Peace means war?
Fox News contributor Juan Williams made the case Tuesday that recent peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrainbrokered by President Donald Trump are actually "accelerating" the "chance of war" in the Middle East.
President Trump has been lauded by many for his role in brokering the deals, which officially normalized relations between Israel and the two Middle Eastern countries. The president was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for securing the deal between Israel and the UAE.
But Williams, a Trump critic, interpreted the news of peace much differently.
Williams presented his argument on Fox News' "The Five" while the panelists were discussing recent remarks made by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in which she called the deals a "distraction."
"It is [a distraction]," Williams said. "The real trouble here is between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and that situation has not been helped. What we're doing here in this situation is we have the Bahrainians and the United Arab Emirates, they already had diplomatic, security and trade ties with Israel ... and it opens the door to some possibilities."
"The real action here is the United States giving arms, giving serious arms to UAE potentially to go after the Iranians," he argued. "And so what we're doing is stirring up a proxy war, and that doesn't diminish the chance of war or disruption in the Middle East — it accelerates it."
You can watch his comments in the video below starting at the 5:10 mark:
"So I think we have to just look honestly at this," he continued. "We have to note that it's taking place in the midst of an intense American election and that what's going on at the White House. I don't think anybody is fooled by it. There certainly is reason for hope, but let's not fool ourselves."
It is true that some conflict has already arisen as a result of the peace deals. On Tuesday, as the deal was being signed at the White House, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a rocket attack on Israel, injuring two people.
But it is particularly difficult to make the case that peace agreements should be to blame for violence. Violent offenders should be blamed for violence, which, in this case, would be the Palestinian militants.
After Williams finished, fellow Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich, chided his comments, saying, "Well you would hope the normalization of Arab countries against the Israeli state that they wanted to annihilate previously would be a good thing, but we'll move on."
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