My review appeared in the Jerusalem Post weekend magazine on 10 September 2021
His name suggests that
he is Jewish, but he describes himself as “a follower of Jesus Christ from a
Jewish background.” Born to a Jewish father
and a gentile mother, he is an Evangelical Christian who believes profoundly in
the literal truth of both the Old and the New Testaments. High among the principles that govern his
approach to the Middle East are the biblical injunctions to love Israel and her
neighbors, and to be a peacemaker.
In line with his
principles, he and his wife left the US in 2014 and moved to Israel, where he
became a dual US-Israeli citizen. Two of his sons have done military service in
the Israeli army.
For some twenty years
Rosenberg has been active in the political field. He has led ground-breaking Evangelical
Christian delegations to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. He has spoken personally with Israel’s previous
president, Reuben Rivlin, with Benjamin Netanyahu when prime minister, and with
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egypt’s President Fatah el-Sisi, and the two Crown
Princes who dominate the Middle East – Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) of the United
Arab Emirates, and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia. He has had face-to-face
conversations with then-President Donald Trump, and with his vice-president,
Mike Pence, and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Rosenberg says: “I can’t explain why doors to such intriguing leaders have opened for me,” but open they did. In “Enemies and Allies” he provides details of these encounters, and of many more with US intelligence and security officials and others across the Middle East, and draws on them to make a clear-eyed assessment of the realities behind the chaos that is the Middle East in the first quarter of the 21st century. He calls them "an unforgettable journey inside the fast-moving and immensely turbulent modern Middle East"
“Enemies and Allies” is
unlikely to commend itself to a large swathe of US Democratic opinion, or to
many powerful and persuasive figures in the European Union or the UK. It is doubtful if US President Joe Biden, or
the president he served for eight years, Barack Obama, will concur with Rosenberg’s
conclusions on the Iranian issue, which are way out of line with the widespread
and influential body of opinion in the West that believes the way to prevent
Iran obtaining a nuclear arsenal is through negotiation, financial concessions
and the prospect of being welcomed into the so-called “comity of nations”. Rosenberg believes Iran poses a threat like
no other, because the West cannot, or will not, see that the Iranian leadership
is working to its own unshakable Islamist agenda. These “apocalyptic Islamists” in his words,
“want to use violence to try to annihilate the State of Israel, neutralize the
United States, decimate Christendom, and hasten the establishment of their global
Islamic kingdom and the coming of their savior, the Mahdi.”
This sector of Western opinion
is also likely to reject Rosenberg’s unalloyed commendation of the courage and
wisdom of those responsible for initiating the Abraham Accords. He identifies
them as Trump, Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. The first such agreement, between Israel and the
United Arab Emirates, was brought to fruition against a very difficult
background, with Netanyahu apparently on the brink of annexing large areas of
the West Bank. “It almost did not happen,” writes Rosenberg. “But by the grace of God, the prayers of millions,
and the leadership of three men and their closest advisors, it came to pass.
For me, each absolutely deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Based on his discussions
with White House officials and US political leaders, Rosenberg lays bare the
strategy behind Trump’s Israel-Palestine peace plan, the so-called “Deal of the
Century”, and how it smoothed the path leading to the Accords.
Many
senior officials told Rosenberg that while they had wanted to create the most
detailed and realistic peace plan possible, they knew that the Palestinian
leadership had no interest in a final deal.
So they calculated that if they based their deal-making on trying to
get the Palestinians to say yes, the whole peace effort would be dead on
arrival. But if they decided that one of
their objectives was to expose Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
and his inner circle as perennial rejectionists of all peace proposals, however
reasonable, their plan could pave the way to a normalization deal with at least
one, and possibly several, Arab states.
Rosenberg had been
given covert warning of this approach from a variety of sources. Pence told him that Trump had thrown out “the
old playbook”; Pompeo said that Trump had chosen to “flip the switch” on
Obama. White House peace negotiator
Jason Greenblatt told him that Trump wanted his team to be “willing to think
outside the box” and be able to persuade other leaders in the region to do the
same.
“I don’t think we could
have jumped from nothing to the Abraham Accords,” said Greenblatt. “I think that putting out a plan that we
deemed realistic and implementable…was an essential step.” In fact, he added, “the Palestinians’
rejection of the plan…removed the “veto card” from the Palestinian leadership,
and cleared the way for Arab countries to make their own decisions with regards
to Israel.”
And indeed, as Rosenberg points out, “the Trump approach worked,” especially as the UAE agreement was quickly expanded to include Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
Joel
Rosenberg has gained access to some of the world’s leading political figures
and held in-depth discussions with them.
In “Enemies and Allies” he generously shares his experiences. He takes his readers into the inner sanctum
of high-level politics in the Middle East.
We gain a unique insight into the thinking of world leaders, and rightly
feel privileged to have done so. Whether
one agrees or disagrees with Rosenberg’s conclusions, “Enemies and Allies”
undoubtedly provides a degree of enlightenment not otherwise available. It is
highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment