and met with the, uh, with the acting prime minister, Yair Lapid, I would take him with me on Air Force One.
01:00:48.940I'd fly him off to Saudi Arabia and I would sit with him and MBS with Mohammed bin Salman and I would do something big.
01:00:56.640I would announce some big trilateral agreement.
01:00:59.900That's that, that, that's there for the taking if you know how to do it.
01:01:03.760And Biden, you know, fumbled that, you know, obviously miserably.
01:01:11.140Well, like if I can figure this out and I don't know anything about this, if I can figure this out, I can't understand why Biden and his people can't figure this out.
01:01:19.320And I can't see anything that's more important than doing this in some real sense.
01:01:31.160Look, Biden, you know, he, he, he boxed himself in during the campaign saying that he would treat the Saudis as a pariah state.
01:01:41.480He showed up here kind of hat in hand and he got nothing on, on oil anyway.
01:01:46.640Wouldn't have made a difference because inflation is at this point so rampant beyond oil.
01:01:49.920So I'm not sure what makes a difference, but, but the main thing I think is that, you know, Biden is, has been told in no uncertain terms by sort of the progressive left.
01:02:00.880You know, you stay away from Saudi Arabia, you know, like he, he's, he's politically boxed in on Saudi Arabia.
01:02:07.180Yeah, well, he isn't, he isn't boxed in unless he wants to continue to kowtow to the radical elements of his party and the progressives.
01:02:15.760He's not boxed in at all because as you pointed out earlier in this conversation, the radical types, you said 10% on each side.
01:02:24.280I think it's far smaller than that, to be frank, although I think it's bigger on the left than on the right.
01:02:29.220Like there's a tiny proportion of radicals that he's kowtowing to and he doesn't need them.
01:02:34.460And the fact that the Democrats will not separate themselves from the radicals has only ensured their electoral defeat in the fall and probably for the next presidential election.
01:02:43.880So like, I just think that's complete rubbish is we can't do this because the progressives don't want us to.
01:02:52.280Strategically, it's definitely a mistake.
01:02:54.620Ethically, there's no grounds for it whatsoever, especially as you pointed out,
01:02:58.580given that the path forward with Saudi Arabia in relation to Israel and the rest of the Western world seems clear.
01:03:05.020So it's an abdication, as far as I can see, an abdication, absolute abdication of responsibility on the part of the Democrats, let's say.
01:03:15.260So, look, I agree with you and I think a lot of this is political.
01:03:18.040I mean, it starts with, you know, Barack Obama making this terrible deal with Iran that has, you know, insignificant verification rights and inspection rights and expires at this point would expire in just a few years.
01:03:33.060When Trump got out of that deal and Biden comes in, so Biden politically says, I'm going to go and try to reinstate this deal.
01:03:40.140He's been chasing the Iranians now for a year and a half, trying to get back into the JCPOA.
01:03:45.020It makes no sense, but he's doing it because, you know, that's the deal that he and Obama, you know, came up with.
01:03:52.200And they want to validate that they want to they want they want somehow to resuscitate that the more Biden chases the JCPOA, which he'll fail at anyway.
01:04:01.800I mean, there's nothing to be achieved there.
01:04:04.160But the more he chases that and chases this, you know, this fantasy of diplomacy with the Iranians, he pushes the Saudis further away.
01:04:12.260He pushes the Israelis further, pushes everybody further away.
01:04:15.140And so it's the it's this it's this kind of, you know, misguided chasing after the fantasy of a diplomatic outcome with Iran that precludes Saudi Arabia.
01:04:27.900How much how much do you think this reflexive identification with the Palestinians as victims is driving the necessity of turning to the Iranians instead of the Saudis?
01:04:50.660Look, it was I have to tell you, this was the last few days have been a frustrating experience for me because what I saw over the last few days was a complete reversal of all the things that we did that made the Middle East a much more safe and stable place.
01:05:06.860You know, all the things that we did were kind of reversed in just a few days, throwing money at the Palestinians, not demanding any accountability, refusing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of all of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
01:05:21.860Then running to Saudi Arabia, you know, and, you know, resuscitating complaints that just resulted, you know, the Saudis aren't dumb.
01:05:34.380I mean, so they they they go back and now Biden's on his heels trying to defend Abu Ghraib because because he brought up Khashoggi.
01:05:41.860Right. And from there, it just went nowhere.
01:05:44.860He went home. He went home, you know, with his hat in his hand, nothing.
01:05:48.220He got nothing out of it. And, you know, we could have gotten so much more on this trip.
01:05:53.180It was I don't even know why they had the trip.
01:05:55.420I mean, why why would you orchestrate a trip like this if you're just going to insult your allies and come home empty handed?
01:06:00.380Well, my my prime minister, my prime minister, Justin Trudeau, tends to orchestrate a trip like that when the scandals and inflation on the domestic front gets so unbearable that he needs to distract people.
01:06:12.500Yep. Yeah. Well, that's sounds like that's exactly what happened here.
01:06:16.380OK, so let's talk about an elephant under the carpet here.
01:06:19.160So you talked a lot about making peace with the Sunni moderates.
01:06:24.160Moderates. Where are the moderate Shiites in all of this?
01:06:27.480And what is the fact that they're not at the table?
01:06:30.820Like what lurking catastrophes are associated with that and how might that be rectified?
01:06:37.300Well, look, the the the the Shiites that that are relevant here are, you know, kind of half of Iraq or slightly more than half of Iraq.
01:07:02.120There's nothing there's not the slightest thing moderate about them.
01:07:06.400And and they you know, they are at this point, you know, look, are there are there radical Sunnis?
01:07:13.160Of course, you have ISIS, you have Hamas is is is a Sunni, although they're being funded by Iran.
01:07:19.620But, you know, the the the primary and I'm not suggesting that there aren't moderate Shiites.
01:07:26.220I'm sure there are. But but the ones that that make noise are primarily, you know, in Iran and in Hezbollah.
01:07:33.320And they're the farthest thing for moderate. I mean, they represent existential threats to the state of Israel and elsewhere.
01:07:38.640So why did you guys have no luck with them?
01:07:41.240And what do you think might be done by someone who was competent if they were inclined to redress that that lack?
01:07:49.740I don't think there's I don't think there's anything that can be done with either Iran or Hezbollah except from a position of real strength.
01:08:01.880And Hezbollah really is is just a it's it's a proxy for the Iranians, as are the Houthis in Yemen.
01:08:08.440And and they're and they're very dangerous and and they don't accept any count.
01:08:14.300Look, I'll give you an example, which is kind of heartbreaking.
01:08:17.060Lebanon's a very poor country. They have off.
01:08:20.460They have a significant offshore gas deposit that could be commercialized very much for the benefit of the people in Lebanon.
01:08:29.760I mean, it's kind of right on the seam of Israel's territorial waters and the Lebanon's territorial waters.
01:08:36.660Israel is willing to make a deal to solve that maritime dispute where, you know, they'll get some of the gas and Lebanon gets some of the gas.
01:08:45.580Lebanon would get a lot of gas. It would make a big deal for their economy.
01:08:49.700Hezbollah won't let him make the deal.
01:08:51.800Yeah, that that's what about what about behind the scenes negotiations?
01:08:56.340Like if the if the political leaders in the Shiite community can't pull this off, then is there another level of of people in Shiite culture or in other countries?
01:09:07.240As you reached out to the UAE and Sudan and Morocco, et cetera.
01:09:11.760Could you could you walk around Iran in the same way?
01:09:18.720I mean, I'm sure again, I'm I'm sure there are people of the Shiite faith who are reasonable.
01:09:24.900But the but but the but those the Shia who control weaponry are, you know, in Iran and in Lebanon and in in Syria and in and in Iraq and in parts of Yemen.
01:09:39.300And they're all they're all, you know, militant terrorists.
01:09:43.460They all take their instructions from Iran.
01:09:45.740And there's there really isn't an opportunity there.
01:09:49.360The opportunity is for the the moderate Muslim world to unite with America and with Israel.
01:10:12.120Maybe if with two with with with the discussion about the response in the West, I was a late learner about the Abraham Accords.
01:10:22.520I mean, the world's been pretty weird in the last couple of years.
01:10:24.960And I was also very ill and I sort of emerged from that and was informed about the Abraham Accords by some people on the ambissadorial front and became extremely interested in them for three reasons.
01:10:37.260First of all, because, well, look, peace is breaking out in the Middle East.
01:10:48.560Given that this is, as far as I can tell, a truly historic accord, I would have hoped that it would have been like front page, two inch type news on The New York Times, for example, and that everybody everywhere would know about all its details.
01:11:05.260And then furthermore, that the people who structured it were not only nominated for the Nobel Prize, which is not that difficult to process to be nominated, but actually to be nominated, but actually awarded it since this actually constituted peace.
01:11:20.240And I couldn't help in my cynical, what would you say, musings, contrast that with the willingness of the Nobel Committee to give a peace prize to Barack Obama before President Obama even had a chance to demonstrate whether or not he was a peacemaker on the international scene.
01:11:37.900And so what, what in your estimation, has been the response in the West among intellectuals and the press and then among, well, let's say the American people and people in the West more broadly?
01:11:52.880Well, look, the attention from the press has been disappointing.
01:11:58.300We had a ceremony on September 15th on the South Lawn of the White House.
01:12:03.760That day, the picture of Trump and Netanyahu and the leaders of Bahrain and UAE, it made the front page of all the major papers.
01:12:14.760So we got, we got one good day out of it, but the way it's been expanded and the way it's flourished, the effect it's had on the people of Israel, the people of UAE, the, the optimism and opportunity it's brought to the Middle East.
01:12:31.660None of that has been, has been covered at all.
01:12:35.660And I think it's all because of, because it came from, from, from us, from the Trump administration.
01:12:41.080Yeah, but that's, that's no bloody excuse here.
01:12:44.760Like, this isn't, this transcends the political as far as I'm concerned.
01:12:49.120And I think as far as anybody reasonable would be concerned.
01:12:52.100And it's important to give the devil his due.
01:12:54.920And that's the case even if the devil happens to be Trump and his damned minions.
01:12:58.940And the facts seem to me to be clear on the ground that this represents a significant and very unexpected move forward on the peace front in the Middle East.
01:13:07.820And that's been a problem that has threatened all of us for, for 70 years, for longer than that, on all sorts of fronts.
01:13:15.800And so the fact that people don't want to give Trump credit for this because he's Trump, that is still utterly inexcusable.
01:13:22.720And I don't, I really don't understand it because it means in some real sense that the narrow political enmity that was directed towards Trump, for better or for worse, for warranted or unwarranted, I don't really care.
01:13:39.160The issue is that under Trump, this extremely significant event occurred.
01:13:43.180I think it's significant in the same way that the fact that Trump didn't entangle the United States in any stupid wars for four years was significant and also extremely underplayed.
01:13:56.240But then to also cap his four years, which were definitely conducted under extreme duress and intense corrosive cynicism, again, regardless of his flaws, to cap that with the Abraham Accord and then to be ignored by intellectuals in the West, denigrated and at minimum damned with faint praise.
01:14:20.220And then also to be ignored by the Nobel Prize committee, that's not just politics.
01:14:25.640That's a kind of willfully blind corruption that's unforgivable in its depth.
01:14:59.920I mean, this was not a question of neglect.
01:15:02.900This was an affirmative decision by the media and by the Democratic Party to minimize the benefits and the impact of the Abraham Accords.
01:15:12.900Remember, you know, early on, the first year of the Biden administration, there, you know, the State Department spokesman was asked about the Abraham Accords.
01:15:23.760And he would say, yes, you know, these are normalization agreements where, you know, we're going to work on, you know, advancing normalization agreements.
01:15:39.040And the reporter would say, why don't you just say the Abraham Accords?
01:15:42.960I mean, why don't you use that phrase?
01:17:44.620Have any of the intelligentsia, so to speak, which is a hated name as far as I'm concerned at the moment, has anybody reviewed it seriously?
01:18:08.380It's just about peace in the Middle East, you know.
01:18:11.600Why would you review a book about that by one of the authors of the Accord?
01:18:15.200It was also, you know, a book, I think, about the kind of the inner fortitude it took to fight the conventional wisdom, the headwinds, if you will, of the State Department and the Defense Department and how important it was that I had the support of the president.
01:18:34.760Because, you know, whether it was moving the embassy or recognizing sovereignty over the Golan Heights or the peace plan or changing our view on the legality of settlements in the West Bank, I mean, we did all these different things.
01:18:46.480And every one of them was opposed by numerous government agencies.
01:18:51.300So it really was about the runway, the support, the confidence I was given by the president.
01:18:56.860Because at the end of the day, if you have the president's support, you don't need the support of any of these agencies.
01:19:02.100It's only when the president, you know, goes on to some other thing, which he considers more important, that you're stuck in the morass of the agency.
01:19:11.440Well, the president gave me huge amounts of authority and runway, and that, I think, was the key to a lot of the success.
01:19:43.940Because at the end of the day, you know, Jared and I, you know, we have a relationship with the president.
01:19:50.720We have authority, but we're not the secretary of state.
01:19:53.520We're not in charge of the U.S. foreign policy.
01:19:56.760So we needed Mike to really jump in and engage and provide the types of assurances that, as much as we were trusted, I mean, the right messaging needed to come from the State Department.
01:20:07.820We had a young guy, Avi Berkowitz, who worked for Jared, who was on the phone day and night, you know, working the lower-level relationships.
01:20:21.780It was a relatively small group of people that worked, you know, really day and night, especially towards the end of the Trump administration, getting this done.
01:20:31.480Thank you to all of them, that's for sure, from everybody in the world who has any sense, I would say.
01:20:35.820So let me just summarize what we discussed, and then maybe you can add a few additional comments if you'd like.
01:20:42.240The Accords involve, at minimum, declaration of mutual peace, recognition of mutual sovereignty, the establishment of a framework of cooperation in principle and reality, including the exchange and establishment of embassies, and also cultural cooperation that could bring the benefits of mutual trade to those countries.
01:21:02.380It's a major accomplishment, it looks expandable, perhaps to countries like Oman, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, especially on the Sunni side.
01:21:11.620And it's an amazing achievement, and I would like to shame the Nobel Prize Committee for making a tremendous error in failing to note with the prize that should have been awarded for what appears to me a signal accomplishment of the first part of this new millennium.
01:21:31.500You know, my job was very much on the U.S.-Israel side of the relationship.
01:21:37.540I think we proved something which I fear that the, you know, kind of the left-wing elites are sliding back on.
01:21:44.860But what we proved, and I said it at the beginning, and President Trump said it at the beginning, is that Israel really is a solution in the Middle East, not a problem.
01:21:53.340And, you know, for 70 years, the State Department viewed Israel as a problem to be managed, not as an opportunity to be harnessed.
01:22:00.900And I think we're sliding back in that direction right now, you know, with the last few months of U.S. policy.
01:22:09.280But, you know, when we advanced all these extraordinary initiatives on behalf of our ally, our cherished ally in the State of Israel, not only did they not bring violence, but they brought peace.
01:22:24.660And I think that message is one that we can scale and extrapolate going forward, and I really hope we do.
01:22:31.540Well, let's say amen to that, and all pray that this does move forward as it should, and that wise heads prevail outside of the domain of narrow politicking and partisan advantage.
01:22:46.940So I'm going to follow up this conversation, for those of you who are listening.
01:22:50.340I do a behind-the-scenes 30-minute interview with everybody I talk to now on the Daily Wire Plus platform,
01:22:57.600and I'm going to talk to Ambassador Friedman in a more personal sense, I would say,
01:23:02.980and detail out the development of his career across the span of his life, insofar as we can manage that in 30 minutes.
01:23:09.900I'd like to give people some insight into how people who have done, who have accomplished signal achievements, have come to that position.