Another Trump Coup: Morocco Agrees to Diplomatic Relations with Israel
The primary coup involving President Trump is that the Democrats have been working on for years to get him out of office, but Trump himself has pulled off a
December 14, 2020 by Robert Spencer Leave a Comment
The primary coup involving President Trump is that the Democrats have been working on for years to get him out of office, but Trump himself has pulled off a few coups of his own, of a very different kind. Another came Thursday, when the President tweeted: "Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations – a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!" Even as the multiply-failed foreign policy establishment is poised to reassert its hegemony and reapply its massively discredited and futile policies, Trump, the outsider President, is showing them how it's done.
The Morocco deal, like the previous one between Israel and Sudan, seems to be a straightforward bargain. Trump also tweeted Thursday: "Today, I signed a proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara. Morocco's serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal is the ONLY basis for a just and lasting solution for enduring peace and prosperity!"
So Morocco gets recognition of its sovereignty over the Western Sahara, and the world gets another step toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. No one thought it could be done, except, of course, Donald Trump. Back in September, when Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed their deals with Israel, Trump stated: "We're here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict we mark the dawn of a new Middle East." This was accurate. These "Abraham Accords" have already changed the entire landscape of the Middle East, as for the first time in decades, pragmatic considerations are taking precedence over the fixed ideas that have guided the foreign policy stances of all the Muslim and Arab countries regarding Israel.
Although this aspect of the conflict has been little noted and is still routinely ignored by foreign policy analysts, the Muslim world's opposition to Israel has not been based upon conflicting claims for land or anything else, but upon core principles of the Islamic religion. As The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process shows, the Qur'an commands Muslims to "drive them out from where they drove you out" (2:191). Even though it is a historical fiction that Israel actually drove Muslim Arabs out, this claim is a staple of pro-Palestinian propaganda, and hence it is a divine imperative, no more negotiable than the Ten Commandments are for Jews and Christians, that Muslims must destroy Israel and "drive out" the Israelis.
That means that as long as pious, believing, knowledgeable Muslims are in charge in Muslim countries, which is by no means always the case, no negotiated settlement will ever establish Israel securely and end the jihad against it. That in turn is why analysts ignore Islam when considering the conflict: people don't like bad news, or problems that cannot be solved. Nonetheless, this is the reality of the situation, and no good can ever come from ignoring reality.
Why, then, did Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and now Morocco normalize relations with Israel? Because it was in their interests to do so. Sudan was taken off the terror list in exchange for normalization. The Islamic Republic of Iran has for years claimed Bahrain as Iran's nineteenth province, and the UAE likewise feels the heat of being in close proximity to one of the world's leading state sponsors of terror. In a certain sense, these deals with Israel are a byproduct of Barack Obama's decision to send billions to the mullahs' tottering regime: a newly secure and empowered mullahcracy threatens Bahrain and the UAE, and so it was in their best interests to look for assistance from a country that Iran also menaces.
Now, with the mullahs expecting Biden/Harris/Obama/Pelosi/Soros to prop them up again, there are numerous indications that many in the Islamic world have had quite enough of the Palestinians' jihadist intransigence and resistance to all peace accords, and are willing to proceed on a pragmatic basis, quite aside from what Islamic doctrine and law say, in order to secure their own countries against the threat from Iran. And so in these agreements the Palestinians have been largely bypassed, and that is the brilliance of Trump's move. If the Palestinians won't come to the table and make peace, he has chosen a path that no previous president and no previous negotiator has followed: leave the Palestinians to stew in their own rage and conclude agreements instead with other countries that are looking after their own interests.
Thus, even though these accords ignore the Islamic imperative of jihad and its deeply ingrained anti-Semitism, they are a tremendous source of hope for the future, even as Dotty Old Joe prepares to send a few hundred billion over to Tehran. As I have noted many, many times, what Islam teaches is one thing, and what any individual Muslim or Muslim group may do is quite another. In this case, Sudan, the UAE and Bahrain and now Morocco have demonstrated that their priorities are not to foster the growth of the jihad against Israel, and that's all to the good. President Trump is to be commended for refusing to follow the advice of foreign policy "experts" who have failed again and again, and to strike out in a new direction. That's a primary reason why the political elites hate him so much. It's too bad there is no unbiased organization to give out Peace Prizes; he would be a shoo-in.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America's Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur'an and Who Lost Afghanistan?. Follow him on Twitter here, and like him on Facebook here.