The experts told us the Middle East would explode in December 2017, after President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The experts similarly predicted catastrophe 15 months later, when the Trump administration recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria.
And yet, each time life continued in the region as it had before. There were some protests and a few isolated instances of violence, but that’s it. Journalists, commentators, the diplomatic establishment—they were all wrong. So too was the prevailing conventional wisdom, which had dictated Washington groupthink for decades.
In fact, rather than spur chaos, the Trump administration’s staunch support for Israel, tough posture toward the Palestinians, and campaign of maximum pressure against Iran actually yielded Arab-Israeli peace in the form of the Abraham Accords.
But with President Joe Biden in the White House distancing from Israel and engaging the Palestinians and the murderous regime in Iran, we’re witnessing massive violence in the Middle East. Palestinians are rioting in East Jerusalem, chanting “bomb Tel Aviv,” while Hamas fires rockets from Gaza into Israel, targeting civilians.
On this May 16 episode of my podcast, “Newt’s World” I speak with one of the people most responsible for the Abraham Accords: Mike Pompeo.
