Friedman Describes How He Changed Trump’s Mind About Abbas

In his forthcoming memoirs, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman reveals the inside story of the changes in former President Donald Trump’s views of Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.

Friedman describes how, during a 2017 meeting with then-president Reuven Rivlin, Trump “knocked everyone off their chairs” when he told them that Netanyahu wasn’t interested in making peace, while Abbas was “desperate” for a deal.

“Although the meeting was private and off the record, we all envisioned a headline tomorrow that Trump had praised Abbas and criticized Netanyahu – the worst possible dynamic for the president’s popularity or for the prospects of the peace process,” Friedman wrote. “Fortunately, and incredibly, the event wasn’t leaked.”

In a subsequent meeting, however, Trump changed his mind after Friedman and Netanyahu showed him a “two-minute collection of Abbas’s speeches that I thought was worth watching.”

“We watched two minutes of Abbas honoring terrorists, extolling violence, and vowing to never accept anything less than Israel’s total defeat,” Friedman said. “Abbas ranted that the blood of every shaheed – literally a martyr but also a terrorist – was holy and would be avenged.”

Friedman recounted that after the tape ended, “Trump said, ‘Wow, is that the same guy I met in Washington last month? He seemed like such a sweet, peaceful guy.’ The tape had clearly made an impact.”

According to the Guardian, several top Trump advisers disapproved of Friedman’s presentation of the clips.

“They thought it was a cheap propaganda trick,” he wrote, adding that he defended the move, telling them, “I work for the president, and nobody else… I am going to make sure that he is well informed so that he gets Israel policy right.”

More recently, Trump seems to have reverted to his first impressions. He told Israeli journalist Barak Ravid in early 2021, “I thought the Palestinians were impossible, and the Israelis would do anything to make peace and a deal. I found that not to be true.

“Bibi did not want to make a deal,” he stated. “I wish he would have said he didn’t want to make a deal … because a lot of people devoted a lot of work. But I don’t think Bibi would have ever made a deal.”

Abbas, Trump posited, “wanted to make a deal more than Netanyahu… We spent a lot of time together, talking about many things. And it was almost like a father. I mean, he was so nice, couldn’t have been nicer.”