Video flashback: Obama alum John Kerry proved dead wrong by President Trump's Israel peace deals



Former Secretary of State John Kerry once declared, "There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world."

That emphatic statement — which the former Obama administration official and now Joe Biden surrogate called a "hard reality" at the time — appears to have been dead wrong.

The proof: Over the course of about a month, President Trump brokered two separate peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain. On Tuesday, the president even added that "five or six" more Arab countries were ready to follow suit.

Kerry's backward comments came in 2016 while he was speaking at the Brookings Institution's annual Saban Forum.

In a resurfaced clip of the comments, first shared by Institute for Policy & Strategy senior fellow Udi Evental, Kerry can be heard amazingly prophesying the exact opposite of what would come to pass four years later.

John Kerry with a 2016 Middle East take that aged like milk in a sauna. https://t.co/2Vae6yDJFt
— Noam Blum (@Noam Blum)1600299754.0

"There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you," Kerry said. "I've heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, 'Well, the Arab world's in a different place now. We just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world, and we'll deal with the Palestinians.' No, no, no, and no."

"I can tell you that, reaffirmed even in the last week, as I have talked to leaders of the Arab community. There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace," he continued. "Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality."

Kerry, who also once wrongly predicted that Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would be an unmitigated disaster, was widely panned for the cold take.

"John Kerry with a 2016 Middle East take that aged like milk in a sauna," Tablet Magazine associate editor Noam Blum said in the tweet above.

"Has anyone been more abjectly wrong about something?" National Review contributor Pradheep Shanker asked.

Hudson Institute senior fellow Rebeccah Heinrich wrote: "Exactly backwards. Remarkable."

Ed Morrissey, covering the news at Hot Air, wrote:

It's tough to choose what is the most embarrassing quality of this Kerry declaration from four years ago on the impossibility of what Trump has achieved. Is it his dead certainty of his own position? The way Kerry uses his cheaters to look down on the audience in his faux-professorial manner? The way he condescendingly dismisses politicians in Israel who actually turned out to be right, and to whom Kerry should have listened? It's an abundance of riches, my friends, an abundance of riches in 44 seconds.

President Trump announces another Middle East peace deal — this time between Israel and Bahrain



President Donald Trump announced another peace deal Friday, as Israel and Bahrain established diplomatic relations just weeks after a similar agreement was struck between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Fox News reported.

Bahrain becomes just the fourth country in the region to establish formal peaceful ties with Israel, joining Egypt, Jordan, and UAE. President Trump was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the deal between Israel and UAE.

"This is a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East," a joint statement from the U.S., Bahrain, and Israel said. "Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region."

Joint Statement of the United States, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the State of Israel https://t.co/xMquRkGtpM
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1599843630.0

The announcement of the deal comes on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and President Trump pointed out the significance of pushing for peace in the region.

"There's no more powerful response to the hatred that spawned 9/11 than this agreement," Trump said.

CNN reported that officials believe this deal could be significant toward a potential agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, since Bahrain is viewed in some ways as an extension of Saudi Arabia:

Bahrain, a tiny island nation that is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, is regarded in some ways as an extension of Saudi Arabia, partly because they are physically linked by a causeway but also because the Bahraini monarchy is heavily reliant on Riyadh.

Officials said the agreement with Israel announced on Friday could likely not have happened without Saudi Arabia's blessing, signaling that Bahrain may serve as a test case for a future Saudi-Israel deal.

A signing ceremony that will include Bahrain, UAE, and Israel is scheduled on Tuesday.

The White House emphasized the impact of the agreements as Trump runs for reelection, pointing out the historic nature of the peace deals and using them as examples of the president's desire to end long-term conflicts in the region.

"This is an extraordinary achievement," White House deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern told Fox News. "The president made the first major breakthrough like this in 26 years. In less than a month, he's made yet another one."