NPR

Opinion: Israel And UAE's Accord Is A Big Win, But Don't Overplay It

If the deal holds, the United Arab Emirates will be the first Gulf state to normalize relations with Israel, but there are many potential bumps in the road, writes Aaron David Miller.

Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2), a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, served for more than two decades as a State Department Middle East analyst, adviser and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He's the author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President.


Watching the hoopla over Israel and the United Arab Emirates' accord to normalize relations, I couldn't help recall sitting on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 13, 1993, as President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and President Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat concluded the historic Oslo Declaration of Principles. Caught up in the moment, I was persuaded we'd reached a point of no return and that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was now irreversible.

It clearly wasn't.

The process of establishing formal contacts between Israel and the UAE should

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