President Trump's adviser on the Middle East peace process, Jared Kushner, has expressed his belief in an interview with Newsweek that the recent peace accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is only one of many to come that will involve the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.
"I think it's all an inevitability, the question is the time frame", the adviser said about the alleged process taking place in the Middle East.
While Kushner did not specify which of these states are already in the process of talks with Israel, President Donald Trump earlier promised that another regional power could soon follow the UAE's suit.
The presidential adviser opined that the older generation in these countries could be cautious to undertake such efforts, fearing that there may be risks. At the same time, Kushner claims, they might realise that the lack of proper relations with Tel Aviv sets their economies back and plays into the hands of Iran, whom the US and many of the Gulf states see as a source of instability in the region, despite Tehran's efforts to prove the opposite.
"A lot of the countries are watching this very closely. They are going to see how it is responded to. The younger generation [in the region] is very excited about it. Some members of the older generation still have nostalgia for a different time", the adviser said.
Middle East Peace Deal Not Central Issue for Gulf States Anymore
Kushner went on to defend his vision for the future of relations between Israel and the Gulf countries, claiming that the issue of reaching a peace deal between Tel Aviv and the Palestinians no longer plays a key role in their agenda when it comes to the Jewish state. He added that nowadays, Riyadh and other regional countries have other pressing issues at hand apart from the issue of the West Bank.
The presidential adviser suggested that over the years, these countries have grown weary of the alleged inability of the Palestinian Authority's leaders' to reach a deal with Israel.
"All the [regional] leaders […] what they have in common is that they want to see the Palestinian people lead a better life. But I do think that people have become much more cynical that the Palestinian leadership has the capability to make a final deal moving forward. They don't want [their countries] to hold back any longer because of that conflict", Kushner said.
Trump's Middle East adviser's vision for Israel's diplomatic future comes in the wake of the White House brokering a historic deal between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, making the UAE the third Arab nation to recognise the Jewish state and the first one in the Gulf region. This success comes following Trump and Kushner's failure to win support among the Palestinians for their Middle East peace plan, dubbed "the deal of the century".
Under the proposed deal, the Palestinians would receive statehood on scattered parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip interconnected by a system of highways, but would not be permitted to possess a military force tasked with guarding the borders with Israel. They would also have to engage in land swaps with Tel Aviv, while receiving billions of dollars in investments from foreign states to restart the economy on the controlled territories.
