ON-THE-RECORD PRESS CALL
BY SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT JARED KUSHNER
ON DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Via Teleconference
1:50 P.M. EDT
MR. VASQUEZ: Thank you. Good afternoon everybody, or good evening. Today’s call is on the historic agreement between Israel and Bahrain. I have Senior Advisor to the President, Jared Kushner.
This call will be on the record. And, with that, I’ll turn it over to Jared.
MR. KUSHNER: Thank you very much, Eddie. And thank you all for joining us today. I’ll run through very quickly just some top lines from this, but obviously this is a historic breakthrough for the President and also for the world and for those two countries.
You know, on the anniversary of 9/11, I want to say that the best thing that we can do to prevent another 9/11 from ever happening is to create peace and to aggressively counter extremism and terrorism, and President Trump has spared no effort in doing that.
It makes me really proud today to honor the memory of the people who are lost by announcing this historic peace agreement in the Middle East. Basically, this deal will bring these countries closer together. It took Israel 72 years to form the first two peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt. And then, in the last 29 days, we now have two more peace agreements, which shows that the region is really changing.
To give you some context in what's happened over the last month and how fast the Middle East is changing: Two weeks ago, I took the first commercial flight between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. That flight flew over Saudi Arabia -- the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's airspace, which they waived after 72 years. And they said that other commercial flights can take that route as well.
The UAE just removed their 48-year boycott of Israel. And delegations between the two countries are -- have been working around the clock to get agreements in place. And also, the Kingdom of Bahrain has also opened its airspace and now has agreed to this historic agreement with Israel that is, obviously, you know, bringing a lot of excitement throughout the Middle East and the world.
I'll also say that this breakthrough is really the culmination of four years of great work that the President and this administration has carefully executed.
We're seeing the beginning of a new Middle East. And the President is -- has really secured alliances and partners in trying to pursue that.
If you go back and you read the President's speech in Riyadh in 2017 that he made to 54 Arab Muslim leaders, the President said, “I pledge to strengthen America's oldest friendships and to build new partnerships in pursuit of peace.” And, as the President always reminds people, he keeps his promises.
The President then -- over the last few years, he defeated the territorial caliphate of ISIS. He's rebuilt trust with friends through many trips to the region, and he's listened to them. And we released our vision for peace that was based on these talks.
We opened a counterterror financing center that stops the funding of a lot of terror to a lot of terrorist groups. We opened that in Saudi Arabia. We opened the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Saudi Arabia at the heart of the Islamic world, which has really been combating extremism and the spread of hatred and indoctrination on the Internet.
And with regards to Iran, instead of appeasing them, President Trump has been countering them. He left the disastrous nuclear deal. And he's been working very hard to make sure that he can make the Middle East safer. And a lot of the funding of the extremist groups and the proxy militias throughout the Middle East have ceased a lot of their malign behavior because they don't have the funding.
President Trump has fully rebuilt the military, and he operates from a position of strength.
And most importantly, President Trump has enforced his red lines, he keeps his promises, and he's restored America's credibility in the region. You saw him enforce his red line in Syria after the chemical weapons attack. And everyone in the Middle East noticed when he kept his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and then move the American embassy there. He also recognized the Golan Heights.
So President Trump's record of achievement in the Middle East is really unparalleled over the last decades. And there’s a new momentum and new hopefulness in the Middle East. People are flocking to peace.
The agreement that we made with United Arab Emirates in Israel was even more popular than we expected, which is why this next agreement came so quickly. We were not sure what the reaction would be, but it's been overwhelmingly positive. And more and more countries are rushing to try to figure out how can they do good things for their citizens and create a paradigm for a much more peaceful and prosperous future.
So we're going to have a signing ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, where it was supposed to be between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that we were going to be hosting. Now the event is going to be even more significant, as Bahrain will be sending their foreign minister to sign as well.
So it's very rare that you get to experience a peace agreement. It's even more rare to experience two peace agreements on one day. So this is really showing that there is regional -- regional momentum towards peace and stability and interaction in the region.
So, with that, I'll open it up to questions, and thank you all for the time today.
Q Hi, guys. Hi, Jared. Thank you for being on the call again.
MR. KUSHNER: Thank you, Vivian.
Q So, you know, we obviously talked a couple of days ago about the F-35 deal with the UAE. Can you tell us: Has Bahrain asked for any concessions with regard to this agreement, whether military aid or economic or anything else?
MR. KUSHNER: So, again, we have a different relationship with Bahrain than we have with UAE. They’re both very special and unique in their own ways. And again, this is really about pushing the region forward.
If you go back -- I guess it was over a year ago -- we hosted a conference in Bahrain where we unveiled the economic vision we had for the Palestinians, which really was a plan to improve the lives of the Palestinian people.
Again, you know, we -- Bahrain was very forward leaning in inviting Israelis and people from throughout the region. We had all the leading businesspeople there. And I think what Bahrain wants is they want their people to be able to live a better life.
They have a synagogue in Bahrain in -- when I visited recently, I gave the King a Torah that I had written in his honor to thank him for hosting that -- that conference, which was bringing people together. And he's been a real champion for tolerance and interfaith connectivity.
And so the leaders in the region are realizing that they want to move forward. I think that, you know, from a journalist’s point of view, sometimes you can get, you know, stuck in some of the shiny objects that come in the bilateral relationships we have with each. But the overwhelmingly significant part of this agreement and the United Arab Emirates agreement is that both leaders were willing to take a leap to change the course of history and to change the direction of their countries and the Middle East, where they want to be closer together.
And, again, I think that these countries, hopefully over time, can be spending less money on military equipment because they can have more vibrant economies, fewer threats, and more interconnected regions.
So, again, we have a great relationship with Bahrain, and we worked closely with them over the last couple of years. And this deal is a great breakthrough for them and for their people.
Q Hello, thanks for doing this call. Like the UAE, Bahrain is a country that has never been at war with Israel, though it's never, until now, recognized it.
Both Bahrain and the UAE are pretty close to Saudi Arabia. Is there any chance that this could be a prelude to Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel diplomatically? And is -- yeah, sorry, that’s the question.
MR. KUSHNER: I think it's definitely worth noticing the trend in the region. And what I'll just say is that -- and, again, I'm not -- I'll be as diplomatic as possible, but what I would just say is that the leadership in the region is -- they recognize that the approach that's been taken in the past hasn't worked, and they realized that their people want to see a more vibrant and exciting future.
And so, we've been trying to bring the region together. And I think it was noticed by everyone in the region how well the deal with the United Arab Emirates and Israel was received -- both domestically, in the United Arab Emirates; regionally; and globally.
And I think that that is what -- you know, that obviously -- Bahrain saw that and they wanted to -- they did not know we were having those discussions with the United Arab Emirates. And we immediately engaged in discussions and went through how to bring these countries together.
You have to realize that, you know, there was not a lot of dialogue between Israel and Bahrain, or Israel and the United Arab Emirates at all the different levels before this happened. We’ve built trust with both sides. We've been able to bring people together. And we're going to continue to do that with all countries in the Middle East. And so, I do believe that it's an inevitability that all countries in the Middle East will normalize relations with Israel.
But again, it’s a very hard thing. I don't know the timing on it, but I think people want to see the Middle East move forward. They want to seize opportunity. They want their people to have jobs and let their businesses work together, and let their families know each other, let them learn about each other's faith, let them visit each other's countries. And I do think that that's something that's going to be a very intriguing thing.
So what we've been trying to do is bring the tension that's caused a lot of these issues down. Like I said, you know the issue of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is -- is something that's been distorted by the extremists and the people who want to use the issue to divide people. And they've used the fact that the mosque was at risk or under attack by the Israelis as a way to drive hatred and keep people apart.
But through these agreements now, you know, all Muslims throughout the world can travel to Israel, whether it's through the United Arab Emirates or from Bahrain, which will be great for Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as hubs. And those people will be able to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque and show their friends that -- on Instagram and Facebook -- that it’s open and that Israel is respectful of their religion and they've been a very good -- a very good and tolerant country since 1967, when they ended up being in -- when they -- when they won the war and got control of the territory where the religious sites were.
So, I think that this will help reduce tension in the Muslim world and allow people to, you know, separate the Palestinian issue from their own national interests, and from their foreign policy, which should be focused on their domestic priorities. And so, I think you're going to continue to see momentum.
And again, I just -- I can't underscore what a significant breakthrough this is because this even further validates the vision that we've had that many doubted over the last years. The UAE breakthrough was tremendous, but the Bahrain breakthrough gives full confirmation that this is the path that the people in the region want to go and that President Trump's approach to try to bring peace, stability, and opportunity in the Middle East has been the right one.
Q Hi, Jared. Thank you so much for doing this. Greatly appreciate it.
MR. KUSHNER: It’s my pleasure.
Q So, I've a few questions. Well, the first one is: What are the specific terms and conditions of this deal? Will there be further settlement delay? And where will the embassies be? And as -- and as Vivian asked -- you know, will there be any U.S. sale of weapons to Bahrain?
MR. KUSHNER: Right. So, again, we have -- we have bilateral relations with both countries. I mean, the Fifth Fleet is in Bahrain, so we have very strong presence there. We’ll continue to work to strengthen them and their -- and their security and our joint interests in the region.
But, with regards to the details -- again, there has not been a lot of interaction between Israel and Bahrain, and we've been able to broker this breakthrough at the leadership level. And now people will get together on the working levels to get to know each other, to start talking through some of the opportunities.
But I can tell you, there's just a rush of excitement from people to get to know each other, to work together, and to seize common opportunities.
So I think it's going to be quite exciting, going forward. And there will be more details that will be unveiled as these different agreements get executed and all their sub-agreements that need to be -- to get done to facilitate the commerce and the trade. So, it's good.
With that --
MR. VASQUEZ: With that, everybody, we have to run. Thank you, everybody, for joining.
END 2:05 P.M. EDT |
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