Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, stand on the Blue Room Balcony during the Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, in Washington.

Two years after former President Donald Trump signed the Abraham Accords with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, a top Biden administration foreign policy official pledged to continue to promote and build on the normalization agreements. “I can attest to the fact that it remains a priority, of working on this every single day,” a senior State Department official told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on Wednesday. The official requested anonymity to speak freely. “We feel very strongly that we need to deliver tangible results. It’s very important that, basically, the peace dividend is demonstrated.” The official pointed to growing trade, tourism and defense ties as examples of those results.

Counter-narratives: Since President Joe Biden took office last year, no additional Muslim-majority nations have joined the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in normalizing ties with Israel. On Biden’s trip to the Middle East in July, he announced that Saudi Arabia had agreed to open its airspace to all civilian carriers, including flights to and from Israel. Earlier this week, Jared Kushner, a leading architect of the Abraham Accords, claimed the Biden administration has avoided growing the Accords because of animosity toward Trump — “Trump derangement syndrome,” he called it — a narrative that the State Department official asserted was “incorrect.” 

From day one: “This administration has been a strong supporter of the Abraham Accords from day one,” the official said. “Our focus has been on the substance of efforts to expand peace and normalization agreements between Israel and Arab and Muslim-majority countries, and we’re going to continue to work on that. I can tell you personally, I’m working very, very hard on that with the full backing of the secretary of state and the president.” 

Meeting set: The official said that six working groups created in the wake of the Negev Forum — the March meeting hosted by Secretary of State Tony Blinken with foreign ministers from Israel, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain — will meet for the first time this fall to try to expand a multilateral framework between Israel and the Arab nations with which it has relations, rather than just separate bilateral ties with each country. 

Improving lives: Washington is hopeful that the working groups will create projects designed to benefit Palestinians, too. “They need to find ways to tangibly improve Palestinian lives, and they need to do Palestinian-focused initiatives,” the official said. This would be good for the Palestinians, the official said, but it could also show skeptical Muslim nations that they do not need to choose between supporting the Palestinians and having a relationship with Israel.

Read the full story here.

Bonus: The Reut Group, an Israeli think tank, convened 60 Muslim and Jewish leaders from around the U.S. in Washington yesterday to consider how the two communities can fight hate and build stronger relationships in light of changes brought about in the Middle East by the Abraham Accords. “The summit suggested that the Abraham Accords may provide a surprising opportunity to address social polarization and illiberalism in America,” said Barak Sella, Reut’s deputy CEO. 

President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a Keep America Great rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on February 19, 2020. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a ceremony in Jerusalem on January 23, 2020.

During a private meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan three years ago, then-President Donald Trump was apparently so eager to impress Vladimir Putin that he unwittingly set himself up for a stinging retort from the Russian president, according to a forthcoming book on Trump’s presidency obtained by Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel.

Tough room: Following a tense exchange in which Putin had bragged of acquiring “hypersonic missiles” before the U.S., Trump countered with a self-centered boast, suggesting his popularity outside the U.S. was so strong that Poland was planning a military base in his name. Israel, he gloated, had also just announced a new settlement, “Trump Heights,” in appreciation of his administration’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Putin was unfazed. “Maybe they should just name Israel after you, Donald,” he said.

Baker and Glasser: The cutting exchange is one of several previously unreported details from The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, a vivid account of the former president’s norm-shattering tenure written by the husband-and-wife reporting team of Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a staff writer for The New Yorker. The book is published by Doubleday and will come out on Sept. 20.

Read more here.

Bonus: Glasser and Baker write that Ronald Lauder, who had known the president since the two were students at the University of Pennsylvania, was behind Trump’s idea to purchase Greenland from Denmark.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff speaks at a Rosh Hashanah reception hosted by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog

On Wednesday evening, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog and Shirin Herzog hosted a who’s who crowd of Jewish leaders and Washington officials at the Israeli Embassy’s annual Rosh Hashanah reception. The reception, held at the Herzogs’ new residence overlooking the Potomac River, featured remarks from Ambassador Herzog, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Kesher Israel’s Rabbi Hyim Shafner. Emhoff thanked Shirin Herzog for the hospitality and quipped how the two had compared notes on what it’s like “to be spouse (laughter), and also a high-powered attorney.”

Three amigos: “As I got out on the trail, and I was campaigning,” Emhoff recalled of the 2020 presidential campaign, “I did a lot of work on the Biden-Harris campaign with a guy named Tony and a guy named Ron. And one guy became secretary of state, one guy became chief of staff, one guy became second gentleman. We were kind of doing all the Jewish events together. And I started to get out there, meeting everybody. And then when we took office, they were really busy. So a lot of this stuff kind of fell on me… outreach into the community. I got to meet a lot of you, I got to speak openly.”

Emhoff on the first virtual White House Seder: “We decided with the vice president, we’re going to do a virtual Seder, and beam it to the entire world, and we have no idea what’s going to happen. But I’ve decided I’m going to live the same way before: openly Jewish in this role. And so the Seder: massive hit. Again, this is not partisan… So my father’s friends in the desert in California, in their 80s, who probably didn’t vote for us, came up to me, shaking my hand, often crying, tears in their eyes, saying, ‘I never thought I’d see the day. I didn’t know how much this would affect me and impact me to see a Jew in this role, and being so open about it.’” 

Herzog addressed the crowd about challenges facing Israel: “We have to think, first and foremost, about safeguarding our future, a good future for our kids. So, antisemitism is on the rise in this country and across the globe. It rears its ugly head. And this is less than a century after the Holocaust. Who would have believed [it]? And we all have to unite to fight back against antisemitism… In our part of the world, there are dark forces who deny the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, first and foremost, Iran, with its nuclear ambitions and regional ambitions, threatening the State of Israel to wipe us off the map. And facing this threat, we have to be not only just, but we have to be strong, determined and united.”

Spotted: Attendees included Attorney General Merrick Garland, Lynn Garland, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Antisemitism envoy Amb. Deborah Lipstadt, State’s Barbara Leaf, NSC’s Anne Neuberger, White House Jewish Liaison Shelley Greenspan, State’s Yael Lempert, State Department spokesperson Ned Price, the White House’s Cynthia Bernstein, State Department’s Aaron Keyak, Israeli Antisemitism Envoy Noa Tishby, Sawsan Natur-Hasson, former Ambassador David Friedman, former Rep. Jane Harman, former Ambassador Sallai Meridor, Norm Brownstein, Steven Demby, Howard Kohr, William Daroff, Nathan Diament, Dianne Lob, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Nechama Shemtov, Rivka Kidron, Julia Schulman, Jonathan Schulman, Ann Lewis, Lisa Eisen, David Makovsky, Michael Makovsky, Dennis Ross, Rob Satloff, Halie Soifer, Marvin Feuer, Eric Gertler, Ken Weinstein, Elliott Abrams, Steve Rabinowitz, Sara Winkelman, Susie Gelman, Michael Gelman, Sarah Stern, Leonard Attman, Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, Lior Weintraub, Hadar Susskind, Ellie Cohanim and Nathan Guttman.

Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO & national director, speaking at the Anti-Defamation League’s National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.

The White House is hosting the United We Stand Summit today, an event aimed at countering domestic extremism and hate. The event is set to include speeches from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, new policy moves to counter and respond to hate violence and remarks from various local and religious leaders. Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod caught up with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt earlier this week to talk about the summit, which ADL has been calling for since the Buffalo, N.Y., mass shooting earlier this year.

Quotable: “Using the White House platform this way, with such high-level people, I think is really significant,” Greenblatt said. “I also suspect that the administration is going to start shining a light on these issues, connecting the communities who are most impacted. I believe the White House is going to announce an ongoing effort to continue to push on this beyond one day. So it won’t be sort of one and done, but rather a long-term commitment.” Greenblatt said he’s hoping to hear officials commit to continuing to expand the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, increasing enforcement of protections for Jewish students on college campuses and continuing to crack down on extremism in the military.

In the program: Planned speakers include Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Rabbis Charlie Cytron-Walker, David Saperstein and Rachel Schmelkin and Joseph Borgen, who was the subject of an alleged antisemitic attack last year.

On the sidelines: As a sidebar to the conference, ADL is also set to announce today the renewal of its bipartisan Mayors’ Compact to Combat Hate and Extremism, in collaboration with the United States Conference of Mayors, with 148 mayors signing on.

Members of the Abraham Accords Caucus on Sept. 14, 2022, in Washington. D.C.

House members of the Abraham Accords Caucus announced plans for a trip to the Abraham Accords countries early next year during an event for civil society leaders from Abraham Accords member nations on Wednesday to mark the agreements’ second anniversary, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Historic effort: “We want to bring members of Congress to see for themselves on the ground the fruits of what is a historic agreement, these Abraham Accords,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told reporters. “So to be able to go to Israel to go to Bahrain, to UAE, to Morocco, meet people who are benefiting from these Accords, talk to those who are realizing those benefits… I think that’s something that would be good for all of my colleagues to experience.” Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) said the group is aiming to schedule the trip for February 2023.

Coming to the table: Schneider and Wagner, as well as Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), David Trone (D-MD), Lisa McClain (R-MI), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) hosted representatives of Israel-Is, the Mimouna Association, il’Heure Joyeuse, UAE Youth Council, the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence and the American Jewish Committee, as well as a Fulbright Fellow from Bahrain for a roundtable discussion about the first two years of the Accords at the Capitol on Thursday.

Read more here.

Bonus: Following a classified briefing on Wednesday morning on the  Iran nuclear talks, Schneider — who opposed the original Iran deal — told JI that he’s “always had concerns” about the deal but, “I believe that this administration shares the view that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. And we’re looking for ways to advance our interests and our position to make sure they are never able to acquire that weapon.” He said that, despite apparent Iranian intransigence, he does not think the U.S. should abandon talks. “If we can find a path at the negotiating table to move them away from the threshold and hopefully close down their pathways to a weapon, we should never close that door,” he explained.