“Donald Trump announced the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is also committing to not annexing the West Bank. The agreement will shock those who thought the portion of the Jared Kushner portfolio devoted to peace in the Middle East consisted of a single briefing folder filled with printouts of Wikipedia articles.” The Atlantic: Why the UAE Made Peace With Israel.

+ “This deal is right in Iran’s face. The tacit message is: ‘We now have Israel on our side, so don’t mess with us.’ The vast damage Israel inflicted on Iran through apparent cyberwarfare in recent months may have even given the U.A.E. more breathing room to do this deal.” Tom Friedman in the NYT: A Geopolitical Earthquake Just Hit the Mideast.

+ Robin Wright in The New Yorker: Israel’s New Peace Deal Transforms the Middle East. “After decades of dominating and defining tensions across the Middle East, the Palestinians are no longer a pressing priority; they also seem increasingly irrelevant to the region’s trendlines. Their brethren are abandoning them.”

+ David Ignatius in WaPo: Trump is right. The Israel-UAE agreement is a huge achievement.