The Trump Administration has made substantial progress in broadening the number of Muslim-majority countries normalizing their diplomatic relations with Israel. But that progress has come at the cost of numerous “side-deals,” providing country-specific incentives. Several of the incentives offered are considered controversial. So this week’s topic will be:
Should the Biden Administration disavow agreements the Trump Administration has made with various countries in exchange for normalization of relations with Israel?
We can also discuss the parliamentary turmoil in Israel and how/whether that should affect the calculus.
Michael Sinclair has provided a handful of brief articles on the subject (all PDF’d for our discussion):
- Trump Incentives for Signing Peace Accords With Israel Could Be at Risk (NY Times)
- Trump’s Mideast deals are good for Israel. But they involve bad trade-offs (WaPo Opinion)
- As a Parting gift to Israel, the Trump Administration Pushes Sudan and Morocco to Recognized Israel (Wilson Center)
- Experts react: What the Morocco-Israel deal means for the Middle East (Atlantic Council)
- Israel, Morocco agree to normalize relations in US-brokered deal (Al Jazeera)
- Analyzing Trump’s Middle East peace (Jerusalem Post)
Remember: If you’d like to participate in the Zoom discussion, register on the Blue Hill Public Library events calendar.
