Ron Dermer: Israel-UAE Deal Shatters Myth of Peace with the Arab World Going Through Palestinians

Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., noted how the Israel-UAE deal disproves the orthodoxy of a broader Israeli-Arab peace being contingent on an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, offering his analysis on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak.

Dermer highlighted conventional orthodoxies — parroted by ostensible Mideast experts — framing an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement as a precondition for regional peace between Israel and Arab states.

“It turns a lot of peacemaking on its head,” said Dermer of the Israel-UAE deal. “Many people [such as] policymakers in Washington and in other capitals … tried to believe, ‘Hey, the road to peace with the Arab world goes through Ramallah. You’ve got to get peace with the Palestinians.’”

Dermer added, “I can’t tell you how many times [I’ve heard that], and I’m not going to give names where previous Secretaries of State and senior American officials told me, ‘You know, if you just make peace with the Palestinians, 22, 21 Arab states will make peace with you,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s great, if we have actually a Palestinian partner that wants to make peace,’ but what if he doesn’t want to make peace? What if the Palestinians are not willing to cross the Rubicon? What if they’re not willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state [with] the right to self-determination in our historic homeland?”

The false axiom of broader Israel-Arab peace being predicated on a narrower Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement provided Palestinians with “a veto over Israel’s relationship with the entire Arab world,” Dermer explained.

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Preventing leaks of private discussions between Israel and the UAE was crucial to securing a deal between the two states, maintained Dermer.

Israel’s deal with UAE increases the likelihood of the Jewish state securing peace deals with other Arab states and the Palestinians, estimated Dermer.

“We’re hopeful that we can get more peace agreements, and really deepen our relations with many countries in the Arab world in the weeks and months ahead,” Dermer stated. He said Israel had been “quietly” improving relations with several unspecified Arab states in recent years. 

Dermer remarked, “What I think is possible is that if you have several Arab countries move over and make peace with Israel, then you would have essentially ended the Arab-Israeli conflict. That won’t solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it would end the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Dermer continued, “The best way for us to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to send a message to Palestinian leaders that their path of rejectionism is going to be a total failure.”

Dermer concluded, “I think what happened with the UAE and Israel this week makes it more likely that a future Palestinian leader will become a Sadat or Hussein or the next MBZ.”