Israel signs accords with United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at White House ceremony

President Donald Trump heralded a pair of historic agreements formalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and two Gulf Arab nations in a ceremony Tuesday on the White House South Lawn.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the accords – written in English, Hebrew and Arabic – marking a major geopolitical shift in the Middle East and giving Trump a platform as peacemaker as he heads into the fall reelection campaign.

“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history,” Trump said at the beginning of the ceremony. "Together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region."

Netanyahu called the agreements "a pivot of history" that "heralds a new dawn of peace." The foreign ministers from Bahrain and the UAE were similarly sweeping in their praise for the pacts.