When the ceremony was over, another event that has never been seen before took place at the White House. Dozens of Jews wearing kippas and hats, rose with enthusiasm and started to pray Mincha, the afternoon prayer. Not far from them stood representatives of Arab states, who also took part in the ceremony. Muslims, who knew that next to them stood the most right-wing flanks of American and Israeli politics.
Despite that, all those present felt uplifted. All present wanted peace.
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Those who shot missiles during the ceremony exposed who wanted war. And after yesterday's ceremony, there is good reason to believe that warmongers are now a minority in the Middle East.
Donald Trump has given Israel many historic moments over the past four years. Jerusalem, the Golan, Iran, settling in Judea and Samaria. One could think there were no more records to break. But yesterday was the biggest record of them all.
Thanks to the intense and creative mediation of senior Trump administration officials, the Israeli prime minister stood in the White House next to two foreign ministers of leading Arab countries. That image will be etched forever in the history of the Jewish people and its state.
In the US it's common that a bad movie has a happy ending. But yesterday on the South Lawn, one had to pinch themselves to make sure this is not a movie, but real. Prime Minister Netanyahu is signing a peace deal with the UAE and Bahrain. As if we were dreaming.
Tired of the hostility
The Arab states showed – as expressed in the speeches of both foreign ministers, especially that of Abdullah Bin Zayid of the UAE, who spoke in Arabic for his home audience – that they want to put the hostility behind them. They accept Israel as it is – a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, with a large Arab minority, which controls the territories of Judea and Samaria and aspires for peace, but without endangering its future and safety. With this state, the UAE and Bahrain, and maybe other countries, have decided to shake hands for the future.
One can only be moved and impressed by the way this peace was achieved, which shatters so many of the conventions we had drummed into us. First, as Netanyahu has said for years, peace is achieved with strength and not weakness and concessions. That, not frightened withdrawals from territories, is impressive diplomacy.
Second, who brought this peace? The same people who the left-wing media and peace experts, those aggressive hecklers, called dangerous and even "new Hitlers."
Yes, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump have shone a light on the ridiculous insults the Israeli and American media have hurled their way for so many years. No less important, the mediation efforts themselves were done by two young men who grew up in yeshivas, not the peace industry. With one Abraham Accord, Jared Kushner, Avi Berkowitz, David Friedman and others threw thousands of studies on "the way to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict" into the trash.
In the Middle East, and in the History of Israel and the Jewish people, a change happened yesterday whose effects will be felt for decades, maybe even hundreds of years.
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