| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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Website, c-span.org/slash podcasts. | |
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| Agriculture is the main life in Sussex County, and I'm very proud of that. | ||
| I felt like we were being left behind. | ||
| Everybody around us seemed to have internet, but we did not. | ||
| When I found out that Comcast was coming, I ran down the road and I said, Welcome. | ||
| High-speed internet is one of those good things that we needed to help us move our farming, our small businesses, our recreation forward. | ||
| And now future generations will thrive here in Sussex County. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| And up next, a discussion on the impact of U.S. policy on the Israel-Iran conflict. | ||
| Scholars and advocates talked about the humanitarian aid crisis in Gaza, recent airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and the recognition of a Palestinian state. | ||
| This is two hours. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our program. | ||
| Please welcome Robert Greenway, Director of the Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for National Security. | ||
| Well, good afternoon and a thank you. | ||
| It couldn't be a greater privilege and an honor and a great pleasure to host many dear friends and colleagues on important issues. | ||
| Timely to say the least, and I'll begin in an unconventional way in at least too many places, but all the more appropriate, I think, for the context in the venue today and the subject matter and all of us attended. | ||
| And I want to invite two of our dearest friends up to open us up properly with a word of prayer. | ||
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And let me invite first Rabbi Yehuda Kaplun and also Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism, designate Mark Walker, Religious Liberty Ambassador at Large. | |
| We're grateful to both gentlemen's time and attendance, and I think it's important and appropriate that we begin this way. | ||
| And so, gentlemen, if you would please, Almighty God, we ask you to please bless everybody in this room, our President, our members of Congress, our administration, | ||
| all those who work tirelessly to protect all of us here in America, to give us liberty, freedom to pursue our religion, and respect with moral clarity our great country. | ||
| We ask that all those people who serve the community, may God grant them and bless them and give them their rich rewards and cherish them. | ||
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We pray for the security of our armed forces around the globe. | |
| And as the event is called Peace Through Strength, we urge you to give our leaders all the strength and our military all the strength to bring true peace to the world. | ||
| Let us say, Amen. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| It's good to be back today. | ||
| This is RSC Chairman, now in another position, but I want to just take a moment real quick to thank Ed Fulner and obviously honor him and his passing 52 years ago for the great work that he did for the conservative cause. | ||
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Let's pray. | |
| Father God, we pause just for a moment today. | ||
| Lord, we give you praise for your goodness. | ||
| We give you praise for this country that was founded on these principles. | ||
| Lord, we're grateful that you're continuing to raise up warriors that are on the forefront, that are still fighting, the Tony Perkins, the Ralph Reeds, the Johnny Moores, and other Lord that are willing to take a step out to be able to even sometimes be a target. | ||
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Lord, I think of all those in this position that we've been asked to serve. | |
| I think of all the different families and people, even boys and girls, that simply for proclaiming their faith are a target today of persecution, of slavery, in some cases even death. | ||
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Lord, put a hedge of protection. | |
| Lord, you've told us in Proverbs 3 that when we trust in you, you make our path straight. | ||
| You also told us through St. Paul in writing to the church there in Galatia that for us not to grow weary and well-doing, for in due season we would reap if we do not faint. | ||
| Lord, empower us, embolden us, give us courage, give us hope, give us a future that we can continue to trust in you in making that path straight. | ||
| And we pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| You may be seated. | ||
| Thank you both. | ||
| You honor us with your presence, with your comments, as do all of you today. | ||
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My privilege to welcome you on behalf of Dr. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, and Dr. Vittoria Coates, who is the senior vice president responsible for the Davis Institute. | |
| It's a pleasure to host this with the Conference of Christian Presidents of Israel, and I want to thank CCPI co-chairs Luke Moon and Mario Bromnik for their participation, their investment in this effort and the cause it represents. | ||
| I want to also thank all of you again for being present and taking the time. | ||
| Many of you committed to this cause, and we're grateful for that. | ||
| As you know, the event, as already mentioned, is Peace Through Strength, the policy of the current Trump administration. | ||
| We're going to discuss that today and how America can navigate the Middle East in its current context in the coming months and years ahead. | ||
| We're fortunate to have as our keynote speaker a good friend for many years and a dear friend to many of you and an inspiration, Reverend Johnny Moore, providing our keynote. | ||
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We planned this event a few months ago. | |
| We didn't know at the time that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the first legitimate effort to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and those that need it most, would be hijacked instead. | ||
| The delivery of aid, as you all know, being hijacked by Hamas. | ||
| And so providing an alternative precedent is absolutely critical and providing need to those that absolutely are in desperate straits because of Hamas. | ||
| And that the state of Israel will be subject to slander and blood libels to this day. | ||
| The problem remains and endures, and so it makes the conversation all that much more important. | ||
| We're going to see a brief video in a moment, a message from Ambassador Huckabee in Jerusalem, made to address all of you and all of us today and provide us guidance and counsel and inspiration. | ||
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Three things he's exceptionally good at doing. | |
| And then we'll welcome after the short video another dear friend and a great leader in this and many other movements, the president of the Family Research Council, well known to you, Mr. Tony Perkins. | ||
| So honored to have you present with us here today. | ||
| We're grateful again for your participation. | ||
| We look forward to your comments and questions. | ||
| And with that, we'll have the brief message from Ambassador Huckabee. | ||
| Hello, this is Mike Huckabee at Embassy Jerusalem in Israel. | ||
| I'm your U.S. Ambassador to this wonderful and amazing country, and I wish I could be there in person with you. | ||
| But since I can't, it's a joy to join you by this brief video. | ||
| First of all, I want to say thanks to Heritage. | ||
| It's a magnificent organization that for decades has been putting forth some of the best policy ideas, many of which have become law and have made America better, stronger, and more prosperous. | ||
| Gee, where have we heard that before? | ||
| Safer, stronger, and more prosperous. | ||
| Maybe it's from the president. | ||
| It's a good goal for all of us, and it's also been an ambition of the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| Let me say, as you convene together, you're going to hear an address from my dear friend Johnny Moore, who I've known for, well, I want to say 30 years, but I'm not sure Johnny is old enough for me to have known him for 30 years. | ||
| Anyway, a long time. | ||
| I'm deeply grateful for what he has done, taking the leadership reins of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, that actually has been working to get food to hungry people in Gaza, but to do it in the way that President Trump instructed us to do. | ||
| Get the food to the people who need it, but keep it out of the hands of Hamas. | ||
| And Johnny continues leading that effort and doing an exceptional job in doing so. | ||
| If you haven't visited Israel, please come. | ||
| There's no better way to get acquainted with what's happening not just here in Israel, but throughout the Middle East than to come and see it for yourself. | ||
| For heaven's sakes, don't count on what the New York Times or the Washington Post or the BBC tells you is happening here, because typically they're about 99 and 9/10% wrong. | ||
| Come see it for yourself. | ||
| I won't have to indoctrinate you. | ||
| I'll just say, open your eyes, open your ears, see and hear, and go back home with an understanding of why the partnership between the United States and Israel is so incredibly vital, not just to Israel, but to us in the United States. | ||
| I hope it's a great conference. | ||
| I hope you have your spirits and your minds revived and your hopes renewed for a better future in America and across the globe. | ||
| God bless. | ||
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Well, good afternoon. | |
| I want to express our appreciation to Heritage for hosting us here for this afternoon. | ||
| You know, this is a moment of consequence, a moment when the world's attention has once again turned toward Israel, not with support, unfortunately, but with condemnation. | ||
| You know, this week, the United Nations at the United Nations Israel was once more isolated on the international stage. | ||
| Global leaders, including Western leaders, revived the call for a two-state solution that would divide God's land given to the descendants of Abraham, a land that's at the very heart of the Jewish and the Christian faith and a part of God's redemptive plan. | ||
| This rote call for a two-state solution really ignores the origins and the meaning of October the 7th. | ||
| So, October the 7th, 2023 was Exhibit A and why a two-state solution is a fallacy. | ||
| And this is why the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel exists, to bring awareness to this and speak to it. | ||
| We launched this in September of 2024, and CCPI is a strategic coalition of presidents of national Christian organizations and trusted Christian leaders. | ||
| And together, we're building a bold and united Christian voice in support of Israel's right to exist, its right to defend itself, and to govern the land entrusted to her by God. | ||
| Not just part of the land, but all of the land. | ||
| We stand for Israel's sovereignty over Judea and Samaria that the international community wants to call the West Bank. | ||
| You know, that's by design. | ||
| You know, what's the image you get when you hear West Bank, a sliver of sandy beach along one side of a river? | ||
| Now, we're talking about the biblical heartland where 80% of what we read in scripture took place. | ||
| And this is not just a matter of security, as important as that is, but it's a matter of biblical truth. | ||
| And we believe the covenant God made with Abraham has not expired, and the promise of Scripture remains as true today as when it was first spoken. | ||
| And we stand for the elimination, total elimination of Iran's nuclear threat, not simply for Israel's sake, but for the sake of regional peace and global security. | ||
| And we stand against the growing hostility, foreign and domestic, aimed at undermining the only true democracy in the Middle East and America's most faithful ally. | ||
| And this is not just a policy debate that we're having right now. | ||
| For evangelicals and for Bible-believing Christians, this is a spiritual moment. | ||
| And it requires clarity, conviction, and courage. | ||
| And as Christian leaders, we're committed to ensuring that America's support for Israel is not swayed by politics or weakened by apathy. | ||
| Whether those voices are coming from the left or the right, we want to see that support anchored in truth and strengthened by prayer. | ||
| And there is perhaps no one who has modeled this kind of conviction consistently more than our next speaker, who I have the privilege of introducing this morning and this afternoon. | ||
| Johnny Moore is no stranger to global diplomacy or to the spiritual battles that rage around Israel. | ||
| Johnny and I have traveled the world in some of these places together. | ||
| We also served as commissioners on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. | ||
| And Johnny is a bold voice, has been for a long time going back to Liberty University, my alma mater as well. | ||
| He has been a bold voice for people of faith who have been persecuted. | ||
| And Johnny has spent decades helping the church speak with clarity and compassion on the global stage. | ||
| And now he's running the biggest meals-on-wheel program in the world, and he's doing it well. | ||
| Please join me in welcoming my friend, Dr. Johnny Moore. | ||
| I have to say that my heart is overwhelmed to be with all of you in this room. | ||
| So many of our stories have been intertwined in so many ways in every corner of this globe. | ||
| And I thank you for that introduction. | ||
| I remember as a young leader at Liberty University, we would hear about the impact of graduates of Liberty, and you were one of those, Tony. | ||
| And it's a pleasure to know you and to have served with you. | ||
| And I could say that about so many people around this room. | ||
| Ralph Reed here in the front row, Rob, everyone, including members of the Jewish community, I've known for a long time. | ||
| And I want to thank the Heritage Foundation for continuing to lead courageously with truth at the heart of your commitment all the time and for your commitment to address this topic today, which is really the fundamental principle of American foreign policy and also of our moral leadership around the world, which is peace through strength. | ||
| As someone who's witnessed firsthand both the failures of the international bureaucracy and the power of American resolve in the world's most challenging humanitarian environment, I can tell you that this principle of peace through strength is not merely theoretical. | ||
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It is deeply practical. | |
| It is profoundly moral and it is urgently necessary. | ||
| It is a key to unlocking the future of our children, or its neglect will threaten their future entirely. | ||
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You know, peace through strength has a history that's older than our republic. | |
| The Romans said, if you want peace, prepare for war. | ||
| George Washington probably had this phrase in mind when he addressed Congress in 1793. | ||
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He said, if we desire to secure peace, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war. | |
| People like Barry Goldwater revived the phrase in 1964, but it was Ronald Reagan, of course, who made it the cornerstone of modern American foreign policy. | ||
| He declared, in a real world, if we're going to look at the world as it is, not as we imagine or want it to be, in the real world, peace through strength will be our motto. | ||
| And now, in our generation, President Donald Trump has resurrected and perhaps perfected this doctrine, combining America first principles with decisive action, proving to the world that strength is not a threat to peace. | ||
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In fact, strength is its foundation. | |
| Where Reagan faced down the Soviet Union through deterrence, President Trump wields peace through strength as both a sword and a shield, striking decisively when necessary, achieving breakthroughs others thought impossible, delivering results that speak louder than words. | ||
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Just weeks ago, we saw this in action. | |
| We witnessed it when Iran was threatening America and Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear weapons. | ||
| Years of failed diplomacy had gone nowhere. | ||
| President Trump cut through this disastrous stalemate with surgical precision. | ||
| He declared Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated, and they were obliterated and Iran humiliated. | ||
| And despite some elements in the alleged coalition of our president, it is very, very clear where the president himself stands. | ||
| As he says, we will all be, always, we will put America first. | ||
| But America first does not mean America alone. | ||
| He is clear, he is decisive, and he is effective. | ||
| No more foreign policy through strongly worded statements never backed up by action. | ||
| The world knows that when President Trump speaks, he is deadly serious because he speaks for America and an America that knows its power and its purpose, an America that is no longer mired in an identity crisis. | ||
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As my colleague now at Pepperdine University, Kyron Skinner, observes, the world is most peaceful and most prosperous when America is strongest. | |
| But what I want to talk to you about for a moment is that peace through strength is not just a military doctrine. | ||
| It is a moral one. | ||
| Strength in service of mercy, power in defense of the powerless, resolve in the face of chaos. | ||
| And I've seen this firsthand every single day as the chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. | ||
| In my role as executive chairman, I've seen up close what happens when American principles meet the world's most intractable problems, and there is no problem more intractable than this one. | ||
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I have witnessed the difference between institutions that deliberate and those who actually deliver. | |
| I have watched bureaucrats count their procedures while we, every single day in the Gaza Strip, count meals. | ||
| And today, on this very day, we're anticipating a historic moment because tomorrow we will deliver 100 million meals to the people of Gaza. | ||
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Food Hamas could not steal. | |
| See, peace through strength means you show up when others can't or when they won't. | ||
| It means taking risks for the sake of peace and human dignity. | ||
| And that's exactly what GHF is doing every single day on the ground in Gaza. | ||
| We're not doing it with weapons. | ||
| We do it with trucks and with food and with conviction. | ||
| The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was built in an image of this American resolve. | ||
| We didn't wait for the United Nations permission because men, women, and children in Gaza could not afford to wait any longer. | ||
| We didn't let the bureaucratic red tape or the fear of failure dictate our mission. | ||
| We got to work feeding people because this is what peace through strength means in humanitarian action. | ||
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We didn't wait for permission from endless committees to deliberate while children were hungry. | |
| We acted. | ||
| Because as a Christian, when my Bible inspires me to go feed the hungry, it doesn't include a footnote about cross-checking with the UN Charter. | ||
| As a Christian, I can't imagine anything more Christian than feeding people. | ||
| Because my faith demands action. | ||
| Strength makes action possible. | ||
| Results start to silence critics, but success also enrages some critics, including some lunatics. | ||
| On the contrary, weakness always invites instability, even in humanitarian work. | ||
| When aid groups shut down, as the UN has done quite frequently, at the first sign of danger, the innocent people suffer, and the bad actors immediately take control. | ||
| In one of the most dangerous and complex humanitarian environments in the world, GHF has stood firm every single day. | ||
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Not over the course of one war, over the course of two wars. | |
| When the 12-day war started, we surged additional aid immediately into the Gaza Strip because we didn't know if we would be shut down. | ||
| As every night, as everyone in Israel experienced the missiles being shot out of the sky, our team went to the Gaza Strip the next day and served more food to people. | ||
| Because while others make excuses, we have been making deliveries, millions of boxes and counting directly and safely to the people of Gaza 100 million meals in just two months. | ||
| And the contrast could not be more stark. | ||
| The UN, before they started lying, actually used to disclose the data. | ||
| And the UN data reveals that 90% of World Food Program trucks never made it to their final destination in Gaza. | ||
| Some UN convoys have been used by Hamas to transfer messages and fighters over the course of this war. | ||
| Not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars Hamas made from militarizing and commoditizing free food aid over the course of this war. | ||
| And astonishing, last week we discovered, and I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal, that there were 950 UN food trucks that were inspected, approved, and fully loaded sitting inside the Gaza Strip, rotting because the UN refused to deliver the food while they simultaneously decried hunger in the Gaza Strip. | ||
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And here's the bitter irony: some in the United Nations have become the press secretary for Hamas. | |
| And in effect, in the ceasefire negotiations, they were sitting on the Hamas side of the table, laundering Hamas disinformation every single day. | ||
| They decry hunger in Gaza while simultaneously refusing to deliver their own food sitting stored in Gaza. | ||
| Because some people choose power over people and slogans over truth and process over progress and ideology over innocent lives. | ||
| They pose as humanitarians when they actually are bureaucrats and arrogant ones, very often, living off the largesse of America and Europe in their Manhattan skylines and their Geneva lakefront residences. | ||
| And just think about that moral calculus. | ||
| Children go hungry while bureaucrats preserve their procedures. | ||
| Families starve while institutions protect their prerogatives. | ||
| People suffer while systems safeguard their sovereignty. | ||
| This is not leadership. | ||
| This is cowardice. | ||
| And we refuse to accept the status quo. | ||
| We are proving every single day that American ingenuity, driven by faith and courage, can outpace this dysfunction and deliver results even in the most dangerous places on earth. | ||
| You know, the United Nations created, was created after World War II to promote peace, and yet its weakness fuels war. | ||
| Parallel, paralyzed by process, captured by politics, and absolutely unwilling to adapt when the system collapses. | ||
| And Gaza isn't the exception, actually. | ||
| There isn't a conflict in the world in the last two decades which hasn't been prolonged by the corruption of these broken systems. | ||
| But at GHF, we chose a different path. | ||
| We bypass failure. | ||
| We deliver aid directly to the people in need. | ||
| We set a new standard for humanitarian action. | ||
| Rapid deployment, transparent operations, every day disclosing everything that we did, whether it worked or didn't. | ||
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Measurable impact. | |
| And most importantly, a basic fact of common sense. | ||
| Don't let terrorists steal your food and sell it to make money. | ||
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And to be clear, we never saw our role in replacing this entire system. | |
| In fact, we can't do it alone. | ||
| We're meant to subsidize it, to improve it, to do it securely. | ||
| And from the first day of my role, we extended our hand in partnership to the United Nations and have done every day since. | ||
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Until now, every single day, our hand is slapped away. | |
| In fact, I renew the call today here at the Heritage Foundation to the United Nations and to the whole international community. | ||
| If you want to join us in solving these problems together, we're here waiting for you. | ||
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We're not territorial. | |
| We are adaptable. | ||
| We are passionate about one thing, and that is feeding hungry people. | ||
| We have to fix the broken system for sure, but for now, we don't have to sort through our disagreements. | ||
| There's no time to delay. | ||
| We have to feed the people. | ||
| And we have to recognize that the current system is prolonging this war and further oppressing the Arab victims of Hamas, the people of Gaza. | ||
| But make no mistake, this type of work has a cost. | ||
| We lost 12 local Gazan aid workers. | ||
| Hamas brutally murdered them. | ||
| They injured dozens more. | ||
| And to make a point, they piled them in front of one of the only hospitals still operating in the Gaza Strip, guarded them within earshot of the hospital, and refused to allow them any medical treatment whatsoever. | ||
| And the ICRC wasn't able to even visit them. | ||
| Many of us face physical threats. | ||
| I now personally, I'm under 24-7 protection as of a few days ago. | ||
| We face relentless disinformation campaigns, profane attacks designed to destroy our credibility, to incite extremists, to discourage our partners. | ||
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But when establishment media and international organizations spread these false narratives about GHF, they're not attacking us. | |
| They're attacking the hungry children that we feed. | ||
| And instead of lying, they should just help us. | ||
| Because there's another basic rule of life. | ||
| If Hamas opposes you, it probably means you're doing the right thing, even if the UN Secretary General is on their side. | ||
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And to our critics, we say, show us a better way. | |
| We're not here to deliberate abstractions to perfect conditions. | ||
| We're just here to feed people. | ||
| If others want to join us, they can come. | ||
| But we'll not be deterred by cowardice or by corruption, disguised as caution. | ||
| That is neither peace nor strength. | ||
| If you can prove to us you can save more lives, feed more families, restore more hope, come on. | ||
| Until then, we're going to judge every actor not by their intentions or by their pedigree, but by their results. | ||
| And at the heart of this, by the way, is also America's unique relationship with Israel, which reflects this principle of peace through strength. | ||
| It's not a relationship of convenience, but of shared Judeo-Christian heritage, common democratic values, mutual understanding that freedom must be defended with strength. | ||
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And there is no peace without these principles. | |
| While aid trucks sit full, parked in warehouses, peace through strength means using every tool we have, be that political or logistical or moral, to uphold the dignity of every one of these children and these other victims, even in the most challenging and dangerous places on earth. | ||
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You know, President Trump is demonstrating the efficacy of this principle every day, from Pakistan and India to Cambodia and Thailand, and deterring Iran, where years of sanctions and other actions failed, and managing Russia and China more responsibly and delivering the Abraham Accords, which turned enmity into partnership, bringing a warm peace that has not only persisted to this day, | |
| but the single most significant partner other than the United States of America and the Gaza Strip is the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| This is what happens when American strength serves American values, not a corrupt international system that is intent alone on self-preservation. | ||
| Because actually, ladies and gentlemen, this isn't just about Gaza. | ||
| It's about principles in action. | ||
| American-led principles. | ||
| And when we combine faith and courage and operational excellence, we can outpace all the dysfunction and we can deliver results. | ||
| And the United States can do it better than any other country. | ||
| And if we can do it in Gaza, we can do it anywhere. | ||
| So while everyone is fixated on institutional failures, we also see emerging courage at institutions like this great institution. | ||
| One of Reagan's favorite institutions, Pepperdine University, launches a new Middle East studies program this fall in Washington, D.C. with no foreign funding and full scholarships for the first class, not despite regional complexity, but because of it. | ||
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Samaritans' purse always running into the difficult places. | |
| My alma mater, Tony's alma mater, Liberty University, this fall will launch a center for Israel that will have a historic impact to demonstrate the relationship between our countries and our people. | ||
| But there is no peace through strength without moral clarity. | ||
| You cannot defend what you will not define. | ||
| You cannot protect what you refuse to acknowledge needs protection. | ||
| You cannot lead where you refuse to go. | ||
| Ronald Reagan showed us the principle. | ||
| Donald Trump has perfected its application. | ||
| And if I may, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is showing that it also has some humanitarian potential. | ||
| But we have a choice. | ||
| Will we lead when leadership is needed the most? | ||
| Will we have the courage to act decisively when others hide behind their processes? | ||
| Will we embrace peace through strength, not just as policy, but as a promise also to the most vulnerable in the world? | ||
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And I believe we will, because that's who we are. | |
| We're Americans. | ||
| We're builders, not just critics. | ||
| We're healers, not just warriors. | ||
| We're leaders, not just followers. | ||
| And when we act with strength guided by wisdom and power tempered with mercy and resolve strengthened by righteousness, by our Judeo-Christian values knit into the fabric of our country, there is no challenge too great for us to overcome. | ||
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And this is our heritage at the Heritage Foundation. | |
| From Washington to Reagan to Trump, this is our calling, rooted in an understanding that, yeah, we are our Brother's Keeper. | ||
| This is our moment when peace through strength can light the way forward for a world that desperately needs American leadership more than ever before. | ||
| And whether they admit it or not, or whether they criticize us or not, the world is watching and waiting for us. | ||
| History is writing right now. | ||
| And America, Americans, will not be found wanting because it's who we are. | ||
| And that's my message for you this afternoon. | ||
| Johnny, thank you so much. | ||
| We honor you for your courage, your boldness, and your sacrifice in your organization. | ||
| And truly, it is a picture of what all of us as Americans should be. | ||
| At this time, we're going to go into the Iranian panel. | ||
| It's a great honor to introduce back to the stage Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at Heritage, formerly deputy assistant to the president, National Security Council, Mideast and African Affairs, as well as Norman Ruhl, 34 years in the CIA, Mideast Affairs, multiple senior intelligence and national intelligence on Iran from the offector of national intelligence. | ||
| After the 12-day war, the Trump doctrine on foreign policy was articulated by Vice President JD Vance. | ||
| One, identify a clear American interest. | ||
| Two, solve a problem with diplomacy if possible. | ||
| If that fails, use overwhelming military power to solve it, then get the hell out of there before it becomes a protected conflict. | ||
| From the 12-day war, it appears that the administration's future policy and approach to the region is emphasis on negotiated deals, as with Gaza and Iran, limited strategic precision use of military force when a clear American interest is defined, as with the Houdis in Iran, and then a massive economic agreement in the name of countering China's influence. | ||
| Can you each please define the Trump doctrine for Israel in the Middle East after the 12-day war and discuss this three-pronged approach? | ||
| Well, first, it's an honor to be here with this group. | ||
| That was an extraordinary and inspiring presentation on the humanitarian program that the world should support. | ||
| I should also note that the American leadership and successful strike in Iran in cooperation with Israel will have many authors, but it would be remiss for me to not mention that Rob Greenway and Victoria Coates played an incredible role in the preparation of that program and their time in the National Security Council, | ||
| and the success of that operation is in large part due to the tremendous amount of work that they put in during the many hours that they spent at the National Security Council. | ||
| And we owe them a debt of gratitude for their work then and now. | ||
| Norm is too humble to admit his own role in paving the way for that and many other wonderful things. | ||
| We'll leave it in front of that. | ||
| Mutual admiration. | ||
| The Trump approach to the Middle East has been absolutely consistent and has paid off. | ||
| Pursue diplomacy, avoid conventional war, promote partnership, provide partners in the region with the tools that they need to do the job, offer American advice and counsel, tell our adversaries that we will not tolerate violence, that we will offer a hand of peace if necessary, | ||
| and live up to our promises that we will not tolerate being played with. | ||
| And the 12-day war and the efforts to revive diplomacy after that demonstrate that the Trump administration is doing exactly what we have, in essence, have told the world we would be doing for the last 20 years but did not live up to. | ||
| And what we're also telling the region is that the partnership through peace through strength, which Rob has pushed through his Gulf Cooperation Council work to build MISA and other efforts, is exactly the route that we should follow. | ||
| Partnership with Israel through strength, building regional cooperation through military strategic initiatives, building programs that promote partnerships in defense, and again, pushing an opportunity for a region to defend itself, to build deterrence so that America interests can be defended by our partners themselves. | ||
| Always a challenge to improve, and I can't, on Norm's comments and his observations, as always cut to the heart of the matter and are completely accurate. | ||
| I'd have only a couple of things to complement them. | ||
| The first is no one ever questioned whether America had the capacity to confront Iran from a military perspective. | ||
| This was never really the question. | ||
| What was always missing to really get to the heart in many ways of Johnny's excellent comments this morning are that strength also is will, the demonstration of will and the capacity to use the resources you have, and their self-restraint, which may be the most difficult to exercise of all. | ||
| And it's certainly been a challenge in contemporary memory in the United States. | ||
| Because we're capable, we end up doing a great deal, oftentimes far more than the scope of our vital national security interests would, in fact, support. | ||
| So I think we saw strength on several different levels. | ||
| The military is the easiest to point to, and it's critical, but it's not the only one. | ||
| And the second is the relationship the United States has with Israel in the investment made in it was on full display. | ||
| And so when you begin to ask, what do alliances look like in an America first era, what do American alliances look like, you can look at the relationship with Israel and you can see it on display in so many different ways, certainly in that. | ||
| The preparation done and the damage inflicted by the Israeli Defense Forces as a whole, again, the exercise of will and capability and capacity developed with the United States for decades on full display, lowering the cost and risk for not just the United States involvement, but also for everyone else in the region, allowing for the expansion of cooperation between Israel and its neighbors with the United States in the lead. | ||
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And the foundation, Middle East Strategic Alliance, or MESA part of it, but also the Abraham Accords. | |
| And again, the partner in humanitarian assistance and delivery that we have. | ||
| The UAE would not have happened otherwise. | ||
| So I think the foundation established is critically important. | ||
| The investment we made in Israel is on, I think, has become more clear and apparent than perhaps it ever has been. | ||
| And I think for those reasons, there's for the first time in perhaps decades, there's cause for optimism for what the future holds. | ||
| If we're brave enough to walk through the window of opportunity we have, there could in fact be a very different era. | ||
| Peace and stability are within reach and within sight. | ||
| And I don't say that as hyperbole. | ||
| The question is, are we going to have the strength to walk through it? | ||
| And I hope is that we will. | ||
| And I have to add one more point to this. | ||
| This is an administration that never gives up. | ||
| We've got Steve Witkoff and his team going to the region right now. | ||
| I can't recall an administration in my lifetime that has spent so much time on the Middle East and has insisted upon communication between all of the players throughout every crisis and in between every crisis. | ||
| And that communication has built relationships that aren't always visible, but are incredibly important when the moment occurs. | ||
| And we heard what the United Arab Emirates, an amazing partner on so many levels, so often has been able to achieve because of the Abraham Accords. | ||
| And that is because of the communications that the Trump administration has established. | ||
| And that certainly was important during the 12-day war. | ||
| Let's proceed on the type of relationships and alliances that are being formed. | ||
| U.S. reliance on Israel as a regional partner in the Middle East, what we saw how they cooperated together in accomplishing what happened in Iran. | ||
| U.S. precision-limited operation, bolstering a regional military power, Israel, and strengthening emerging alliances. | ||
| How do you see this going forward with Israel as a regional partner to bring security and safety to the region and advance America's interests? | ||
| And what other partners you had mentioned, UAE, might be something that we can work forward to advance security and stability in the region. | ||
| Well, we just celebrated the 75th anniversary of the State of Israel's founding, 75 years of relationship with the United States. | ||
| It's a convenient point, I think, for all of us to consider what the next 25 years, what the next decades will look like. | ||
| I'd also hasten to say that we're only six months into the Trump administration, but what a remarkably different horizon we're looking at in just six months from six months ago. | ||
| There are challenges, to be sure. | ||
| We're talking about many of them rightly so, but I think many have been reduced. | ||
| Many have been addressed with, again, with strength and courage. | ||
| So I think as we look at the next 25 years or next few decades of the relationship with Israel, at least from our position, we can see a number of things. | ||
| First is that historically the United States has usually selected an ally in a preeminent position in a part of the world with whom we share strong values, really the strongest convergence. | ||
| And I think that's certainly true in this case. | ||
| And I think for that reason, we've been able to invest and I'm able to partner because the foundational relationship is so strong. | ||
| And so I can see a world in which we build off of that relationship and that investment in Israel and expand it to our other partners and allies with whom we have strong convergence and relationship. | ||
| And we start to build the foundations already begun in the first Trump administration, and in fairness, back to 94 with Jordan and 1979 with Egypt. | ||
| I think that process continues now inexorably with the reduced Iranian threat, which always made the price of admission for all of this high. | ||
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As they are reduced, the price becomes lower. | |
| It becomes easier for us to achieve. | ||
| It's within sight. | ||
| And the president that brokered the accords in the first administration is equipped to be able to build on the foundations. | ||
| And he is a builder. | ||
| And we can, I think, look forward to that within the second Trump administration. | ||
| Those are very wise comments. | ||
| We saw in the President's trip to the region and in his follow-on support to Israel many of the elements of what you need to see. | ||
| Partnership, commitment, some risk, a willingness to see into the future. | ||
| So we're watching a new relationship in artificial intelligence with Saudi Arabia and with the United Arab Emirates, building a relationship that will transform their economies, that will transform the regional economic development, that will enable us to ensure that China does not build a technological and economic footprint, which would then spread through the region and also into India, Africa, and the global south. | ||
| And that sort of relationship is something the Trump administration has shown considerable vision and courage. | ||
| But we see that courage also with Israel. | ||
| And we see how extraordinarily advantageous this has been with the startup nation. | ||
| So we just have to stay strong, rock solid in this commitment with Israel, but see where we can repeat this with other partners in the region who are willing to stay similarly committed to peace, progress, and cooperation with other partners in the region to include Israel. | ||
| The America First U.S. foreign policy of the Trump administration, as evidenced by Operation Midnight Hammer, was to defend America's interests first. | ||
| What can we learn regarding U.S. foreign policy amidst differing views within the conservative movement, including America First Isolationists? | ||
| I don't speak about American politics. | ||
| I've spent my career as a simple country case officer, intelligence official talking about foreign affairs. | ||
| I will say this. | ||
| America First has never meant America only, but it has always meant protecting the lives of American citizens. | ||
| And Donald Trump has always been, first and foremost, an individual who has been paramount in ensuring he was not sending American men and women to lose their lives in a foreign conflict. | ||
| And this operation overseas was executed in a way that did not produce a conventional war. | ||
| His strategy in the Middle East was designed not to produce a conventional conflict. | ||
| He has been rock solid in maintaining that strategy. | ||
| I must say that the President's approach to the Middle East has been exactly what I would want to see if I wanted to, in essence, an American first policy of preserving American lives, American treasure, American equities, American partners, and peace in the world itself. | ||
| If that sounds political, I frankly don't mean it to be. | ||
| Rob, I'll turn it over to you. | ||
| You're more eloquent on these things than myself. | ||
| That I sincerely doubt. | ||
| And simple would never be an adjective I think I would use to describe you or you're thinking for sure. | ||
| What I would say is this, the United States, a strong United States, is in everyone's interest. | ||
| And the more that the United States preserves its strength, the greater its ability to use it with discretion abroad. | ||
| And our partners and allies are the greatest beneficiary, as are the American people. | ||
| But it has to begin with that order, the abused analogy of, you know, put the oxygen mask on yourself before your family members and even your children. | ||
| I think that the same holds here. | ||
| If America does not preserve its strength from a moral standpoint as well as from a physical standpoint, we are in no position to help preserve and secure the security of our partners and allies. | ||
| And they know this and expect it. | ||
| Will we take the field if our interests are at stake? | ||
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The question is unquestionably yes. | |
| Midnight Hammer is one of an example that you can look across our now going to be 250-year history and find it. | ||
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And even before we were a nation. | |
| The question becomes, will we prefer to take the field and are we more effective in doing it with partners and allies? | ||
| And the answer is yes. | ||
| And I think that's certainly the intent. | ||
| And the NATO summit is an example of increasing the commitment begun during the first Trump administration. | ||
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Others have tried, but now we're seeing a tangible commitment and movement in that direction, even three years into the war. | |
| What does it take? | ||
| It takes a position from an American president who's serious about not just our own security, but those of our partners and allies. | ||
| And they're responding in favorable ways. | ||
| And I think we're seeing the evidence of it. | ||
| And to build quickly off of a brilliant observation Norm made in his first comments about the President's trip, just to bring this home. | ||
| His trip to Riyadh, mirroring the 2017 trip he took, the first foreign trip he took in the first administration, then to prioritize the defeat of ISIS, now presumably to make business deals. | ||
| But I'll quickly point out that the Middle East does not exist in isolation, and nor does its significance. | ||
| The message sent to Moscow was, you will no longer control the global energy markets, but the United States and our partners and allies will, as we did during the last Cold War with the Soviet Union before it became a net exporter. | ||
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And the message to Beijing was, you will no longer become an unrestricted importer of it, for which and upon which you're dependent, but the United States will do so with our partners and allies, and will do so from a position of strength and from prosperity. | |
| So was it about business deals? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Were they good for us? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Were they good for our partners and allies? | ||
| No question. | ||
| But again, there's an economic and a security component behind all of it. | ||
| And I think that is, in my mind, the translation of what America First looks like in practice. | ||
| We're not the only beneficiaries. | ||
| So I have to add one more benefit from the President's trip. | ||
| These countries chose to put trillions of dollars, their national future, where? | ||
| China, Europe, Africa, here. | ||
| Now, I know jobs are very important. | ||
| It's not quite on the same level as lives, you know, saving blood overseas, but it's the future of this country. | ||
| And in essence, the transformation of our society will happen because of the President's decision and that strategy. | ||
| So the wisdom is really quite clear. | ||
| So there's just this is something that we really need to do. | ||
| Yeah, let me follow up on that. | ||
| China is the major focus of U.S. foreign policy. | ||
| How has the 12-day war affected the Chinese influence on Iran in greater Middle East? | ||
| And how has the President's trip that you all mentioned to the region, the economic deals, as well as the Iranian strike, affected the China-Russia-Iran axis of evil geopolitically as well as economically? | ||
| So I have my own views on this. | ||
| And Rob, you may have a different perspective. | ||
| I've never been all that excited about China in the Middle East. | ||
| People have often talked about China replacing the United States in the Middle East. | ||
| I never really saw it. | ||
| China has always been an economic partner, the primary economic partner of the Gulf since 2014. | ||
| That's largely because their oil and gas goes to Asia. | ||
| But the Gulf nonetheless always looked to the United States, particularly after the first Trump administration, and especially in the second Trump administration. | ||
| There's never been a question there. | ||
| China has a very modest, almost irrelevant security footprint. | ||
| They are not geopolitical or geostrategic partners. | ||
| China's economic presence in Iran is modest and has occasionally produced riots in Iran, as the Iranians have protested Chinese cheap goods. | ||
| China needs Iran as part of its belt and road. | ||
| Imagine the map of the world. | ||
| If you're building a belt, you don't have Iran as much as Iran needs China. | ||
| But nonetheless, there's not as much there as I think people really talk about. | ||
| So what happened in the war? | ||
| What can China and Russia really provide Iran? | ||
| Diplomatic support at the UN. | ||
| They've done a lot of blocking of action. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| How important is the UN these days in international conflicts? | ||
| Well, it is what it is, right? | ||
| So in this war that took place in the Gaza crisis, in all of the events that are taking place in the Middle East, where do Russia and China really stand? | ||
| And the answer is they're largely outside of this. | ||
| They're really not very relevant. | ||
| The United States remains the dominant actor in the region. | ||
| I think it's going to remain that way. | ||
| They can be spoilers, but I think that's going to be the persistent description of where those relationships stand. | ||
| Rob? | ||
| I can't disagree. | ||
| I think that attempts to paint a picture wherein the Chinese Communist Party fills a vacuum left by the United States. | ||
| I won't say there's no concern warranted. | ||
| What I will say is the relationship is as a customer, and that's what's critically important. | ||
| I think for the United States, our principal risk is ignoring a region and our partners and allies for many, many reasons, not least of which relative to the China question, which is the greatest threat we face, and it is the new Cold War we find ourselves in. | ||
| And the Trump administration, first and second, has, I think, done more to recognize that than perhaps others and deserves more credit for doing it. | ||
| The real risk for us is ignoring it and allowing China unfettered access to the region's resources and, frankly, rare earths in Africa and other places. | ||
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But look, China's military, the threat that we ultimately are concerned with, that it is aggressively building, is based upon oil and gas. | |
| No army operates without it. | ||
| Theirs is no exception, and they are dependent. | ||
| It's an exogenic system requiring resources from elsewhere. | ||
| 44 percent of it comes to the Middle East. | ||
| That is increasing, not decreasing. | ||
| Were we to ignore it? | ||
| They would have unfettered access, and that means their military and their military ambitions would have unfettered access. | ||
| It would be strategic negligence to allow that to occur. | ||
| And so, minimally, we cannot ignore a region and allow them to have unfettered access because it feeds their ambitions. | ||
| There must be a break on it, and our relationships allow for this. | ||
| Again, in much the same way that it did during the Cold War in the previous construct. | ||
| So, I think it is ours to lose. | ||
| It is our relationships. | ||
| We have been there for decades. | ||
| We understand each other. | ||
| We've been doing business for decades, for generations. | ||
| The Chinese have not. | ||
| Were they to acquire these personal relationships? | ||
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It'll take generations, and I'm not sure that it'll happen. | |
| The common refrain you hear from businessmen the world over, including the Middle East, is I will sell to them. | ||
| But boy, do I hate doing business with them because you're never done negotiating. | ||
| It never stops. | ||
| There is no such thing as a deal. | ||
| There's a deal for that moment. | ||
| It's negotiated the next minute afterwards. | ||
| I can't see a world in which the relationships at an interpersonal level will rival ours. | ||
| However, if we walk away from it, we certainly run that risk. | ||
| And whatever confrontation we may face in the Indo-Pacific in the future will be infinitely worse and longer were we to ignore our relationships in the Middle East. | ||
| At this time, we'd like to open it up to the audience for questions. | ||
| We have a microphone, I think. | ||
| If somebody has a question, just raise your hand to the panel. | ||
| Just for the fun of it, could you tell us about President Biden's trip to the Middle East a few days after the war? | ||
| Just a reminder of the contrast. | ||
| I'll save you the trouble. | ||
| It's a great contrast. | ||
| To me, the vision I have in my mind is the trip that he took to Saudi Arabia. | ||
| So his trip to Jeddah, the fist bump moment. | ||
| This is them attempting to restore a relationship that had faced tremendous challenges. | ||
| I contrast that trip, to be honest, with the president's trip to Riyadh, President Trump's trip, like the first, but even perhaps at a grander scale. | ||
| And I think that contrast is unmistakable. | ||
| In a region that takes etiquette, courtesy, and hospitality as an Olympic sport, and these people are global competitors, you can easily discern the difference in approach taken. | ||
| And does it matter? | ||
| Unquestionably. | ||
| Can you judge how a person is received and treated and fetted upon arrival and the nature and conduct and the outcome? | ||
| The contrast could not be more clear. | ||
| But the results are really what matter, and you can contrast the results. | ||
| There were no results, absolutely none, that concluded after President Biden's trip to Jeddah, and the results, including tremendous business deals and messages sent to our global adversaries at the result of President Trump's visit. | ||
| So a stark contrast. | ||
| And a very good question. | ||
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| Gentlemen, thank you. | ||
| In listening to the overall explanation in terms of both the peace through strength and then our strategic interests there in the Middle East, as a pastor, I'm very concerned about what's happening in Syria. | ||
| And I noticed it hasn't come up. | ||
| Both obviously the leader who has the President used the colorful term, you know, strong past, and also What has been going on the last few weeks? | ||
| We may be at 3,000 killed of Jews and Christians. | ||
| Talking to our Israeli friends on the ground and everything. | ||
| And not just the massacre, but what seems to be the rhetoric coming out of the State Department kind of rebuking Israel for its strike in Damascus and trying to mitigate that massacre. | ||
| So, could you speak to that and how that's going to play out for us, particularly as Americans, in our interests there, not to mention the Israelis? | ||
| For Israel, for Turkey, for Saudi Arabia, for the United States, few things are more important than a stable Syria that is not allied with Iran, that is not home for terrorist organizations, that is friendly towards Israel, friendly for the United States. | ||
| That's a long-term goal. | ||
| We now have a leader who will, in some rooms, say such things. | ||
| He has said such things to some Gulf actors, and the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have been convinced that he is workable. | ||
| And the Saudis have provided recently $4 billion of aid for certain types of development. | ||
| There are those who believe that he is enigmatic, that he has a strong past. | ||
| Again, his background with al-Qaeda-related organizations can't be denied. | ||
| Does he control all elements of his country? | ||
| Certainly not. | ||
| Is he entirely reliable? | ||
| Probably not. | ||
| Is this a country that's entirely under his control? | ||
| Certainly not. | ||
| The most important thing I think we need to do is as follows: understand that Israel needs to protect its security, and that requires some very hard decisions that the Israelis need to take. | ||
| That's that. | ||
| The second thing is that we need to recognize that there are units and elements that will not be under his control, and they're going to be doing some terrible things. | ||
| And we need to try and get ahead of that as much as possible. | ||
| And by working with him, working with the Saudis, working with whoever we can to try and build some sort of relationships and architectures to say, how do we prevent this and contain this when it happens? | ||
| I would personally want to know more about the foreign fighters that are in his country, okay? | ||
| I would want to know to make sure about what we can do to contain what they're doing now and to make sure that if they ever left, I'd want to know where they went, right? | ||
| I'd want to know what we can do to protect the rights of the Kurds that are in their country. | ||
| I'd want to know what we can do right now to build islands of security and prosperity and control in that country so that we can have these islands just become proof of structure and to see if they can build on each other. | ||
| I think we need to be patient. | ||
| I think we need to be realistic. | ||
| I think we need to be prepared for some hard days ahead. | ||
| And I think we need to hold this person to account. | ||
| I think the President was very generous in giving significant sanctions relief. | ||
| There are those who felt he might have been too generous, but that's the president's right. | ||
| But that doesn't mean we can't hold him to account in the future. | ||
| And I believe that you can be patriot and have alternative views from my own. | ||
| Rob, what do you think? | ||
| All that I think is wise, counsel, and endorse it all. | ||
| To your question, I'd say we, I think, have rightly been accused of having the same sort of inherited malady on the pursuit of foreign policy that our British ancestors and former colonial powers had, and that they sort of fluctuated between the world as it was and the world as they'd like it to be, the sort of de jure and de facto pendulum swaying. | ||
| I think policy is always an attempt to bridge it. | ||
| And I think at the moment there's nothing wrong with trying to make it as possible, as likely, as probable as we can to get Syria to a stable position for our own interests, but most importantly, for those of our partners and allies, first and foremost among those Israel. | ||
| But I also think it's incumbent upon all of us to be able to call upon those in power and remind them of the reality of the situation on the ground, especially those voices that don't often have access. | ||
| So it's critical for all of us, many of you in the room, to be able to ensure that those voices are heard and registered here so that the consequences of decisions are there and we never lose sight of the world as it is because that is the ultimate arbiter of whether or not a policy succeeds. | ||
| I think we have been liberal in the latitude that we've given on Council of Partners, but I also, my own experience is that people fundamentally don't change core beliefs very easily. | ||
| It very seldom happens. | ||
| So I think it's interesting to be able to entertain the possibility, but I think we need to be vigilant. | ||
| And the expectation I think should be ruthless and vigorous monitoring so that we don't have a repeat of the situation that you rightly describe and that I think we are all concerned about. | ||
| Can you see why this guy ran the Middle East, the National Security Council? | ||
| They wouldn't let me do it without Norm advising me, as a matter of fact, and for equally obvious. | ||
| You have a question. | ||
| Over here, please. | ||
| Gentlemen, we have an online question. | ||
| Really quickly, thank you for your time today. | ||
| How would you assess the current threat posed by Iran today, specifically in terms of its nuclear ambitions, ballistic missile capabilities, and support for regional proxies? | ||
| That's a deputy's question. | ||
| The President is correct that Iran's enrichment program as a program no longer exists. | ||
| Iran's centrifuge manufacturing facility has been destroyed. | ||
| Its facilities at its enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordau have been severely damaged, if not destroyed. | ||
| The conversion facilities that would transform the gas into metal or fuel have been destroyed. | ||
| Other scientists have been killed. | ||
| This program can be reconstituted. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Put that out there. | ||
| It can be rebuilt. | ||
| The Iranians would probably wonder if they would be caught doing so and if the U.S. and Israel would conduct military strikes to repeat the conflict, so they would be probably wary to do so. | ||
| But nonetheless, the program has been set back. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It depends on how fast the Iranians would want to do something. | ||
| I would guess at least a year, maybe two years, but that would really be a guess that that's what I would be putting forward. | ||
| Nonetheless, the Iranians remain committed to rebuilding that program. | ||
| They're not showing much flexibility in their diplomacy. | ||
| The President is pursuing an appropriate stance in not rushing into diplomacy and sticking to his guns. | ||
| The Europeans are offering a door to the Iranians. | ||
| On the missile program, I think the Israelis have probably destroyed probably half, if not more, of Iran's ballistic missiles, probably at least half, if not more, of their missile launchers. | ||
| It has been a devastating blow to Iran's missile program. | ||
| And although Iran was able to conduct multiple missile strikes against Israel, those strikes, although devastating to the Israelis, and we must keep the Israeli citizens in our thoughts and do what we can to protect their families and to do what we can to take care of their families who are recovering from this. | ||
| Those strikes did not impact the outcome of that conflict. | ||
| Iran's missile program was not a strategic factor in that effort. | ||
| Iran's missile program remains a significant factor threat against its Gulf partners. | ||
| But the United States and our Qatari partners performed very effectively in defending Qatar against the missile strikes themselves. | ||
| Iran knows that it is deeply exposed, and it really performed very, very poorly as a military force. | ||
| Rob, you are the military genius here. | ||
| How did I do, sir? | ||
| No one knows the region, and no one knows Iran better than you, Norman. | ||
| The point I would emphasize only is the last one. | ||
| From a military standpoint, the goal accomplished now, again, largely by Israel, but also the United States, is to anesthetize the patient, which means we can operate at will. | ||
| If the tumor exposes itself again, we'll go back in and cut it out. | ||
| Either we will or our partners and allies in the form of Israel. | ||
| But the point here is that he's lying on the table and it's a matter of discretion, which means there never was the threat of a war because Iran was incapable of presenting a war, certainly to us, not even to Israel. | ||
| And they're not certainly capable of doing it again. | ||
| The challenge is to ensure that that circumstance does not change so that regardless of what they do and how they decide to pursue their nefarious ambitions, and they will, it won't matter because we'll be able to go in and reset as necessary to do it at the minimal acceptable risk without a regional confrontation. | ||
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Certainly not an endless war in the Middle East. | |
| It was an extraordinary display of American and Israeli military skill, but also American military technology. | ||
| And although the Israelis have extraordinary technology from the United States, we have better here, right? | ||
| I mean, it was an amazing thing. | ||
| And I think in Beijing and Moscow, they must be wondering, you know, holy cow, what does this really mean if we ever went against the United States? | ||
| It was a moment to make Americans proud. | ||
| On that note, we want to thank the panelists. | ||
| Our time is up, but thank you so much, gentlemen. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| My name is Daniel Flesh. | ||
| I'm a senior policy analyst for Middle East and North Africa here at the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| And we had an interesting discussion on the threat that Iran poses to the Middle East. | ||
| But now I want to talk about the opportunity that presents itself through the Abraham Accords. | ||
| I have an incredible array of speakers to join me on stage here. | ||
| Eli Kohanim is a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum focusing on U.S. national security and Middle East policy. | ||
| She's also a national security contributor to the Christian Broadcasting Network. | ||
| Many of you are familiar. | ||
| She's a former U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Combat-Semitism in the previous Trump administration. | ||
| Luke Moon, Director of the Philosophy, also co-chair of our co-partner here, CCPI. | ||
| And both Ellie and Luke are also co-chairs of the National Task Force Combat Semitism, of which Heritage is also a member. | ||
| And Jeff Balabon, Senior Counsel for International and Government Affairs at the American Center for Law and Justice, where he heads ACLJ's Israel operations living in Jerusalem. | ||
| He's a former senior vice president, head of global communications for CBS News and Republican counsel to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. | ||
| Please welcome aboard the station. | ||
| The first day from the outset, if you reread the program for today before you arrived, you are not wrong. | ||
| This is a bit of a different setup than it was online, but REA unfortunately had other matters to attend to. | ||
| He couldn't be here, and so we were happy to swap him out with Ellie on this panel. | ||
| And just kind of set the scene a little bit, September 15th is the fifth year anniversary of signing the Abraham Accords, and a lot has happened in the last five years and certainly the last five months. | ||
| On September 15, 2020, President Trump hosted leaders of the UAE in Bahrain and Israel for a White House signing ceremony that followed the next month by Sudan announcing it would cancel its boycott of Israel and join the Accords. | ||
| And then in December of that year, five years ago, the Kingdom of Morocco announced that it would reestablish diplomatic ties with Israel, and then Kosovo also established ties with Israel as well. | ||
| The Biden administration came into office, and rather than embrace this hallmark foreign policy achievement, yes, of the Trump administration, but more importantly and profoundly of America and the American people, and also for our ally Israel and for the Middle East, they wouldn't even acknowledge the terminology, Abraham Accords, and needless to say, no progress, sadly, was made. | ||
| And then, if we can also remember to September 2023, one month before that fateful Shabbat Yahorth, the Black Sabbath, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, both at the UN General Assembly, stated to different interviews that essentially they were inching closer to normalization efforts. | ||
| Of course, then Hamas invaded Israel on October 7th, 2023. | ||
| And we are 664 days into that, and there's still 50 hostages being held in Gaza, 20 of whom we think are still alive. | ||
| The rest whose remains need to be brought home. | ||
| But to begin with, Elliot, I want to turn to you. | ||
| The Accords were a hallmark, as I mentioned, of the President's last administration, and he has expressed his desire, as we heard a little bit in the previous panel, to continue expanding normalization. | ||
| From your experience, having served in the previous administration, and even now, understanding what is the art of the possible as you see it as we sit here today on July 31st, 2025. | ||
| Well, I want to start by saying how appropriate, symbolically, that we're having this conversation about the Abraham Accords here at the Heritage Foundation because Victoria Coates and Rob Greenway, who we just heard from, were two of the architects of the Abraham Accords under the first Trump administration, and they are now leading up the Catherine Davis Institute here. | ||
| So truly how appropriate it is. | ||
| And I had the honor when I served as deputy envoy to combat anti-Semitism in the first administration to receive guidance directly from Victoria and Rob and to be a part of what we called the warm peace team. | ||
| At the beginning, of course, of the administration, nobody knew that we would wind up signing these, you know, that President Trump would be brokering the Abraham Accords. | ||
| But what I can tell you is that President Trump, senior advisor Jared Kushner, and so many others were working in this direction and they had the vision from day one. | ||
| But, you know, what a historic opportunity it became that, again, because of the theme of our day today, peace through strength, because of President Trump's strength, I would say that vision unfolded in the first administration. | ||
| And so, Daniel, what I wanted to do before we jump into the opportunity for today is also just kind of look back a little bit at what were the policies under that first Trump administration that allowed that peace to unfold and for those deals to be brokered by the President. | ||
| I would say there were three things. | ||
| One factor was the Trump administration regaining the trust of our allies, which had been lost. | ||
| Both Israel and the Gulf Arab nations had been lost under the previous Barack Obama administration. | ||
| The second was confronting the Iranian threat, understanding the Iranian threat for these very same allies. | ||
| And that's when we saw the maximum pressure campaign under the first Trump administration. | ||
| And then thirdly, was the Trump administration's policy that Israel as a state is here to stay. | ||
| Now, I think for many of us in this room, that's not shocking. | ||
| But that, if you look at the Middle East and you look at the history of the region, you understand that 1948 with the founding of the state of Israel, what happened immediately afterwards was that Israel's Arab neighbors attacked, and there were repeated efforts, war after war, to essentially eradicate the Jewish state of Israel. | ||
| So, now if you fast forward to today, Daniel, and to your question about where things stand right now, you have, as we just heard so brilliantly from Norman Ruhl and Rob Greenway, in the aftermath of the 12-day war, where we have the region right now, and I do think it's a real moment of opportunity. | ||
| You have, again, the Israel's Arab neighbors, the moderate Sunni countries, accepting the very notion of a Jewish state of Israel existing in the region. | ||
| You have the strength of the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship, and then you have Israel's strength in display as a result of the 12-day war. | ||
| And so, those three factors combined, I think, really leave us for a lot of room for optimism. | ||
| And then, of course, you've got President Donald J. Trump back in office. | ||
| And as was stated earlier, he's the president who brokered the first Abraham Accords, and certainly he is the president who can bring further peace to the region. | ||
| Well said. | ||
| Jeff, I want to turn to you now, because from your perch in Israel, living in Israel, splitting time between there and here, Rob earlier said that the bar for joining the Accords was often Iran, and that bar has been lowered in some ways. | ||
| But also, some people say, well, Israel's success, A, in the Seven Front War, October 7th War, B, Operation Rising Line, and kind of putting a hammer on it with Operation Midnight Hammer means that suddenly Israel is clearly seen as a strong horse in the region, but Iran is not as formidable as a threat to some of the Gulf countries and others that might join the Accords. | ||
| So, do you see Israel as a victim of its own success in some ways in this department, or not to contradict Rob, but is it the bar actually has not been significantly lowered so much? | ||
| And that really Israel is a stronghorse, but the Iranian threat suddenly kind of takes some of the wind out of the sails with the Accords. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| First of all, I will join in complimenting Heritage for this and for the background in being involved in really what was the most significant achievement for Middle East peace or for world peace, certainly in a century. | ||
| And certainly in terms of Middle East, the most significant change since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was huge and could not have happened but for those things. | ||
| And I would say, I'm not sure, Ellie, when you articulated those three pillars, whether the third pillar it's very interesting the way you articulated it, right? | ||
| Which was that Israel's here to stay. | ||
| And that is very, very important. | ||
| There's another aspect which might be related to that, which I think all of this depends on, which is it was sidelining the notion that central to peace is resolving the quote Palestinian state issue. | ||
| And the truth is, those are really the same because the Palestinian state issue is designed as a zero-sum game. | ||
| It's designed as a binary. | ||
| And rather than create that, early on, the Trump administration simply said they're not negotiating for peace. | ||
| They're continuing their pay-for-slave. | ||
| We're coming back until they show that they've changed. | ||
| Now, there'd never been a consequence before. | ||
| The ability of sidelining the Palestinian issue is what made that happen. | ||
| Now, it relates directly to your question because, yes, ironically or realistically, by showing Iran to be less formidable and less of an imminent threat than had been presumed until then, all of a sudden the Saudis, their calculus obviously changes until that point. | ||
| And Saudis, let's say, most people agree, would be the great next achievement if Abraham quotes could include the Saudis. | ||
| Well, the threat from Iran has been at least temporarily diminished. | ||
| And that means now, if we look at this as a negotiation, we see a negotiation with three parties. | ||
| We'd say President Trump and his administration, the Saudis, and the state of Israel to bring them in. | ||
| And what do the Saudis want for normalization? | ||
| So I don't think anybody here suspects that the Saudis actually care very much about the plight of the people in Gaza or under the PLO, the Palestinian Authority/slash/PLO. | ||
| However, it has already for decades been an extremely useful tool in delegitimizing Israel, in demonizing Israel. | ||
| And it's to the point that we do talk about, it's really extraordinary to talk about the question of whether Israel has a right to exist. | ||
| We don't talk about any other country that way. | ||
| It's incredible that we talk about whether Israel has a right to declare its own capital. | ||
| Again, another change made by President Trump, and the world said, what? | ||
| Conflagration would ensue. | ||
| What ensued? | ||
| War and peace. | ||
| The borders of Israel are unsettled. | ||
| In the previous panel, there was discussion about how 80% of the Bible takes place in the Jewish heartland in Judea and Samaria. | ||
| True, but you know what? | ||
| Much of Lebanon, much of Syria, all of Jordan, also part of the Jewish homeland, indigenous Jewish homeland, that was taken over when there was an invasion many, many centuries ago. | ||
| So the fact is Israel already exists in a tiny sliver of its own land. | ||
| And without getting too far down that rabbit hole, just to say, people need to be clear, and this is why I'm based more in Jerusalem, which is the largest caucus in Israel's Knesset is, right now it represents about 80 members out of 120 member Knesset. | ||
| It's called the Land of Israel Caucus. | ||
| They have a set of policies that have made very, very clear. | ||
| No Palestinian state, period. | ||
| Total sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, period. | ||
| A reversal of American laws about saying that Jews living over the green line are illegal, things like that. | ||
| And so this has been the truth for years, but it's not really received here. | ||
| To this day, organizations that claim to be very pro-Israel are still calling for two states, let alone the enemies. | ||
| So the most significant thing that happened was that, was sidelining this issue. | ||
| Now we see lately a huge reinsertion of the issue, a reassertion of the issue, not just by others, by Europe, but by the Saudis themselves. | ||
| This is the biggest threat, not necessarily to an achievement of another Abraham Accords with the Saudis, but of what it looks like for Israel. | ||
| If there's a perpetuation of the lie that there has to be another state and that it's Israel's responsibility, that will be a problem. | ||
| The ideal situation is when President Trump made his first trip overseas, he went first to Riyadh and then to Jerusalem to celebrate the 50th anniversary of reunification. | ||
| And his message in Riyadh was, you guys created all this terrorism problem. | ||
| You guys need to solve it. | ||
| I would say that the most significant thing that could happen now would be to shift the burden back on to the Arab Muslim world to take charge of the population that committed the atrocities on October 7th. | ||
| That, by the way, we talk about the 12-day war, the Israel-Hamas war. | ||
| Truth is, there's been one war. | ||
| It's a forever war that's been going on now since before the founding of the State of Israel. | ||
| And the way to end it largely stems to this. | ||
| So very optimistic that a deal will be reached. | ||
| Hope that Israel will be strong enough to push and get America's support on the idea that Israel can no longer be responsible for resolving this issue, and there will be no peace until the Arab world takes control of this issue. | ||
| Yeah, and to bring it back to the beginning of your comment also, the idea of there's other countries there that Israel can normalize with outside of Saudi Arabia, but obviously that is the big one that effectively end this century-plus-long conflict that predates the state of Israel. | ||
| It has to do with the Jewish presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, our homeland, the Jewish homeland. | ||
| But actually, I didn't expect to talk so much about it, but on the Palestinian front, Luke, I want to turn to you quickly. | ||
| Particularly given, as we sit here today, I mean, and Dr. Moore brought up a bit in his remarks, the focus and the slanders and the lies are coming out about Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| The international community right now, France has already, England did, or the UK did just the other day, Norway's foreign minister, I said, they've all said that in September at the GA they're going to recognize the Palestinian states. | ||
| Well, that's coming up in a few weeks, certainly. | ||
| A lot can be done between now and then, and everyone should take steps to try to prevent that. | ||
| But they're essentially going to reward the Palestinians for committing the worst massacre against the Jews since the Holocaust with the recognition of a state. | ||
| And to part of Jeff's points, while the inception of the accords demonstrated that the Palestinians are not a determinative factor for the Arab countries, do you think things have changed? | ||
| And as part of that, while we recognize the Samaritan campaign being leveled against Israel right now, do the Christian leaders and community that you represent and you speak with, do they also recognize that as such? | ||
| Yeah, there's a couple things there. | ||
| I would say that the recognition of the Palestinian state by France and UK and Canada, and they're saying about they're going to do it in September, it seems like a luxury belief among, similarly to like the people that are backing Mamdani in New York City, right? | ||
| It's like they don't, I mean, there's no border. | ||
| Who's going to lead it? | ||
| Like the details are completely missing. | ||
| Well, who's going to recognize a state? | ||
| I mean, it's kind of absurd. | ||
| But it is, it has come back into the conversation. | ||
| And that is true. | ||
| I mean, it is, it's one, you know, I think October 6th, Saudi Arabia would have signed the Abraham Accords without having to see the recognition of a Palestinian state. | ||
| Now, that's not the case. | ||
| And I think a bunch of the other countries are looking at this and saying, yeah, there just has to be a Palestinian state, which is 100% a gift to Hamas. | ||
| It basically tells all the Islamists around the world, not just the Hamas version, but everywhere, that you push hard enough, you cause enough problems, you drag this out and have your enemy kill enough of your own people, you will win. | ||
| You will win. | ||
| And that is, and there is a concerted effort, particularly with targeting the Christians, targeting Christians in America. | ||
| I think the enemies of Israel know that Christians in America in particular are the strongest allies of Israel and the Jewish people. | ||
| And if they can drive a wedge between Christians and Israel and Christians and Jews, then they win on another front. | ||
| And there's very much a concerted effort to do that. | ||
| We saw this play out over about the last month related to a Christian village in Judea and Samaria called Taibei. | ||
| And then also the errant mortar shell that hit the church in Gaza. | ||
| Both of those stories were used very aggressively and very effectively to drive a wedge between Christians and Jews and particularly Catholics. | ||
| I've talked to a lot of Catholics these days who are leaders of movements and whose followers were historically very supportive of Israel and the Jewish people. | ||
| And what I'm hearing is that that support is all but gone. | ||
| And so it is a real challenge if we're looking at the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the role of the Palestinian state in that. | ||
| I think this, you know, the plan for September, like I said at the beginning, is a luxury belief because it doesn't, there are so many factors that go into making that a reality that it's just rather, it seems rather absurd. | ||
| And because they're not bringing any of those up. | ||
| I mean, who are they going to talk to? | ||
| Who's going to lead it? | ||
| Where are the borders going to be? | ||
| I mean, like, we're going to play that game. | ||
| We've been played a long time. | ||
| So I'm going to open up the next couple of questions to all of you, one or all of you to answer. | ||
| Let's put Saudi Arabia aside. | ||
| It's a very big one to get for normalization. | ||
| It's a lot of politics and other energy has been put behind that, but there's perhaps lower-hanging fruit that might be possible. | ||
| As when the president went to the region, he met with Al-Shara, Jolani, the Syrian leader, commented in general, maybe joined the Accords. | ||
| Maybe doesn't move past those words, because what does that look like? | ||
| And to a question of the previous panel, is that even in the U.S. interests, Israeli interests, et cetera. | ||
| But what other countries are there? | ||
| What's the shortlist you guys are looking at for who Israel should try to normalize with, who we, the United States, should try to encourage normalization, and who wants to normalize with Israel? | ||
| What's like the one or two countries you guys are looking at? | ||
| I'll start. | ||
| Please. | ||
| Again, with the caveat that unless this Palestinian issue is resolved the correct way, then future accords won't really change the ultimate outcome, which is the threat to Israel's existence. | ||
| Nonetheless, in terms of another great country would be Azerbaijan. | ||
| I mean, they have great relationships, well, good relationships both with Israel and Turkey. | ||
| They would be the first officially Shia country, even though Bahrain has Shia majority. | ||
| It has a Sunni emir. | ||
| It would be a gateway to Central Asia. | ||
| It treats its Jews very well. | ||
| I mean, there's a lot going on in that region. | ||
| And the fact that it gets along with Israel and Turkey is extremely important. | ||
| So I think that it would be a beautiful feather in the cap of the Abraham Accords to be able to get Azerbaijan. | ||
| I'm going to jump in and kind of take a bit of a contrarian stance on this question, which is, look, certainly I believe the Trump administration is going to work on expanding the normalization and peace deals between Israel and her Arab neighbors and potentially some Muslim countries in Asia. | ||
| So those possibilities exist. | ||
| But I also want to say that whether we, let's say in the immediate future, have actual normalization between Israel and some of her Arab neighbors, the reality right now in the region is that, again, I think that we are in a very historic moment because you have a number of the Sunni Arab countries accepting the very existence of a Jewish state of Israel in the Middle East region. | ||
| This is really an important point, and so that's why I'm going to raise it again. | ||
| The acceptance of a Jewish presence, and that is in stark contrast to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is leading the rejectionist stance, right? | ||
| But so what's happened as a result of the Abraham Accords is that the Middle East is being given two pathways and two options. | ||
| There's the pathway of choosing a pathway of moderation, which as we've seen through the test case of the Abraham Accords countries, what the end result is, is prosperity for your citizenship and ultimately a strong and successful nation state versus taking the rejectionist stand. | ||
| And that puts you Into the failed states and really does not actually offer any real hope for your citizens. | ||
| And so, again, I think that is something that we saw play out again with this 12-day war between Israel and Iran with U.S. leadership. | ||
| This contrast could not be any clearer. | ||
| So, this is where the region stands right now. | ||
| And I'm also going to take a minute to note that another very hopeful sign for me is, since the signing of the Abraham Accords, is the existence of Arab Zionists. | ||
| And one of my good friends is in the room right now, Loai al-Sharif, who is, if I may say, Loai, an Arab Zionist, one of the strongest voices really of speaking about Israel, about Zionism, about partnership between peoples in the region. | ||
| And so, this is, you know, Loai, you're someone who I think is a prime example of the success of the Abraham Accords. | ||
| And I just want to take a moment and recognize, stand up, please. | ||
| So let everyone see you. | ||
| Well said, Ellie. | ||
| I just want to quickly look, just quickly, for those certainly watching online, I think everyone here understands, but what is a Zionist? | ||
| A Zionist is simply someone who supports, defends, advocates for the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancient homeland. | ||
| It's nothing to do with any Israeli government, politics, this, that, or the other. | ||
| It's simply that simple belief. | ||
| And so not just Jews should be Zionists. | ||
| I hope everyone's a Zionist. | ||
| Thank you, sir, for being one. | ||
| And I just want to say one thing. | ||
| Islam itself reveres your lips to God's ears. | ||
| That's quite a lovely moment there. | ||
| I'm optimistic about Lebanon because I think Israel did such a great job of just undercutting and really harming perhaps the hands and eyes really of Hezbollah with the Operation Grim Beaper, which is my favorite term for that. | ||
| But I think it's also really special that the bridge, the land bridge that Iran had between Iran and Hezbollah was cut off because of Jalani, right? | ||
| So you had the Sunni terrorist that, in a sense, made sure that the Christians in Lebanon were able to get strong enough to actually vote in a guy who had the fortitude to push back against Hezbollah. | ||
| That factor really changed the facts on the ground. | ||
| Now, I know that there's a lot of headwinds. | ||
| Hezbollah doesn't want to give up its weapons. | ||
| It does have some weapons. | ||
| It has a lot of fighters still. | ||
| But I think that there is a desire within the people of Lebanon to be finished with the Hezbollah problem. | ||
| And I think them coming on board with the Abraham Accords would be truly awesome. | ||
| And I'd love to see it. | ||
| So I'm going to put my head in for Lebanon. | ||
| All right, Lebanon does. | ||
| It may be. | ||
| I'm going to ask one more question and open up to the audience here and online. | ||
| A quick comment that, you know, Jeff, you're coming up about Azerbaijan. | ||
| They have relations with Israel. | ||
| So in some ways, it's not quite an official capital Abraham Accords. | ||
| The fact is renewing, strengthening, affirming, or reaffirming that relationship does actually helps build momentum, helps address other ties. | ||
| And to your comment, it's a very strategically important. | ||
| It's an important strategic location that the Zeris occupy between Iran, Turkey, et cetera, and the caucuses there. | ||
| So I definitely want to keep an eye on. | ||
| But my kind of general question before I open up the QA is, what is the American interest in advancing the accords? | ||
| Rob talked a little bit earlier last panel about the financial security components, certainly, but what should the American people, why should we be supportive of them? | ||
| What can we do to advocate for it? | ||
| I'm happy to take this one. | ||
| I wrote for America First Policy Institute. | ||
| I wrote a chapter, America First, Israel and the Middle East. | ||
| And so, you know, in the chapter, what I explored is the American interest in the Middle East. | ||
| And I think we heard, again, a bit about that in the last panel. | ||
| Certainly energy, the fact that most of the world's energy comes from that region. | ||
| I would also argue that as much as we might try to pivot away from the Middle East, the Middle East doesn't leave us alone. | ||
| And so, you know, in essence, there is no realistic U.S. policy that can just try to, you know, kind of like leave the Middle East behind us. | ||
| It's not realism. | ||
| Thirdly, I would say that I think, again, in this 12-day war, we saw the power of the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship, the amount of intelligence that the United States has received as a result of the 12-day war. | ||
| The fact that together the U.S. and Israel were able to obliterate the nuclear threat to the entire world and certainly to the American people and to our allies in the region. | ||
| I could go on, you know, the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship and seeing that military strength play out in front of our eyes. | ||
| The world is a different place as a result of what the U.S. and Israel achieved together. | ||
| And it's something that I think we've all kind of glossed over and moved on from. | ||
| But try to understand that before the U.S. took out Iran's nuclear program, the world was always at risk of this global leading state sponsor of terror being on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. | ||
| And so the U.S.-Israel relationship was able to take that off the table and really make the world, the entire world, a safer place. | ||
| So this is part of what the United States has to gain from having the bilateral, the special relationship with Israel. | ||
| And there's just so much more. | ||
| But I think that what we are hearing more and more is some folks who are trying to make the argument that somehow the U.S.-Israel relationship is not to the benefit of the United States. | ||
| And it's clearly people who are trying to undermine that relationship for the very fact that we have seen its success play out in front of our eyes. | ||
| And a final note on that is that President Trump has told us that he's the person who decides what MAGA is, right? | ||
| And he's the person who decides as the leader of that movement. | ||
| He's the person who decides what America First is. | ||
| And so what we saw him decide was that America First was obliterating the Iranian nuclear program, standing by our ally Israel. | ||
| Well said. | ||
| Well said. | ||
| I'm not going to disagree with this off. | ||
| Okay, I'm not going to disagree with that at all. | ||
| I'm going to say that the last part you made was what I was thinking is at this point the most important part in terms of domestic politics and how they affect our safety and security around the world. | ||
| And that there's this appeal to the idea that nothing beyond our borders matters, which is an absurdity. | ||
| We do not live alone. | ||
| The Middle East represents the most unstable part of the world and the one that affects us most directly in our daily lives is a threat to our safety. | ||
| Aside from the energy and other economic issues, I think that that fundamentally, someone who says that America first means we can ignore the rest of the world is really not thinking about America at all. | ||
| It has another agenda that has to do with some internal sense of scapegoating or viciousness. | ||
| We're seeing a lot of domestic politics really piling on here, but the reality is America has always had an interest since our founding. | ||
| Go back and look what was going on, even in our founding, in terms of stability from that region. | ||
| And there has never been a moment of opportunity for true stability, such as we had. | ||
| And by the way, the fact that we saw the difference between a Barack Obama administration, then a Donald Trump administration, then a Joe Biden administration, and here we are again. | ||
| This is a moment, maybe the last moment that we can create stability, I mean, multi-generational stability from the most volatile and dangerous region in the world, which obviously, look, we've been attacked on our homeland by these people. | ||
| We need to have stability there. | ||
| And only this pathway, I think, can achieve it. | ||
| Luke? | ||
| I think there was a 5% increase of the cost of goods directly related to the blocking around Yemen that made ships decide that they're going to go around the Horn of Africa instead. | ||
| And so that directly impacts domestic policy. | ||
| It's like a cost, 5% increase in the cost of goods that you are spending. | ||
| And to think that we can ignore what's going on in the world, it's not reality. | ||
| To your point, it is, we're always impacted by what happens around the world. | ||
| And as a rule, peace should always be seen as beneficial to America's interest, everywhere, always. | ||
| Very short. | ||
| You know, I just want to give the illustration of this: the people who are out there militating against this, saying, why do we care? | ||
| People on the right, people are Republicans, people claim to be America first. | ||
| Why do we care about Iran? | ||
| Well, how about the fact that what came out the next day was that for the last 15 years, there have been people at the Pentagon whose entire job has been to figure out what to do about the threat of Iranian nukes to the United States. | ||
| They don't need these ICBMs to reach Israel. | ||
| They need them to reach here, okay? | ||
| And Israel honestly led the way in taking care of that problem. | ||
| America joined to do the coup de grace, but the fact is this was a U.S., literally an existential threat to the United States of America that was changed because of this. | ||
| And that's really the answer to the stability issue. | ||
| Well said. | ||
| So welcome to the audience here and online. | ||
| Yes, sir, right here. | ||
| Second row. | ||
| Wait for the microphone if you could. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I want to ask what the significance is of the most recent declarations by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar regarding Hamas needing to lay down their arms, most specifically looking at Qatar and the significance of them joining in this declaration. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, first of all, it was, so just to let everyone in the audience know what you're referring to, the Arab League issued a statement, I believe it was just yesterday, demanding that Hamas disarm and disband. | ||
| It was a historic first. | ||
| They also condemned the October 7 attack for the first time. | ||
| So this was a historic first. | ||
| I would say it's a historic first along the lines of the Arab acceptance of the very existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. | ||
| I think it's another step of progress in that direction. | ||
| And I was very heartened by it. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, my concern is that at ACLJ, we say that It's nine-dimensional or 16-dimensional test when you're dealing with the Middle East. | ||
| It's never very straightforward. | ||
| And while I agree there's some glimpse of something positive there, overwhelmingly, this feels to me like part of the pylon to make the notion of making Palestinianism a central tenet to be resolved and putting it on Israel's shoulders. | ||
| I'm concerned that that's really where all this is pushing to. | ||
| It's just a way to pretend interest in a resolution while keeping alive the one existential threat to the continued existence of the state of Israel, which is the Palestinian issue. | ||
| I'm going to agree with that. | ||
| Yeah, Azum. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Mike. | ||
| Oh, okay, again. | ||
| Hold on. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Daniel, thank you. | ||
| I'm going to overstate my welcome and ask a two-pronged question, maybe two questions. | ||
| But I heard you mention Saudi Arabia and Lebanon as potential inductees into the Abraham Accords. | ||
| Let's talk about Saudi Arabia. | ||
| This whole notion that the United States has a bushel of states and we can hand the Palestinians one of those states and that will magically happen is becoming a major part of the problem. | ||
| Do you believe that Saudi Arabia recognizes that the Palestinians are not ready to have a state between Hamas and Gaza and a corrupt Palestinian authority in the West Bank? | ||
| The infrastructure for a state was never there. | ||
| And maybe the one time we kind of almost got close to it with the deal of the century, well, that did not go through. | ||
| And regarding Lebanon, my concern that at the best case scenario today, Lebanon would be a high-risk induction into the Abraham Accords that will potentially, if the small thing goes bad, may affect existing relationships that are doing pretty well. | ||
| Do you believe that maybe there'll be another venue or another process that is better suited for Lebanon, potentially Syria, versus kind of pushing everybody into this whole unified Abraham Accords kind of pathway where countries may have different levels of commitment and abilities to commit to such agreement? | ||
| Well, I think we have that from the first round. | ||
| I mean, look at Sudan was an initial inductee in that first round and subsequently had a civil war, changed government. | ||
| Like, it's not been like a smooth path for every nation that already joined in. | ||
| And so I think, you know, in looking around the region, like what are, I don't think that Saudi Arabia is looking and is really has a super committed to the Palestinian people, et cetera. | ||
| I think it's concerned about as the custodians of Islam is like they're worried about the image that that provides them and they have to somehow say, yeah, we're really into a Palestinian state. | ||
| I mean, it seemed like there's been moments where there's been an agreement, you know, a nod, yeah, we're for a Palestinian state, but the devil's in the details, so we'll work out that later as a way of kind of pushing it off, saying, yeah, we'll sign a deal now, but hope for the future. | ||
| I think that's, I don't want to be overly optimistic about that, but it wouldn't surprise me if that panned out that way. | ||
| Whereas I think Lebanon, the eradication of Hezbollah or the kind of removal of Hezbollah as a real existential threat, it changed the facts on the ground in Lebanon in a huge significant way. | ||
| I mean, it really did. | ||
| And in a way that we have not seen in like 50 years. | ||
| And so, in moments like that, I think you really just got to push because you haven't been here in a really long time. | ||
| Facts on the grounds have changed. | ||
| There's real movement. | ||
| I mean, there was about a million Sunni Muslims that came into Lebanon from Syria, which threw off the balance of power between, you know, it was like a third Christian, a third Sunni, and a third Shia. | ||
| And suddenly you had increased Sunni antagonistic towards the Shia because they had already been fighting together in Syria. | ||
| But then the Christians were weak and they had aligned with Hezbollah on the ground politically. | ||
| And when Hezbollah got weak, the Christians said, no, we're not doing this anymore. | ||
| And so suddenly you had a window opportunity to go, hey, let's lean into that Christian country. | ||
| And maybe we'll get some Christians to head back into the region, too. | ||
| So I'm optimistic about Lebanon because I think the facts on the ground has changed significantly. | ||
| And a good, real strong effort by America and France could really kind of push that one along. | ||
| I'll go back to the stability issue, and I will agree with the presumption underlying those questions. | ||
| And I think while I want to be as optimistic as Luke on this, I think that right now Syria and Lebanon are extremely unstable and uncertain. | ||
| And I think that to hinge a deal with consequences with extremely unstable and uncertain governments or governing coalitions, it may be premature. | ||
| I don't know if the answer is some affiliate project. | ||
| I do think that it's another way, and maybe it's not even the Abram Courts framework. | ||
| There is a way for America to assert its interests in the region in ways that will make those governing coalitions or different ones more stable and more powerful. | ||
| But again, a lot of that's going to have to do with domestic policy considerations. | ||
| I'm not a believer in regime change. | ||
| I'm not a believer in America going in and changing things necessarily in most places in the world. | ||
| But I do think that it is, for me, at least a little premature to assume any deals going on there will result in what they appear on paper right now, which is very different than most, you know, than what happened to the first signatories. | ||
| Very briefly, I'll just get to one more question before we're done. | ||
| What I want to say is that I agree with you, and that's why when I first brought, you know, we were talking about it a minute ago, I said I'm going to be contrarian and I didn't answer the question because I actually agree with you. | ||
| But I want to also say that while I agree with your premise, there's what's happening publicly and then there's what's happening in the region behind the scenes, right? | ||
| And so while we may not have actual normalization and warm peace deals right now between Israel and let's say the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries, behind the scenes, there is a reality that relationships exist, that with thanks to some, you know, Rob Greenway, Victoria Coates, and others from the first Trump administration, Israel has been integrated into CENTCOM. | ||
| You are seeing joint military activities between Israel, Bahrain, UAE, Morocco. | ||
| That's all ongoing. | ||
| And ultimately, what happened since October 7th is that Israel has proven itself to be the 300-pound guerrilla of the region. | ||
| Israel has become the country that has protected the entire region. | ||
| Israel helped take out Iran's nuclear program and Iran's military capabilities on behalf of the entire region. | ||
| Think about this. | ||
| The little Jewish state of Israel became the protector of all these Arab countries, right? | ||
| That is the reality in the region, and all these countries make their decisions based on their national interests. | ||
| So, ultimately, if we do see normalization, if we do see peace between Israel and more of her Arab neighbors, it's going to be because it's in the interests of those countries to make peace with Israel, the 300-pound guerrilla of the region. | ||
| Well, I think on those responses, a little bit of a disagreement and a great kind of overall message at the end. | ||
| I'm going to wrap this up. | ||
| But before we get off the stage, I just want to note: Heritage Foundation, a few months ago, we acquired an organization or assumed the mission of an organization called the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, which was set up by Jared Kushner, set it up with Rob Greenway, acting as director, and Asher Fredman and David Aronson, who live in Jerusalem, are now visiting fellows, part of Heritage Foundation. | ||
| And we have a page now dedicated to tracking the advancement and development of normalization. | ||
| It's on Heritage's website, heritage.org/slash Abraham-Accords. | ||
| We also have, if we could put on the screen here, on the back tables over there, we have a quarterly newsletter that the first one was sent out today. | ||
| We're going to set up quarterly newsletters tracking the progress of trade, tourism, other analysis every quarter of the accords, an annual report. | ||
| Here's the page right here. | ||
| There's a lot of information on there. | ||
| In addition, we have pollem cards with QR codes to sign up for marketing to receive our quarterly and annual reports. | ||
| We'll be staying afterwards for the reception. | ||
| So we can happily continue this conversation there. | ||
| But we have a couple last speakers that I want to introduce. | ||
| But please, everyone, give a hand to our panel here. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you all for bearing with us on this Thursday afternoon. | ||
| I next want to welcome up to the stage Ralph Reed, who's founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. | ||
| He's a husband and father of four. | ||
| I think many are familiar with him in this room. | ||
| Also, chairman and CEO of Century Strategies, a public affairs firm, best-selling author, and the executive, former executive director of the Christian Coalition. | ||
| Please, sir. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| What a great program. | ||
| What an honor to be on this stage at the Heritage Foundation, one of the most cherished institutions, lifting up the conservative values and the principles that we and millions of others who are not in this room today share a beacon of light in a nation's capital that has desperately needed ever since Ed Fulner co-founded it with Paul Weirich in 1973. | ||
| So it's a great honor to be here. | ||
| I just want to take a few minutes and kind of wrap up and talk about foundational principles as to why I think it is so critical that support for the state of Israel be at the center of U.S. foreign policy. | ||
| And I think there are two main reasons for that. | ||
| The first, it's important to remind people, is the humanitarian impulse following World War II and the Holocaust, when the entire civilized world was revolted by what we fully learned about the Holocaust after the end of the war. | ||
| It is difficult to look at the footage and to see the ashen faces of the USGIs who liberated those camps and not realize that while the world slumbered, we had allowed the rhetorical and ideological anti-Semitism of Hitler and the Nazi regime to become weaponized in the attempted genocide of European Jewry. | ||
| And as a result of that, and the end of the British mandate in Palestine, Israel declared itself a nation, and the modern state of Israel was born, and the United States became the first nation on the planet to recognize it. | ||
| It's hard to believe today, but at that time, the Democratic Party would have been far more pro-Israel than the Republican Party. | ||
| And that support for Israel has been a theme of U.S. foreign policy ever since. | ||
| And for those who are critical of that stance, not only around the world, but in our own nation, for the consequences that flow out of that decision, a humanitarian impulse and a moral statement that the Jewish people should have a homeland where they can have refuge and safety in a world where they have experienced persecution for centuries. | ||
| That is not a new conundrum for our country. | ||
| Remember, the Arab-Israeli conflict began immediately after the declaration of the State of Israel, if not before. | ||
| And there were multiple wars under multiple administrations because we stood by Israel. | ||
| And that moral imperative has not changed. | ||
| But there is also a national security imperative. | ||
| And that imperative is that if our national security interests in the region of the Middle East, arguably the most dangerous, volatile, and bloodiest region on the planet historically, if they are not identical to those of Israel, they certainly crisply overlap. | ||
| And those interests have been discussed in great detail today, but just to summarize, they are to oppose the forces of terror wherever they are found in the region, both in state actors and in non-state actors. | ||
| They are to decimate and systematically dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, including those of Iran, its ballistic missile program, its nuclear enrichment program, and its terrorist proxies, which have held the entire region hostage for decades. | ||
| And I can remember one time early in President Trump's first term when I can't place exactly when it was or where we were, but there were a group of us, a small group, that were with President Trump. | ||
| And I'll never forget him telling us when I walked in the door as President of the United States and I had my first full-blown security briefing. | ||
| He said they went around the world and went to every hotspot, every conflict, every war, every area of instability. | ||
| And he said in every single one of them, there was one common theme, and that was Iran was either behind it or involved. | ||
| Thirdly, we want to see peace between Arabs and Israelis. | ||
| We want to see stability in the region. | ||
| And finally, we want to see prosperity, economic prosperity, jobs for everyone in the region. | ||
| You know, I think what Johnny Moore shared here earlier today was deeply moving. | ||
| But it's a reminder that if we do not have stability, if we have terrorist states, terrorist organizations running the region, we're not going to have jobs, we're not going to have economic prosperity, and people are going to be starving. | ||
| So, for us, we believe there's a national security imperative and a humanitarian and moral impulse, and the two coincide and are self-reinforcing. | ||
| And that's why I'm involved in the conference of presidents of major Christian organizations speaking out on behalf of Israel. | ||
| That's why we're here today, helping to sponsor this very important forum, because I think those who suggest and argue that our support for Israel is somehow a function of U.S. foreign policy being the captive of the foreign ministry of another nation, | ||
| in this case Israel, not only do a great disservice to President Trump and his very able national security team, they not only do a tremendous disservice to the U.S. troops who are serving with courage throughout the region to defend those interests, | ||
| but also they give support to and repeat the anti-Semitic tropes that gave rise to some of the darkest chapters in human history. | ||
| They must be resisted. | ||
| We must stand for Israel, and it's a great honor to be here today as part of this forum. | ||
| Thank you so much, Ralph. | ||
| In concluding, we want to thank again the Heritage Foundation, Robert Greenway, Victoria Coates, and Daniel Flesh for putting on this amazing event. | ||
| The America First Foreign Policy Doctrine championed by President Donald Trump prioritizes U.S. national interest, economic security, and peace through strength, has led to monumental shifts in the Middle East in just six months. | ||
| The U.S.-Israel Military Alliance is at its historic level. | ||
| Two weeks ago, I was at a reception with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who stated, Israel has no better friend than Donald J. Trump. | ||
| What a difference an election makes. | ||
| I am so grateful to God that Donald Trump is our president. | ||
| Imagine where we would be with Kamala Harris. | ||
| The U.S.-Israel alliance has transformed the Middle East, according to the Prime Minister, beyond recognition. | ||
| This alliance is an opportunity to usher in peace and a better future for Israel and the entire region. | ||
| The horrific atrocities committed by Hamas against innocent babies, children, men, and women did not happen in a vacuum. | ||
| It was the Biden administration's policies that enabled, funded, fueled Iran's nuclear program and its terror proxies. | ||
| January 20th, we saw historic change in America. | ||
| With the election of Donald Trump, there is a new sheriff in town. | ||
| President Donald Trump's landslide electoral vote showed not just a historic mandate by Americans against woke socialism for secure borders, law and order, but a mandate against anti-Israel, anti-Semitic policies, and a mandate in favor of U.S.'s unwavering support for the nation of Israel. | ||
| Because of this administration, Israel is now safer than it's been in decades. | ||
| The Middle East is realigning. | ||
| U.S. is safer through President Trump's border security and exemplary foreign policy of this administration, making the world a safer place. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| God bless Israel, and God bless the United States of America. | ||
| We are now going to have our reception. | ||
| Daniel, do you have instructions? | ||
| Thank you all for joining. | ||
| Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 2.15 p.m. Eastern, Carol Mosley Braun talks about her political life as the first African-American woman senator, presidential candidate, and ambassador in her book, Trailblazer. | ||
| Book TV commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with several author conversations. | ||
| Beginning at 3.15 p.m. Eastern, Ari Hota looks back at the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective. | ||
| Then at 4 p.m. Eastern, A.J. Boehm recalls the challenges that President Harry Truman faced during his first four months in office. | ||
| Max Hasting explores World War II from the personal point of view, using detailed stories of the lives of everyday people as they struggled to survive at 5.45 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| And at 6.45 p.m. Eastern, Susan Southard examines the impact the atomic bombing of Nagasaki had on the city and its people. | ||
| We also continue our celebration of America's 250th with author conversations on the American Revolution. | ||
| At 10 p.m. Eastern, Andrew Roberts looks back at the reign of King George III and argues that he has been misunderstood in his book, The Last King of America. | ||
| Then, historian Harlow Giles Unger, author of First Founding Father, recounts the efforts of Richard Henry Lee in the Revolutionary War, from his call for independence from Britain in the Second Continental Congress to his exploits on the battlefield. |