Prominent Democrats took to social media to lash out at President Donald Trump after Washington helped broker a historic peace deal normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The deal received high marks from national security experts—former White House Iran staffer and Foundation for Defense of Democracies adviser Rich Goldberg said it was "likely the greatest foreign policy achievement of any president in a generation." And national security adviser Robert O'Brien even suggested the deal should make Trump a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize.
But Democrats lamented the passage of the deal, which opens the door for formal channels of communication, bilateral security agreements, and future collaboration between the two countries.
For Obama alum and Iran deal mastermind Ben Rhodes, the deal was "dressed up as an election eve achievement from two leaders who want Trump to win."
"We won’t be fooled by another Trump/Netanyahu deal," Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) said. "This Trump/Netanyahu deal will not alleviate Palestinian suffering—it will further normalize it."
Biden surrogate and Obama national security alum Ned Price accepted that the deal was a success, but qualified his praise. "This is a rare victory for Israel's long-term interests under Trump, who's done little but imperil them," he wrote.
Price, Rhodes, and other top Obama security staffers and Biden campaign advisers have often cried foul at President Trump’s close relationship with Israel, particularly so in 2017, when the White House moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
"There's a very simple concept that the establishment foreign policy guild of Washington will never accept: Arab states make peace with Israel when Israel is strong and when its alliance with the U.S. is strong, not when Israel and its alliance with the U.S. are weak," Washington Free Beacon contributor Noah Pollak said.