The Abraham Accords

The Deals

In September 2020, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed normalization agreements with Israel at the White House, brokered by the Trump administration. Sudan and Morocco followed in subsequent months. These became known collectively as the Abraham Accords.

The agreements were historically significant: before 2020, only two Arab states — Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) — had formal diplomatic relations with Israel. Both of those deals had involved Israeli territorial concessions (withdrawal from the Sinai and recognition of Jordanian sovereignty over certain areas). The Abraham Accords involved no Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.

Each deal had specific sweeteners. The UAE received F-35 fighter jets from the US and Israeli recognition of its interests. Morocco received US recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara — itself a contentious territorial dispute. Sudan was removed from the US state sponsors of terrorism list. The common thread was that the US provided significant incentives to each Arab state, and Israel provided normalization without resolving the Palestinian question.

Why Arab States Normalized Without Palestinian Statehood

For decades, the Arab Peace Initiative (proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002) had offered Israel normalization with the entire Arab world in exchange for a Palestinian state on 1967 borders. The Abraham Accords broke this linkage. Several factors explain why:

Shared threat perception: The Gulf states and Israel share a common adversary in Iran. The Iranian nuclear program, Tehran's support for Hezbollah and the Houthis, and its regional ambitions pushed Gulf states toward an open alliance with Israel. Security cooperation — including intelligence sharing and defense technology — had been happening quietly for years.

Economic interests: The UAE in particular saw enormous potential in trade, technology, and tourism ties with Israel. Israeli tech expertise and Emirati capital and market access were complementary.

Palestinian fatigue: Many Gulf leaders had grown frustrated with Palestinian leadership — the Fatah-Hamas split, the PA's rejection of the Trump plan, and the perception that the Palestinian cause was an obstacle to their own strategic interests.

Generational change: Younger Gulf leaders like UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were less ideologically committed to the Palestinian cause than their predecessors.

The UAE initially framed its normalization as a way to prevent Israeli annexation of West Bank territory, which Israel had been threatening. Israel did suspend (but not cancel) annexation plans, though Palestinians dismissed this as a fig leaf.

Impact on Palestinians and the Peace Process

The Abraham Accords represented a strategic nightmare for the Palestinian leadership. The foundational Palestinian negotiating strategy had been that Arab states would not normalize with Israel until a Palestinian state was established — the 'land for peace' formula. The Accords shattered this premise, demonstrating that Arab states would pursue their own interests regardless of the Palestinian cause.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Accords as a 'betrayal' and recalled ambassadors from the UAE and Bahrain. Palestinians argued that normalization removed one of the few sources of leverage they had — the promise of broad Arab recognition that Israel wanted.

The most significant potential expansion — Saudi normalization with Israel — remained unfinished. Saudi Arabia, as custodian of Islam's two holiest sites and the region's largest economy, would be the ultimate prize. Negotiations were reportedly advanced by 2023, with the Saudis demanding a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood as a condition — partly restoring the linkage that the other Accords had abandoned.

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza upended these negotiations and forced the Palestinian issue back to the center of regional diplomacy. Whether the Abraham Accords model — normalization without Palestinian statehood — can survive the post-October 7 reality remains one of the defining questions of Middle Eastern geopolitics.