Proving yet again that there are no expectations that 2020 can’t confound, I awoke today to find one of the most unpredictable headlines in recent memory. President Donald J. Trump has been officially nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work aimed at brokering a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. To put this in context, this would be the equivalent of the top management at Fox News getting together and endorsing Brian Stelter for a Pulitzer. In more normal times (whenever those were), the sort of progress we’ve seen in normalizing relations between those two nations would be a no-brainer, but in the era of the Bad Orange Man, seeing anyone give him a nod for any of his accomplishments is akin to hitting an actual unicorn with your car. And yet it appears to be official. (NY Post)

President Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for helping broker a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, according to a report.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament and chairman to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, submitted the nomination, Fox News reported.

“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde, told Fox News.

Seeing those two adversaries laying down their rhetorical swords and moving to normalize relations is indeed a historic moment, assuming the deal lasts. Leaders from both parties will be meeting at the White House next week to formalize the agreement. As you likely already saw in the news, the first flight from Israel to the UAE already took place. In a sign of how the liberal media reacts to any positive news about Trump, the New York Times immediately jumped into the story to proclaim that the flight was nothing to celebrate.

The fact is that this deal has already begun producing a ripple effect of sorts. After initially blasting the agreement as a violation of their solidarity and a move to undermine their coalition, the Palestinians quickly backed off and have decided to “soften” their criticism of the deal. (Times of Israel)

The Palestinian Authority has reportedly scaled down its criticism of the Israel-United Arab Emirates normalization deal ahead of an Arab League meeting on the matter in Cairo.

The Reuters news agency reported Tuesday that a draft resolution presented by the PA ambassador ahead of Wednesday’s meeting “does not include a call to condemn, or act against, the Emirates over the US-brokered deal.”

PA President Mahmoud Abbas also sent out an order barring statements or actions against other Arab leaders, including the heads of the UAE, the report said.

Abbas may be a bad actor on the international stage (okay… let’s just admit that he is), but he’s not entirely daft. The only way that the Palestinians have maintained control of their internally divided terror state has been with an unwavering, solid block of Arab allies standing with them against Israel. When a crack in that wall appears, it immediately weakens their position and this announcement is more than a crack. It’s a gaping fissure in the wall of Arab antipathy towards the Jews. Abbas is likely smart enough to realize that he needs to adapt to the times or risk being left behind. And that’s probably exactly what Trump was counting on.

So does this mean that Trump is a shoe-in for winning the Peace Prize? Don’t hold your breath. There are a lot of international actors who would have to weigh in on Trump’s behalf when it’s time for the vote, and there’s a lot of bad blood there that hasn’t gone away. They’ll find some excuse to vote for someone else. After all, it’s not as if Trump has done anything as impressive as the previous U.S. President to win the prize. You know, like… winning an election and then expanding America’s war footing.

But in this case, Donald Trump will be able to fall back on an old maxim that applies to all such international moments of recognition. Hey… it’s an honor just to be nominated.