Fox News contributor Juan Williams said Tuesday that President Donald Trump was “stirring up a proxy war” by brokering deals between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Williams defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the recent deals normalizing relations between Israel and the two Middle Eastern nations were a “distraction” rather than an accomplishment during a segment of “The Five” on Fox News. (RELATED: ‘What War Has Trump Started?’: Greg Gutfeld Challenges Juan Williams To Name Just One)
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Cohost Greg Gutfeld weighed in on the deals first, saying that they were a clear reflection of Trump’s two mottos: “I like to make deals” and “let’s see what happens.”
Gutfeld argued that Trump was not being held back by past failures or ideology because he didn’t really subscribe to either one, adding, “It’s a big contrast with Joe Biden. Biden will never impress you with like great, great, greatness. He’s the master of the little move. You know, he’s the expression of warmth, looking good in aviator sunglasses and the bomber jacket, the effortless smile. But he will never pull this off. Only somebody that is able to jump off a cliff on an idea can make this happen.”
Jesse Watters added that removing the United States from the Iran deal had also played a part, forcing other players in the region to reassess their alliances.
Katie Pavlich then put the question to Williams, asking why he thought Pelosi had referred to the deal as “a distraction.”
“Because it is. You know, this is a moment that you can look at the situation and say the real trouble here is between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and that situation has not been helped,” Williams said, saying that the concern was what Iran might do in the face of other nations normalizing relations with Israel.
“It opens the door to some possibilities. But the real action here is in the United States giving arms, giving serious arms to UAE, potentially to go after the Iranians. So what we’re doing is stirring up a proxy war,” Williams said. “That doesn’t diminish the chance of war or disruption in the Middle East. It accelerates it. So I think we have to just look honestly at this, 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. Nobody is fooled by it. There’s certainly reason for hope, but let’s not fool ourselves.”
“You’d hope the normalization of Arab countries against the Israeli state that they wanted to annihilate previously would be a good thing,” Pavlich replied before moving on.