In his final months in office, former President Donald Trump unveiled deals for four Arab countries to recognize Israel, saying it was a key step to resolve the decades-old Middle East standoff over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Trump administration repeatedly rejected criticism from foreign officials and national security experts that his approach made Israeli-Palestinian peace less likely by angering and isolating the Palestinians while boosting the Israelis.

But according to previously unreported remarks by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chief Republican working on foreign policy in the House of Representatives, sidelining the Palestinians was Trumps aim all along.

I think the goal here is to marginalize the Palestinians, McCaul told donors and supporters of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a closed-door meeting last month, referring to Trumps negotiations with Muslim-majority countries.

McCaul made the comments to a gathering of the pro-Israel lobbys donors and supporters, during a weeklong virtual meeting that replaced the groups usual sprawling conference this year. HuffPost obtained a recording of his remarks.

By marginalizing the Palestinians, Trumps policy would put leverage on them in both the Arab and Muslim world to get them to the table to once and for all work out a peace agreement with the state of Israel, the congressman said.

The GOP lawmakers frankness provides fresh context about how Trump and his allies were thinking about their approach to Israel and Palestine.

Republicans and many Democrats welcomed the decisions by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan to establish ties with Israel despite most Arab states past pledge not to do so without an Israeli-Palestinian accord. AIPAC said Trump had achieved a historic breakthrough.

Supporters of the agreements, which Trump called the Abraham Accords, claim they both help Israel and improve Israeli-Palestinian relations by spurring Palestinian leaders to move along with the changing dynamic in the region. In December, Israels then-foreign minister called the signing of the accords an opportunity for Palestinian leaders to restart talks that froze in 2014.

But skeptics countered that the policy could have the opposite effect. If the policy was designed to reduce the Palestinians influence as McCaul suggested its harder to describe it as a step toward good faith negotiations, much less a future Palestinian state. Instead, the policy is a way to treat Palestinian concerns, including fear of perpetually living under often brutal Israeli military rule, as tangential compared to the goal of relationships between Israel and Arab states aligned with the U.S.