Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.
Laurie: Welcome to this week’s EMET webinar. Today’s webinar features the brilliant Victoria Coates. Victoria will be discussing her new book, the Battle for the Jewish State, How Israel-and America-Can Win. I have a copy of Victoria’s book here and you can also see it on Victoria’s screen. This superb book is going to be released on December 17th and I encourage everybody to purchase it, it is well worth the read. Thank you all for your support of our work here at EMET. We could not do what we do without you. As we approach the end of the year, I urge you to please consider making a final donation to us. Your donation will allow us to continue the crucial fight for the survival of Israel and the West.
Today’s webinar will be recorded for later viewing and I encourage everyone to share the link with friends, family and colleagues. If you have any questions for Victoria, you can place them in the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen and I will do my best to address as many as possible.
Victoria Coates is vice president of the Catherine and Shelby Column Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at the Heritage Foundation. She is an academic and a policymaker with senior experience across the U. S. government in Congress, the White House, and the Department of Energy. Victoria served in the George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump administrations. She served under Governor Rick Perry and as Senior Advisor for National Security in Senator Ted Cruz’s office. You can find out more about Victoria’s very impressive experience in the bio that we included in the invitation for today’s webinar.
Victoria, thank you so much for joining us today. As I mentioned, I really enjoyed reading your book and I am looking forward to our discussion about it very much.
Victoria Coates: Thank you so much.
Laurie: I am thrilled that you wrote this book. In 2009, Liz Cheney asked me to write a White Paper. I wrote a 6000-word paper explaining why Israel is a critically and strategically important US ally. Your book disseminates that argument to a much wider audience. Your book covers the disastrous Obama-Biden-Harris policy of daylight between Israel and the US. This policy led to October 7th. It also helped cause the turmoil we are now witnessing in the broader Middle East. Can you begin by discussing why Israel is such an important and strategic ally to the national security of the United States? Can you discuss this in the context of the forward to the book, authored by Ted Cruz? Ted Cruz asserts that the objective of Israel’s enemies is not just the annihilation of the Jewish homeland, but also of Western civilization, beginning with the US.
Victoria: Absolutely, Laurie. Thank you to you and to Sarah. Thank you to all the warriors who make EMET such an indispensable organization for those who value the U. S. Israel alliance. Our association goes back over a decade and am proud to be in the trenches with you.
I believe the majority of Americans support the US-Israel alliance and this support is bipartisan. There is a broad and deep support for Israel in the US. Many Americans reflexively support Israel without actually knowing why. They know they like Israel and the things Israel does but they do not fully understand why. Part of the reason for their instinctive support for Israel is because it has gone from being a very young beleaguered country to being a very well established, powerful country. It is now in the top 20 of any ranking of influential nations and this trajectory has happened in their lifetimes. Israel has developed from a country that was tremendously dependent on the US to one on a path toward independence. In the future, Israel in the United States will act more like the United States in the United Kingdom or like the United States in Japan.
Last year, we had an event scheduled for October 23rd. The goal of the event was to examine the U. S-Israel alliance after 75 years of Israel independence. We scheduled the event prior to October 7th. Ambassador Ronald Lauder was scheduled to deliver our keynote address and he was going to talk about his Marshall plan for the Middle East. Of course, he threw that speech out the window after October 7th and gave a really impassioned address. Ronald’s speech is highlighted on our site at https://www.heritage.org/. He discussed how he could no longer remain silent in the face of the rampant antisemitism in the US and the US-Israel alliance.
The first chapter of the book discusses how we got to where we are with respect to the October 7th attacks and the rampant anti Semitism in the United States. How did we get from October 7th to the point where we tolerate Hamas supporters on the streets of America? I think this befuddles all normal, decent human beings.
The book’s second chapter does a deep dive into the history of Israel and the alliance between the US and Israel. The second chapter introduces readers to many interesting people, from Albert Einstein to the early leaders of Israel. Haim Weizmann is one such example. The book discusses their incredible contributions. It also describes the American presidents who dealt with the US-Israel alliance and its shifting forms, from President Reagan to President Trump and then to President Biden. I tried to provide this information in the format of a 101 course. I wanted to provide a foundation to build on for those interested, without inundating readers with too much information. I wanted to give normal Americans the ammunition to defend the US-Israel alliance.
Laurie: I think current events illustrate the work Israel is doing on behalf of the United States and I am sure we will cover that later in our discussion. This is something really important for Americans to understand. I loved your chapter giving us a 101-history lesson. It provides sufficient information without making the reader feel like they are sitting in a classroom for an entire semester.
In discussing the history of the relationship between the US and Israel, you touched on some of the historical policies that brought us to where we are today. Can you share some of those policies with our audience? Please highlight the pattern of failures dating back to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Please also discuss the Obama and Biden policies that played a central role in the lead up to October 7th. Some of those policies have facilitated Hamas’s attempts to eradicate Israel.
Obama believed the US policy of unconditional support of Israel was a failed one and that a partnership with Iran was the solution for peace in the Middle East. Biden, of course, reversed everything Trump had accomplished in the region.
Victoria: Obama pursued a deliberate policy of abandoning unconditional support for the Jewish state. His administration was proud of it and promoted it openly. That was surprising to me and was one of the reasons I called my book, the Battle for the Jewish State. George W. Bush’s policy of no daylight between Israel and the United States had failed. It had not brought peace. Secretary Rice’s last-ditch effort at the United Nations was part of a shameful bipartisan history. In trying to achieve a win in the waning days of the administration, she supported a UN resolution very similar to the one that went through last spring. It condemned Israel for the violence in Gaza. That resolution opened the door for the Obama administration. They were then able to pursue their policy of abandoning unconditional support for Israel. When questioned, then Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power said she was following the policy initiated by Condi Rice and therefore the Republicans could not complain about it.
This was a really unfortunate end to George W. Bush’s administration. However, it pales in comparison to what Obama did in his two terms. He had eight years to pursue the policy he articulated in his Cairo speech at the very beginning of his administration. Obama opened his hand to the Islamic regime at the exact time of the Green Revolution. In his Cairo speech, Obama did not mention the Iranian people and their aspirations for freedom. He was solely interested in reaching out to the mullahs and to the regime. When asked about whether Israel was a key ally, Obama’s people responded in the negative. They identified the Iranians as the alternative. Once they espoused that worldview, it was inconvenient for them to have hundreds of thousands of Iranians clamoring for a change and for democracy. It was not comfortable when the Iranians on the streets demanded to know where Obama was.
I remember living through that and thinking it was bizarre that Obama said nothing. At the time, John Kerry wrote a truly extraordinary op ed published in the New York Times. The op-ed is footnoted in the book. It discussed Obama’s brilliant strategic silence. Kerry argued that by saying nothing and not encouraging the protestors, Obama was avoiding having the United States being blamed for them. Guess what? The regime blamed the US for the protests anyway. It would have been preferable to embrace and leverage the protests because the regime was going to blame the US regardless.
I joined the Senate during the Obama years. Senator Cruz was a great leader who tried valiantly to combat the nefarious activity leading up to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). No one has ever explained to me what JCPOA means. What is a joint comprehensive plan of action? I do not know and nobody seems to be in a hurry to explain it to me. John Kerry travelled around Europe trying to get the Europeans to invest in Iran and increase their income. We all witnessed what happened when Obama relaxed sanctions on Iran and tried to welcome them into the world community.
Obama assured us and again that the Iranians were going to use the economic windfall he facilitated to cure cancer. This is all footnoted in the book. That is how things ended when President Trump was inaugurated in 2017. We know what happened next. The Iranians poured the money Obama provided into their military and into their terrorist proxies. When we became part of the new administration, we were able to track this dollar for dollar. No money was spent on the Iranian people. No money was spent on the improvements they so desperately needed.
The Iranians were dealing with environmental, labor and other disasters at that time but we heard nothing about them. One would have expected the Democrats to have been champions of the environment and of organized labor. However, they were too busy trying to cozy up to Tehran, to address any of those issues. So, I think it was really clear why Obama’s policy did not work. This made it all the more confusing when, four years later, Biden and Harris went right back to the same policy with the same people
Laurie: The Biden-Harris administration employed Obama’s team. They even brought John Kerry back as the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate. Post October 7th, I find the continued push for a two- state solution truly mind boggling. I was in Israel this past February. I met with Israelis from the left, the right, and the center. They all understood that October 7th destroyed any possibility of a Palestinian state. Yet, almost immediately after the barbaric October 7th massacre, Biden, his foreign policy team, the U. N. Arabists and others, called for a two- state solution. This is simply insane. You stated in your book, “Americans writ large may find it difficult to believe that Hamas’ savage terrorist attacks could fuel a bid for statehood in the court of public opinion.” However, it is what is happening and it is by design.
Victoria, do you think Trump will play a role in any future proposals for a deal as he did with his deal of the century? Obviously, Trump’s deal of the century was quite different to the deal that Biden and Obama have been pushing.
Victoria: I think President Trump has made it very clear that we cannot put the genie back in the bottle with respect to a deal with Iran. I talked about Trump’s experiences coming into office in the book’s first and last chapters. In his 2016 APAC speech, Trump really laid out his approach to the Middle East. It was interesting because everyone assumed Trump was an antisemite, Ivanka and Jared notwithstanding. In 2016, people believed that he did not care about Israel and he was almost boycotted at AIPAC. Many members were very angry that he had even been invited. Then he gave his extraordinary speech. I know Jared and David Friedman had a big hand in it. Nevertheless, it was his speech and he delivered it convincingly. He received a standing ovation and a public apology.
I think at that point, the pro-Israel Jewish communities realized they really had a champion in Donald Trump. He sent an important signal to the world letting them know that things would be different from then on. He entered office willing to listen to the Palestinians, President Abbas came to visit him that spring, following Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit. They had a very cordial visit and President Trump promised to see what was possible.
President Trump directed Jared, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman to spearhead that assessment, At H.R. McMaster’s direction, I was the connection between that team and the NSC. In that capacity, I provided them with support including intelligence and staff. We worked for a year and produced a good faith proposal. Our proposal did not advocate a two-state solution. However, if the Palestinians operated in good faith and built institutions, a two-state solution would have been contemplated down the road. Of course they refused. Later, we can discuss how that led to the Abraham Accords. Suffice to say, the Palestinian refusal was really deeply disappointing to everyone, including President Trump
Given the atrocities committed on October 7th, I agree that a Palestinian state is impossible at this moment. A Palestinian state would legitimize the Palestinians’ behavior which is nothing but pure, raw genocide and an attempt to destroy Israel. However, the Biden administration followed in Obama’s footsteps. They distanced themselves from Israel and turned the money spigots back on for the Palestinians and the United Nations organizations supporting them.
I did want to highlight that discussion of Jabotinsky’s Zionist pioneers is a theme throughout the book. My dear friend Doug Feith introduced me to Jabotinsky in a series of very long conversations about his thoughts, his approach and his seminal 1923 essay, The Iron Wall. There is a paragraph from Jabotinsky’s essay on the back of the book. That paragraph encapsulates his vision.
Jabotinsky argues that plan A for the Arabs is to destroy the Jews. As long as they believe destruction of the Jews is a possibility, they will never actually employ a plan B, even if they agree to talk about it. Plan B is only possible if the Arabs understand the Jews are not going away. Jabotinsky was anticipating a state of Israel that was not going to go away. Once the Arabs accepted that, Jabotinsky posited that Jews and Arabs would be able to negotiate in good faith. At that point, citizenship, territorial issues and other issues could be determined via good faith resolutions. However, these good faith negotiations are only possible once the Palestinians reject Plan A.
October 7th illustrates that the Palestinians are not yet ready for plan B. They are still completely dedicated to plan A and to the genocide of the Jews. Until it changes, I would be shocked if President Trump thought there was a viable path to some kind of grand deal with the Palestinians.
Laurie: I was actually going to ask you about The Iron Wall. In your book, you discuss what you believe will happen if a president of the United States ever decided to acknowledge the truth about Israel and unequivocally supported an Israeli victory. You argue this may help us to avoid a replay in the Middle East, of the U. S. engagement in Vietnam. Can you explain what you mean by that? Assuming Donald Trump’s second presidency will be similar to the first, will that push the Palestinians toward plan B? I know you just said that they are not ready for plan B yet but Trump may convince them that Israel cannot be destroyed and they should abandon plan A. What are your thoughts on what will happen in the next four years?
Victoria: In the past 48 hours, President-elect Trump said he wants the war in Gaza to end. He wants it to end and he wants it to end with an Israeli victory. He does not want to be going around this bush again. None of us do. This is too destructive and horrific and too draining on Israel. The United States needs Israel as a partner and as a projector of force in the region. The partnership between Israel and the US extends beyond security. Both Israel and the US excel in the high tech, biomedical, and other essential sectors and they make a powerful combination. Strengthening the US-Israel partnership is what I think President-elect Trump really wants to achieve.
In the first 25 to 30 years after the declaration of independence, Israel fought formal wars against nation states like Syria, Egypt and Jordan. The countries neighboring Israel coordinated massive attacks on the Jewish state. Israel won all of the wars against them. Israel was able to conquer territory and was clearly the victor, regardless of what the United Nations says about it. In the middle of the 1970s, the Arabs decided they did not enjoy being beaten by Israel and they were going to stop attacking the Jewish state. Unfortunately, they then decided to adopt the Palestinian cause.
In the book, I discuss Yasser Arafat’s 1974 speech in detail. Two years after the events of the Munich Olympics, and one year after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Arafat was invited to the United Nations. He was invited to give a speech at the General Assembly. He stood beside a head of state chair and put his arm on it. He was not allowed to sit because he was not recognized as a head of state. The New York Times reported on his wonderful desert chic and effectively recognized him as an actual head of state. Their reporting suggested that this terrorist was the leader of a de facto nation. That idea then really took hold and Arafat began to be viewed as a de facto head of state from then on.
We hear about the viability of two-state solution over and over again. We hear constant talk about 67 borders, the Palestinian right of return and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Repeating ideas over and over and over, does not make them feasible. There are reasons the 1967 borders were untenable and Jerusalem is not going to get divided up at this point.
In fact, the United States has never had a consulate in East Jerusalem because they have never been able to establish the required security to maintain it. The old Consul General, the conduit to the Palestinians, is nowhere near the Green Line. It is beside the King David Hotel. So, dividing Jerusalem is a fiction which became a generally accepted idea. The Oslo process followed. Oslo was the brainchild of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Oslo put us on the pathway to failure. The Palestinians are a cause and that cause is the eradication of Israel. You cannot change a cause into a nation. That is the fallacy that has been allowed to fester. Over the past 15 months we have heard that fallacy repeated over and over by the current administration. The Biden Harris administration put us in a dangerous position. This encourages the Palestinians to believe they are winning. Sinwar could have been forgiven for thinking he was winning after October 7th.
The situation parallels Vietnam in the sense that the North Vietnamese did really well in the court of public opinion in the United States. They did not do as well on the battlefield. The North Vietnamese witnessed all the protests taking place in the late 60s. They saw that Lyndon Baines Johnson was isolated and humiliated. I am not terribly fond of Johnson but that is what happened. Because of what was happening in the US, the North Vietnamese thought they could win and they did. America was humiliated.
Laurie: I am very hopeful that things will change under the new Trump administration. Why do you think the Biden administration has been putting so much pressure on Israel post October 7th? What are they not pressuring Hamas? Qatar harbored Hamas’ leadership and they helped to fund the October 7th massacre. Of course, the head of the snake is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
There have been constant calls from the Biden administration for a ceasefire. These were rejected by Hamas. The administration does not appear to recall there was a ceasefire on October 6th. The administration demands that Israel provides humanitarian aid to the enemy. As you point out in your book, this is unheard of in times of war. They claim there are disproportionate deaths of kids and civilians in Gaza but they rely on numbers falsified by Hamas’ health ministries. They appear to ignore Hamas’ tactic of using human shields. The Biden administration has spent the past year demonizing Israel and helping to fan the flames of international condemnation. They have failed to take a moral stand in support of Israel. Schumer even called for Bibi to be removed as prime minister. Victoria, do you believe that Blinken, Sullivan, Biden, and others actually believe that the Israelis and the Palestinians are morally equivalent? What were they actually trying to achieve over the past year plus?
Victoria: I think they do believe the Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent but I think they are also playing politics. John Kerry articulated their worldview when he said there can be no peace deals or normalization with Arab states until there is a Palestinian deal. That worldview was conclusively proven wrong but they continue to believe it to be true. According to them, the Palestinians must be elevated to become equal to Israel in order to negotiate successfully. As I just explained, that approach has failed. However, it has not stopped them from pushing it over and over again. That is the definition of insanity and that is what they tried to do over the past year.
As I said, their worldview is that Israel must be restrained and the Palestinians must be given extra credit. According to them, that will create a level playing field. This worldview or ideology divides the world into the oppressed and the oppressors. The United States and Israel are first and second in the oppressor class because they are both considered to be settler colonial nations who have appropriated their land from the indigenous people. Regardless of their governments, the US and Israel are regarded as inherently imperial and racist and every action taken to resist them is legitimate. Luigi Mangione, the guy who shot the United Health Care CEO, has the same mindset. This type of ideology is being taught to our children. It has led to the outbreaks of anti Semitism we have witnessed on college campuses.
I did a deep dive into the curricula being taught about Israel. I also studied some of the highly respected, peer reviewed journals which are manipulating international law and declaring Israel to be illegitimate. It is clear to me that they are coming for the United States as well Israel. The Iranians refer to Israel as the little Satan while the US is the great Satan. They are starting by trying to destroy the smaller, Satan and are then planning to go after the big one.
To circle back to your question, the Biden Harris administration faced a political problem. The oppressor-oppressed worldview is the predominant ideology of many 18- to 29- year-olds. This was a critical voting bloc for them. It was much more important to them than the Arab-American bloc. The youth elected Joe Biden in 2020 and stopped the red wave in 2022. The book describes how that happened and provides demographics and trends to support it. They knew they could not win the election without that critical voting bloc. For them, pandering to the Palestinians is both morally and politically correct and they doubled down on it.
Laurie: That is an excellent point. My daughter was handed Karl Marx’ Communist Manifesto to read when she was studying economics as a senior in high school. This happened around eight years ago. It is frightening because this type of ideology is now being taught in grades K through 12 and not just on college campuses.
Your book focuses a lot on cultural Marxism and the role critical race theory has played in the attitudes and animus towards the state of Israel. How do you see this playing out going forward? In addition to the academy, the media is propagating this horrible narrative of oppressor and oppressed. According to them, Israel is always bad and the Palestinians are always good. They disdain Judeo-Christian values and American exceptionalism, as you point out in your book. Where do you see this all going? Can it be reversed?
Victoria: I think it can. November 5th taught us that the majority of the American people are on the side of reversing this ideology and that it has gone too far. I have a dear friend, Mike Gonzalez, who works with me at the Davis Institute. He, and our mutual friend, Katie Gorka, have written a wonderful book called Cultural Marxists. Their book details the larger social movement towards critical race theory and towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. It discusses all of the artificial mandates that are being imposed on us and how they have gone way too far.
Tolerant Americans have been tricked. Around 10 years ago, there was a general consensus amongst Americans that gay marriage should be legalized. We were ready for it and that was good. However, we have suddenly moved to a radical transgender movement which has come for our children. That is not what we signed up for. Similarly, we did not sign up for the atrocities of October 7th. In this regard, I think there has been some buyer’s remorse for those who wanted to be sympathetic to the Palestinians. So, I think there has been a swing of the pendulum. People are beginning to recognize that this ideology is destroying academia and the media, as you mentioned. I would add corporate America into that mix. Corporate America has become very involved in these movements.
We are witnessing a rejection of this worldview from parents who do not want to send their kids to the schools propagating it. News consumers are now turning to different outlets. I was amused by the outrage in the established media over the podcast influence in the 2024 election. Shareholders are no longer allowing Corporate America to express these extreme views. That is really encouraging, but we have to continue to fight against this destructive ideology. We should not assume that President Trump’s election alone will be sufficient to correct it.
Starting on January 20th or even before then, we are beginning a period of concerted work to institutionalize a more reason-based approach. Rather than attack and undermine the U. S. Israel relationship, a reason-based approach will bolster it and make it stronger.
Laurie: I think the global antisemitism we are witnessing is tied into the worldview you discussed. Most in the West and America have suddenly woken up to it. On the other hand, you and I have been in the trenches fighting this for around two decades. In your book, you quote Albert Einstein. You discuss the hostility he faced at American universities after he arrived in the US. He wrote, “Unfortunately, the current Jewish leaders do not comprehend the seriousness of the situation, similar to the German Jews in the time before Hitler. They believe that they are able to put an end to the problem by being silent and disregarding it, and they thus miss the time for creating places of support.”
Fast forward to post October 7th and to the world we are facing today. The genie is out of the bottle, and it seems like anti Semitism is actually acceptable. Flagrant anti-Semites hide behind their keffiyehs while claiming that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.
In your book you say, “The great lesson of the Holocaust should be that antisemitism is a noxious cancer that can corrupt and consume a great culture. It is tolerated and justified at our peril. We cannot assume that pledges of never again will effectively combat antisemitism. Each generation must confront it anew.” Are you worried that we are repeating history in both the diaspora and in Israel? Are you concerned that diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews are slow to recognize this? You also make some terrific suggestions about what we can do to fight this antisemitism. Please touch on those for our audience.
Victoria: I do not think we are living in the equivalent of Nazi Germany with respect to antisemitism. However, I think there is a possibility that we could get there. That said, the post October 7th period does have a silver lining. That silver lining is that the antisemites have revealed themselves. It appears they were waiting for some sort of signal from the region before they revealed who they were and the hatred they represent.
I think the college protests started on October 10th, if not before. The protests started at Columbia University and spread from there. There are very few campuses that have not been touched by the antisemitic and anti-Israel activity on college campuses. I have a child at Hillsdale who has not been touched by it but pretty much everybody else has. The acceptance of the anti-Zionist worldview has become fashionable. There are many young people in the Biden administration. They joined this administration joyfully because they believed their worldview would be embraced by this administration. This was the same worldview they learned in college.
I think it is not sufficient to have elected a president who is obviously not an antisemite and who has observant Jewish grandchildren. It is not enough to have a president who is not an antisemite. We need a president who will actively stand up against antisemitism. I am very encouraged by some of the things I have heard from President Trump in terms of what he is going to do to hold academia accountable. He can hold back a lot of their funding.
As a former academic, I can tell you that the colleges care about more funding than they do even about parking spaces. There are many institutions that tacitly approve of antisemitism in their law schools, Middle East Studies Centers and social studies departments. These institutions need to understand that their federal funding will be at risk unless they condemn the antisemitic activity on their campuses. If they understand that, they will go after these people hammer and tongs, regardless of what they actually believe. I do not care what they believe but I think that holding back their funding is a really good tool to effect change.
My dear friend Ellie Kohanim proposed another idea in an op-ed in Newsweek. Ellie proposed moving the role of antisemitism czar out of the State Department and into the White House for a period of time They would retain the state department hat. Traditionally, the role of the antisemitism czar is to handle international antisemitism. Ellie suggests that the czar’s role should be extended and the incumbent should also be an assistant to the President. I have taken the idea a little further and I suggest giving the czar, or envoy, a seat on the Domestic Policy Council, as well as a connection with the National Security Council (NSC). Because of the structure of the NSC, they cannot actually be part of it but they can be very deeply connected to it. That would be unique. President Trump would be the first person to have an individual like that in their White House. As I mentioned, that person would sit on the domestic policy council and would be connected to the NSC. The current mindset in the state department is that antisemitism is an international problem and not an American one. This change in role for the antisemitism czar would bring the two worlds together. and would change the mindset driving the current state department.
I was at the Heritage Foundation on July 24th. Anyone who has not yet been to visit us, please do come when you are in Washington. We sit on Capitol Hill, almost adjacent to Union Station. We watched the protesters who were protesting the address of the Israeli Prime Minister to the Congress. It took them 15 minutes to march past Heritage. We were out on our balconies observing them. They shouted at our guards and directed insults towards us. They dragged gigantic, iconic flags down to Union Station and burned them. The flags they burned were American, and not Israeli, flags. I am from Philadelphia, so I was particularly offended that they went after the cast of the Liberty Bell which is part of the Columbus Circle monument. They are attacking the foundation of the United States. This is not exclusively an Israeli problem or a Jewish problem. This is also an American problem.
So, the president could take the step of empowering a highly placed political person to deal with this type of activity. Once the office is established, they would figure out where it should live going forward. Establishing the role within the White House, is a way of getting it going but it should not remain at the White house in perpetuity. The next step would be to figure out how to institutionalize the function and to determine whether it will have its own office or become part of another department or agency.
Laurie: Do you think there will be a push for an Islamophobia czar as well? It seems like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar scream Islamophobia every time someone mentions antisemitism. I have been called Islamophobic for a number of years. This is because I call out the role that Islamism plays in the growing antisemitism we are witnessing. I do not think Trump would agree to it but a future president might. Is that a concern for you?
Victoria: Well, it certainly would have been a concern had Kamala Harris been elected. I think she absolutely would have created an Islamophobia czar. I do not think she would have taken the step of elevating the anti Semitism czar, or envoy. However, I think she would have been totally open to an Islamophobia czar. I have spent a great deal of time in the Arab world. I am very close to a number of people in that world. Despite that, I too have been called Islamophobic because I have the temerity to point out that the violence of antisemitism in the US dwarfs what has happened to Arab Americans. I have provided statistics in the book. However, your audience already knows this because they have lived it.
Of course, we all condemn Islamophobia and we want to educate against it and prevent it from happening. There is additional outreach that can be done with respect to Islamophobia. That said, it is just not the same as the antisemitism we are witnessing. Trying to pretend it is, denigrates both sides.
I think it is interesting that so many Arab Americans voted for President Trump. They appreciated his clarity on these issues and they are Americans, first and foremost. They want a secure, prosperous life and they did not feel like they were getting that under President Biden.
Laurie: Before I turn to the audience’s questions, I wanted to circle back to the basis of the book, the need for a strong US-Israel relationship. You referred to Trump’s speech a few minutes ago, and I am going to quote a line from it. He stated, “when the United States stands with Israel, the chance for peace really rises exponentially.” You lay out some critically important ideas for what can be done in the coming years to ensure that Israel and America win. Can you just share some of your ideas on this?
Victoria: There were many surprises in Trump’s first term but this gets to the heart of what was probably the most surprising one. Many of us were brought up on the conventional, John Kerry wisdom I mentioned. We were taught that a Palestinian peace deal was required before any additional peace deals between Israel and Muslim majority nations could take place.
After the Palestinians rejected Trump’s Peace to Prosperity Plan, some of our closest allies in the region reached out to us. They told us that they were no longer seeking Israel’s destruction and they actually were against the idea that Israel would cease to exist. They let us know that they wanted to partner with Israel and they were ready to inform the Palestinians that they no longer had a veto power. It was extraordinary and we were shocked.
In the summer of 2019, we started working on that as quietly as possible. I played a big role in the initiative and I took the first proposal to Manama. I have actually just returned from Manama where I was part of a security dialogue with Bahraini and Emirati colleagues.
Over the course of 2020, our initial proposal became part of the Abraham Accords. We were able to turn conventional wisdom on its head and conclude deals with UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. We also made progress with Kosovo and Sudan and more progress can be made under President Trump in his second term. There is a very warm relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan. I would love to see Azerbaijan expand their existing diplomatic relations with Israel and become part of the Abraham Accords. Of course, we can now talk openly about a US or an Israel-Saudi deal under US leadership. This was something we could only whisper about eight years ago.
Chapter four of the book relates one of my favorite stories. It describes what I call the Chevron effect. In the summer of 2020, I was living in Abu Dhabi after I left the White House and joined the Department of Energy. In some ways I was serving as a security blanket. I was there so they could ask me questions. We could talk through things and we were able to increase our cooperation on energy issues.
I woke up one, one morning on the 24th or 26th of July to learn that Chevron had bought Noble Energy. Chevron was our gigantic oil major with huge dealings in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Noble had historically managed Israel’s natural gas assets in the Eastern Mediterranean. At that point, I knew we had succeeded. This happened three weeks before the deals were announced. I knew we had succeeded because Riyadh had agreed to Chevron purchasing Noble. There was no way Chevron would have purchased little Noble if it would have put their business with the Kingdom or with Kuwait at risk. Noble’s $4 billion price tag is not a lot of money in Chevron’s world. Noble was a desirable commodity for Chevron but certainly not important enough for them to risk their business with the Kingdom or with Kuwait. Noble is now Chevron Israel and that is a wonderful thing. If you search Chevron’s webpage, you will find a big Israeli flag under Chevron Israel. Chevron is proud of its association with Israel, they are not trying to hide it and it is fine with Saudi Arabia. Irrespective of what the crown prince may or may not say on any given day, I think this shows we will get to an agreement with Saudi Arabia.
That is huge, life affirming progress. The accords have endured over the last year. During our July trip to Israel, we met with the Emirati ambassador to Israel. He is in his office every day and he has maintained his residence in Israel. He repeated many times that he was not going anywhere. He is in Israel for the duration and he is in there to help and to be constructive. That is a huge achievement for President Trump.
President Trump has the confidence of both the Israelis and the Saudis. He most certainly has the confidence of the current Israeli government and I believe he would have the confidence of any Israeli government. Likewise, the Saudis, and our other partners and allies, have a great deal of confidence in him. I think that is going to be the magic sauce. I do not know exactly when a new agreement will be put in place and what it will look like, it could take a lot of different forms. That said, I think it is definitely on the cards. After a very hard year, that, along with the election of President Trump, gives me a lot of hope.
Laurie: It was my understanding that the Trump administration was very close to a normalization deal with the Saudis and then he lost the election. We know that Biden came in and treated the Saudis like a pariah state. He eventually woke up and realized that he needed the Saudis. He then restarted the push for normalization with the Saudis. I guess he hoped he would win a Nobel prize. My understanding is that Biden injected the requirement for a Palestinian state into the negotiations. Two members of our audience have asked if the Saudis are actually pushing for a Palestinian state. They are also asking if Massad Boulos, Trump’s nominee as Envoy to the Middle East, is advocating for a Palestinian state as well. What are your thoughts on that?
Victoria: Steve Witkoff is actually going to be Trump’s Special Envoy for the Middle East. Massad Boulos is going to be a Special Advisor to the President. He will focus primarily on Lebanon. He is Lebanese and he has been involved in Lebanese politics. It is not a coincidence that he is Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law. He is very close to the president who has a lot of personal confidence in him.
It is really important to understand that President Trump likes to hear a range of views. I have been in Oval Office meetings with him and with Senator Rand Paul and I have been in Oval Office meetings with him and with Senator Lindsey Graham. They represent the opposite views of the Republican Caucus in the Senate and he listens to both of them. As such, it is unsurprising that Trump would appoint someone holding different views from his own. It is also not surprising that Massad Boulos holds the views he does given his background. That said, he has a specific mandate for Lebanon. I see the Middle East peace deal making being carried out by Governor Huckabee and Steve Witkoff.
Laurie: An audience member noted that the Qataris invest an enormous amount of funding in elements of US academia. These funds fuel anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment. Do you think that there will now be a change in US policy towards the Qataris?
Victoria: Some of your viewers might think that I have somewhat heretical views on Qatar. I am pretty much agnostic on the Gulf. I do not think we should demonize or focus on any country there. I do not think focusing on the Qataris would provide a solution to the problems we are facing and it might actually result in our taking our eyes off Iran.
Qatari activities in academia have received a ton of justifiable scrutiny. They are claiming that the money they are investing funds their campuses in Qatar and not American campuses. If that is the case, they need to open their books and prove it because the public perception is that they are funding US campuses. I think the personal relationship between President Trump and the emir of Qatar, Tamim Al Thani, can be perhaps constructive in resolving this. President Trump will have a lot of authority and a lot of gravitas and can ensure the question of Qatari funding for US campuses gets resolved.
We should remember that Barack Obama asked the Qataris to open the Hamas office in Doha. He requested it at the end of the 2014 Gaza war. He wanted Hamas leadership to go somewhere where he could contact them. The Qataris thought it was not a good idea and would be a PR disaster for them.
There are a few other things to bear in mind with respect to Qatar. They host the Al Udeid Air Base. They have invested around $12 billion in it and they have pledged another $7 billion toward it. We need that base and we do not have a similar option for it anywhere else in the Middle East. It would cost us a great deal to move that base even if we did have a better location for it. If we did move the base, we would need to do it strategically.
If we do not get our act together, the Qataris will be the number one exporter of natural gas by 2030. This is going to be critical for global energy security. I was just reading a report issued by our incoming Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright. He wants to replace net zero 2050 with energy security 2050. Natural gas is going to be a huge part of that. We will obviously be a competitor in that market as another huge exporter, but we are going to need all the products we can get on the market. I would like to be able to coordinate on that with Qatar, the likely number two producer of natural gas.
The Qataris already have the largest per capita sovereign wealth fund. The amount of money being wielded by such a small number of people is almost unprecedented. I would like for us to have some influence over how those funds are spent. So, for all the reasons I discussed, I think we need to be a little bit cautious about the race to demonize Qatar as the path to solving the Middle East crisis. I do not think it is going to work. It did not work previously and it is not going to work now.
None of us at Heritage are on the Qatari payroll. That said, many people in Washington are. That is a fact and it is a problem. I try to approach issues from an American perspective. I think we should maintain the relationship with Qatar and figure out how to improve it. I think we need to determine how to help them recognize the issues in the relationship and to solve them. Saudi Arabia solved many of its reputational issues after 9/11 and even after Pensacola. This can be achieved if the government in question feels they are being listened to and assisted, rather than simply being bludgeoned.
Laurie: That was a very informative answer. I learned a lot from listening to you over the past couple of minutes. An audience member asked if Turkey is replacing Iran as the greatest threat to Israel in the West?
Victoria: This is another really difficult situation because Turkey is a fellow NATO member. A lot of people have suggested that we kick Turkey out of NATO. Well, we cannot. There is no mechanism to accomplish this in the NATO charter. Countries can leave NATO voluntarily but they cannot be expelled.
Turkey has a large army and they are flexing their military strength right now. Historically, Turkey has been a huge asset to the United States. It has served as a type of bridge between the East and the West. The Turks made huge progress in modernizing the country under Ataturk. They have a large economy and a strategic location. It is deeply frustrating to have to battle against their current leadership, which is increasingly openly Islamist. Their association with the HTS designated terrorist group that has just taken over Syria, is really serious. Their actions against Israel are really serious.
In recent years, we saw some improvement in that but it seems to be going in the wrong direction again. So, it is a very problematic relationship. Again, we need to consider whether or not we want to sever ties with Turkey completely. We may want to wait and see if there is a change in leadership. Nobody is immortal and so we could see changes. The Turkish people might take things into their own hands. Recently, Erdogan had his worst election in years. We should consider whether there is a possibility of getting to a better place with Turkey.
Erdogan has been a real problem for more than two decades. I have no illusions about him or any of the people around him. I do not like Erdogan and I have issues with Turkey around him but the situation with Turkey is complicated.
Laurie: An audience member pointed out that Macron is trying to undermine the deal between the Saudis and Israel. He convened an international conference in 2025 to create a Palestinian state. How bad could this be?
Victoria: It could be pretty bad but perhaps Macron will no longer be in office in 2025. Macron tries to play statesman in every international situation. He is behind a very ill-advised push for a pan-European army to replace NATO. They are not funding NATO and they are not going to fund this new army. It is going to be another feckless vanity project that will make our lives more difficult. He will work to divert funds from where they should be, in their militaries which support NATO. Macron has demonstrated dramatic weakness on his own domestic political stage. He is deeply unpopular in France even after a successful Olympics and the reopening of Notre Dame. He should be on top of the world but he is completely underwater in French opinion polls.
I know Macron wants to be a great peacemaker. He tried to get President Trump make a deal with Iranian leadership during his first term. He is a great proponent of the JCPOA, the Paris Climate Accords and all of the international agreements which always seem to disadvantage the United States. I think the idea of a 2025 international conference is ill advised. I hope he gets talked out of it. Even if he does it, I cannot see it actually going anywhere because anything it comes up with will not be binding and no one will invest in it.
Laurie: Someone asked if you think Trump will provide military support for an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Victoria: The short answer is that I do not know. President Trump is justifiably very cautious about military engagements in the Middle East. That said, he green lit two attacks on the noxious Assad regime after they used chemical weapons on their own people in 2017 and 2018. He succeeded in stopping them from continuing. He also approved the action against Qasem Soleimani in January of 2020 and it did not result in a war with Iran.
I think Trump and his new team are going to have to be briefed on the situation with Iran before making any major decisions. One of the big differences between 2021 and 2025 is where the Iranians are on their nuclear program. When we left office, the Iranians were under 5% enrichment with less than a thousand centrifuges. Now they are near 80% enrichment, which is close to weapons grade. Over the summer, Anthony Blinken said they were one to two weeks from breakout. They have also been working assiduously on their missile program.
The Iranian regime has faced zero consequences from the Biden-Harris administration for the many tests they conducted. There is a danger that we may be out of non-kinetic options. If that is the case, I think there will be a very serious planning process. The good news is it will be in conjunction with our Israeli allies and we will not isolate them. The President has been very clear that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon on his watch and so a decision on this will need to be made. He has a very personal and well-founded horror of nuclear weapons. I do not want to get in front of the tactical choices that Trump would or would not make. However, he will take the issue very seriously and is likely to make decisions about it in the early days of his administration.
Laurie: Thank you. I want to recommend Victoria’s book one more time. Her book is, the Battle for the Jewish State, How Israel-and America-Can Win. It is an easy, informative and worthwhile read. Please share the recording of this webinar because Victoria is brilliant and she offers great insights into important topics. Victoria, I know you have a very busy schedule and you have been traveling a lot so thank you for joining us and we look forward to talking to you again soon.
Victoria: Well, thank you, Laurie. Thanks to Sarah. Thanks to all of my EMET friends. I look forward to seeing you all soon.
Laurie: Good afternoon and thank you.
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