Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is no stranger to government malaise. Prior to his election in 2020, the Bronx congressman spent seven years as a New York City councilmember, working to wade through the sea of red tape that is government bureaucracy. So it impressed Torres when, last Friday, only a few months after first discussing the refurbishment of a soccer field in the Bronx’s Crotona Park, he was handed a pair of golden scissors as he stood on newly laid synthetic turf at the ceremonial ribbon-cutting. More surprising, the unusual source for the project’s success: Middle East peace, reports Jewish Insider’s Sam Zieve Cohen.

Funding: The project was made possible thanks to a $363,000 donation from the United Arab Emirates and the New York Football Club (which is majority-owned by members of the Abu Dhabi royal family). At the ceremony, Torres was joined by UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, standing alongside the congressman and a contingent of local politicians and city officials. Through the ambassador’s new role as cheerleader for a changed Middle East, Torres, who has gained popularity in the Jewish community as a pro-Israel progressive, and Otaiba formed a friendship.

Trilateral friendship: “There’s no reason to think that the construction of the soccer fields would have gone forward without the Abraham Accords,” Torres observed in an interview this week. “The Abraham Accords has first order-, second-order and third-order consequences… Something as seemingly unconnected as a soccer field is, in its own way, a testament to the new trilateral friendship that has taken hold among the United States, the UAE and Israel.”

Warm peace: Prior to the park visit, Otaiba joined Torres at the Riverdale Jewish Center for an off-the-record conversation on the Abraham Accords before a local audience of around 60 people, including former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and former Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY). Otaiba and Torres, sitting on a stage with Rabbi Dovid Zirkind, spent over an hour in conversation. “The Abraham Accords is a monumental achievement in the diplomatic history of the Middle East. It’s an achievement that few in the foreign policy establishment predicted or thought was possible,” Torres told JI afterward, asking rhetorically, “Has there ever been a moment in human history when a Christian majority country, a Muslim majority country and a Jewish majority country came together to form, not merely a cold peace, but a genuine friendship?”

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Cora Neumann

The Jewish community in Montana is so small that for half a century, the Treasure State did not have an operating synagogue, until Congregation Beth Shalom opened in Bozeman in 2001. Beth Shalom is now home to 120 families, but the temple’s president, Jake Werner, only knows of one person in the community who was born and raised in Montana: Cora Neumann, a Bozeman native who is now running to represent one of the state’s two congressional districts. “Montana has always been my home,” Neumann, who is 47, told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch.

Going home: When the nonprofit executive and public health expert moved away for college in the 1990s, she spent more than two decades living far from home. But Montana remained her north star, she added: “It’s like the story of so many Montanans, where you grew up here, you leave for school and work, and you’re on your journey home the whole time.” Neumann, a Democrat, is making her deep ties to the state an integral part of her campaign, which has centered on the state’s affordability crisis, brought on by wealthy remote workers who moved there since the start of the pandemic.

Long odds: Neumann is running in the newly created 1st District, which covers the western part of the state; it’s the first time the state has had more than a single statewide district in three decades. And while it includes some Democratic strongholds such as the university towns of Bozeman and Missoula, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated it as “Likely Republican.” “The odds are slightly against her if you look at just the kind of Republican-Democrat stuff, but the candidate quality matters,” said Ed Stafman, rabbi emeritus at Beth Shalom and a Montana state representative. “Montana has a fierce streak of independence.”

Jewish start: Early in her career, Neumann worked briefly in the Jewish professional world before earning her graduate degrees, first as a reporter at the New Mexico Jewish Link and then as a communications professional at the American Jewish Committee. “I felt really connected to the Jewish side of my family, and I was really interested in learning and working with an organization that works globally, and then learning more about Israel and about international relations in general,” she said.

Read the full interview here.

hani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, The United Arab Emirates’ Minister of State for Foreign Trade, attends a plenary session of the 7th Machine-Building Cluster Forum as part of the Russia – Islamic World: KazanSummit 2021 International Economic Summit at Kazan Expo International Exhibition Center, Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan. (Maksim Bogodvid/Sputnik via AP)

Trade between the United Arab Emirates and Israel is expected to reach $5 billion in the “upcoming few years,” Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi predicted at the 2022 Davos World Economic Forum, The Circuit’s Jacob Miller reports. Less than two years after the signing of the historic normalization agreements, the trade volume between Israel and the UAE has eclipsed $2.5 billion, leading Al Zeyoudi to forecast that bilateral trade between Israel and the UAE will exceed $2 billion this year and that 1,000 Israeli companies will operate in his country by year’s end.

Stronger Together: Al Zeyoudi also noted both countries share common challenges — water scarcity, agriculture, and energy diversification — and referenced past areas of cooperation, including the creation of a water research institute, Israel’s sale to the UAE of stakes in its Tamar gas field and the two countries’ collaboration on launching the Beresheet 2 space mission.

Old Doc: Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, an advisor to Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, reiterated that his country remains committed to the Arab Peace Initiative, a proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and claimed the 2002 document was a tacit acknowledgment of Israel’s legitimacy by the Arab world. “It’s a de facto acceptance by every Arab country of the State of Israel in the region,” he said.

Future Prospects: Sounding a note of optimism, Stuart Eizenstat, a Clinton administration alum and partner at Covington & Burling law firm who currently serves as the State Department’s special advisor on Holocaust Issues, expressed confidence that Israel’s relationship with Abraham Accords countries could deepen, and proposed the U.S. create “Qualified Industrial Zones,” regions in which the U.S. allows free trade on products manufactured with Israeli help, in Abraham Accords countries. “As much as we’ve had remarkable change for the good in a little over a year, there is room for enormous expansion if we do the right things and we continue down this path,” Eizenstat said. Asked about the possibility of promoting peace between other Middle Eastern countries, Al Khalifa stressed the importance of patience, but said, “We will need to work harder and harder and harder to make that go at a faster pace.”

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From the Arab Gulf states to northern Africa, Israel is trying to sew up the normalization pacts it signed nearly two years ago by sharing its pioneering answers to drought, desertification and fossil-fuel replacement. That’s what brought Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Israel’s minister of innovation, science and technology, to Morocco this week with a cohort of startup companies focused on addressing the region’s climate and energy nightmares, reports The Circuit’s Jonathan Ferziger.

Inking it: “I’m here to say that Israel’s innovation, talent, our people and our minds can and should be a partner,” Farkash-Hacohen told an Israel-Moroccan business conference in Casablanca on Wednesday. The Israeli cabinet minister, a member of the Blue & White party in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s governing coalition, is scheduled to be in the capital city of Rabat on Thursday to sign a memorandum of understanding with her Moroccan counterpart, Abdellatif Miraoui. The broad agreement will cover cooperative efforts in agricultural technologies, water management, water desalination, renewable energy and artificial intelligence, Farkash-Hacohen said.

Around the region: Her visit to Morocco follows a similar trip to the United Arab Emirates in October 2021 that covered joint activities in the realms of climate and energy, but also focused on cooperation between the two countries on space exploration, including Israel’s Beresheet 2 unmanned lunar landing mission. “I hope this will echo a more moderate voice in the Middle East and in Africa,” Farkash-Hacohen told The Circuit in a brief interview on the sidelines of the conference. “We are facing a lot of extremists in our neighborhood. This is an alliance of the moderate countries.”

Read more here.