Sudan-Israel agreement normalizing relations marks a revolutionary change — all thanks to Trump

Second, Trump withdrew from the deeply flawed nuclear deal with Iran in 2018. This move repudiated the destabilizing and incoherent policy of the Barack Obama-Joe Biden administration, which naively saw Iran as a major regional player and U.S. partner — instead of the persistent enemy of America and other Middle East states that it really is.

And third, Trump correctly foresaw that most Arab states are fed up with Palestinian leaders for being an obstacle to peace and for their relationships with terrorists and Iran. As a result, growing numbers of Arab leaders are prepared to ignore the Palestinian leadership and seek peace agreements with Israel in response to security concerns regarding the danger they face from Iran.

Trump’s major break from conventional foreign policy wisdom continues to cause grumbling from liberal foreign policy experts and European leaders — many of whom are increasingly anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.

Indeed, the president’s foreign policy initiative exposed the most dangerous aspect of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. The establishment’s embrace of progressive ideas and insistence that the Palestinian veto be resurrected now represents a greater obstacle to Arab-Israeli peace than any forces on the ground in the Middle East.

This is not to say the Trump administration has closed the door to a peace agreement with the Palestinians that would confer enormous benefits on the Palestinian people.

Trump unveiled his “Deal of the Century” Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in January. The extremely generous deal included the astounding sum of $50 billion in investment to jumpstart the Palestinian economy, the creation of 1 million jobs for Palestinians in the West Bank, and the establishment of a capital in East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state.

Israel, which has sought peace with the Palestinians and its neighbors since the founding of the modern Jewish state in 1948, quickly endorsed the Trump plan as the basis for negotiations with the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, as they have done so many times over the years, Palestinian leaders rejected this beneficial agreement out of hand and called it a “surrender document.”

Nevertheless, U.S. and Israeli officials have repeatedly said the deal is still on the table and that they are open to commencing peace talks with Palestinian officials. Trump administration officials also have expressed the hope that Arab states signing peace agreements with Israel could lead Palestinian officials to agree to talks.

The agreements to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, known as the Abraham Accords, were signed at the White House on Sept. 15.

While the UAE and Bahrain agreements marked a significant move toward peace in the Middle East, deals with these states might be described as low-hanging fruit. The UAE and Bahrain are close U.S. allies with strong monarchies that did not face significant domestic opposition or unrest for making peace and normalizing relations with Israel.

The Israel-Sudan agreement is a huge win for Sudan, Israel, the United States and Middle East peace.

This is not the case for Sudan. After 30 years of oppression, ethnic violence and civil war, Sudanese dictator Omar Bashir was overthrown in April 2019. He was replaced with a shaky provisional government that faces Islamic insurgencies, hundreds of thousands of refugees, rebel groups and a devastated economy. It has done well so far transitioning the country toward stability and democracy.

Since Bashir’s ouster, Trump administration officials have moved toward normalizing U.S. relations with Sudan, which was placed on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1998 because of its role in the Al Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.