The Abraham Accords Declaration

§ We, the undersigned, recognize the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence, as well as respect for human dignity and freedom, including religious freedom.

§ We encourage efforts to promote interfaith and intercultural dialogue to advance a culture of peace among the three Abrahamic religions and all humanity.

§ We believe that the best way to address challenges is through cooperation and dialogue and that developing friendly relations among States advances the interests of lasting peace in the Middle East and around the world.

§ We seek tolerance and respect for every person in order to make this world a place where all can enjoy a life of dignity and hope, no matter their race, faith or ethnicity.

§ We support science, art, medicine, and commerce to inspire humankind, maximize human potential and bring nations closer together.

§ We seek to end radicalization and conflict to provide all children a better future.

§ We pursue a vision of peace, security, and prosperity in the Middle East and around the world.

§ In this spirit, we warmly welcome and are encouraged by the progress already made in establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbors in the region under the principles of the Abraham Accords. We are encouraged by the ongoing efforts to consolidate and expand such friendly relations based on shared interests and a shared commitment to a better future.

 OVERVIEW

The Abraham Accords are a joint statement between State of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America, reached on August 13, 2020. Subsequently, the term was used to refer collectively to agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement) and Bahrain, respectively (the Bahrain–Israel normalization agreement).

The statement marked the first public normalization of relations between an Arab country and Israel since that of Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. The original Abraham Accords were signed by the Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and U.S. President Donald Trump on September 15, 2020, at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. The Accords were negotiated by Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz.

The agreement with the UAE was officially titled the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement: Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization Between the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel. The agreement between Bahrain and Israel was officially titled the Abraham Accords: Declaration of Peace, Cooperation, and Constructive Diplomatic and Friendly Relations, and was announced by the United States on September 11, 2020.

The accords are named after Abraham to emphasize the shared origin of belief between Judaism and Islam, both of which are Abrahamic religions that strictly espouse the monotheistic worship of the God of Abraham.

Background And Negotiations

The Accords were negotiated by Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz. On January 28, 2020, the Trump Administration unveiled its Israeli - Palestinian peace proposal in a ceremony at the White House. A component of the plan envisioned applying Israeli law or annexation to roughly 30% of the West Bank. On June 12, 2020, UAE Ambassador, Yousef Al Otaiba authored an op-ed in an effort to halt Israel's planned annexation of West Bank territory. Otaiba's op-ed was addressed to the Israeli public and published on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth. The White House had reservations about annexation as well, which Berkowitz discussed with Netanyahu in meetings in Israel over three days in late June, 2020. In the meetings Berkowitz proposed an alternative to annexation, normalization with the United Arab Emirates. 

On July 2, 2020, Otaiba met with Berkowitz to further discuss an alternative plan to annexation. Along with a mutual interest in creating a unified front against the opposing forces of Iran, the concerns detailed in Otaiba's op-ed and planning with Jared Kushner and Berkowitz helped bring vested parties to the negotiating table to identify an alternative solution, ultimately resulting in a normalization agreement reached in August 2020. As a component of the deal annexation was postponed. Hours after the August 13 announcement of the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, senior Bahraini officials called President Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner and Berkowitz with a message: "We want to be next”. Over the next 29 days Kushner and Berkowitz negotiated, and traveled to Bahrain, before closing the deal on September 11, 2020 in a call between Trump, Netanyahu and the king of Bahrain.  All three countries officially committed to the deals on September 15, 2020 with the signing of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House.

On October 23, 2020 Israel and Sudan agreed to normalize ties, making Sudan the third Arab country to set aside hostilities in two months. The agreement was negotiated on the U.S. side by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security official Miguel Correa.

On December 10, 2020, President Trump announced that Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco agreed to establish full diplomatic relations. The agreement was negotiated by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and marked Kushner and Berkowitz's fourth normalization agreement in as many months. As a component of the deal, the United States agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

On March 1, 2021, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo credited the 2019 Warsaw Conference with providing the breakthrough that paved the way. A goal of the two-day conference was to focus on countering Iran, although the host nation tried to play down that theme and the closing Polish-US statement did not mention Iran.

Among the representatives of the 70 nations in attendance were a number of Arab officials, creating the first situation since the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 where an Israeli leader and senior Arab officials were all in attendance at the same international conference focused on the Middle East. The Madrid Conference at the time set the stage for the Oslo Accords. Among those with whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met was the Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah; whose country he had visited in October 2018. Two days after Netanyahu's visit at the time, bin Alawi suggested while at a conference in Bahrain that it was time for Israel to be treated like the other states in the Middle East, and the officials of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia did not disagree.

 

AFTERMATH

At the signing, U.S. President Donald Trump said five nations could soon follow, including Saudi Arabia, although analysts believed that Sudan and Oman were more likely candidates in the short term. On September 23, 2020, US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft said that a new country would recognize Israel "in the next day or two."

On February 2, 2021, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that "the United States will continue to urge other countries to normalize relations with Israel." and that normalization is "not a substitute for Israeli-Palestinian peace. We hope that Israel and other countries in the region join together in a common effort to build bridges and... contribute to tangible progress towards the goal of advancing a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians."

On 26 March 2021, a group of 18 U.S. senators introduced a bill to aid the State Department in developing appropriate strategy “to strengthen and expand the Abraham Accords and other related normalization agreements with Israel.”

According to The Jewish Press, on 1 April 2021, State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked by a reporter to use the name Abraham Accords, declined to do so and repeatedly preferred to use the term “normalization agreements.” According to Axios reporting on March 10, 2021, "The Biden administration wants to continue a process that began under Trump while securing achievements of its own through new deals." and "...is also not enthusiastic about Trump's name for the agreements: the “Abraham Accords.” The White House and State Department prefer to discuss “the normalization process.

SUDAN

On September 26, 2020, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said that Sudan did not want to link its removal from a US terrorism list to normalizing relations with Israel, as asked for by the US. On October 23, 2020, Sudan formally agreed to normalize ties with Israel and join the broader diplomatic realignment in the Middle East in a deal brokered from the Oval Office by the United States and President Trump. Israel and Sudan leaders originally agreed to move towards normalization after a February 2020 meeting in Uganda and accelerated a deal following normalization announcements between Israel and UAE. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, "This is a new era. An era of true peace. A peace that is expanding with other Arab countries; three of them in recent weeks".  The United States agreed to remove Sudan from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, lifting coinciding economic sanctions and agreed to advance discussions on debt forgiveness. Denying any wrongdoing, Sudan agreed to pay 335 million U.S. dollars in compensation to American victims of terror. In a tweet from his official Twitter account, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdulla Hamdok thanked Mr. Trump for signing the executive order removing his country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism but didn't mention the deal with Israel.

In January 2021, Sudan signed the declaration, with the US completing a promise of removing the country from the list of countries supporting terrorism and reaffirming a previous commitment to provide a bridge loan to clear the country's arrears to the World Bank and access $1 billion in annual funding. On April 6, 2021, the Cabinet of Sudan approved legislation repealing a law from 1958 which had prohibited diplomatic and business relations with Israel.

MOROCCO

In December 2020, Israel and Morocco agreed to normalize their relations in the Israel–Morocco normalization agreement, with the United States recognizing Morocco's claim over Western Sahara. The agreement would later prove a factor in the rupture of relations between Morocco and Algeria.

OMAN

Oman postponed a decision to normalize ties with Israel until after the U.S. presidential election, which happened on November 3, 2020.[46] On February 11, 2021, Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said “As regards Israel we are content so far with the level of our current relations and dialogue, which involves the appropriate channels of communication," adding that Oman was "committed to peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state solution."

BAHRAIN

After the signing of Abraham Accords, Bahrain appointed Khaled Yousif Al-Jalahma as the first-ever ambassador from Bahrain to Israel on the 30th March 2021

 ECONOMIC IMPACT

While Israel and the UAE had long-maintained de facto recognition in areas of business including the diamond trade, and high tech industries including artificial intelligence and defence, the accord opened the door to a much wider range of economic cooperation, including formal investments. Abu Dhabi Investment Office opened its first overseas branch in Israel. A number of kosher restaurants were opened in the UAE to cater to Jewish visitors.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

On 14 August 2021, the Associated Press reported that a secret oil deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, struck in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, has turned the Israeli resort of Eilat into a waypoint for Emirati oil headed for Western markets. It was expected to endanger the Red Sea reefs, which host some of the greatest coral diversity on the planet. As Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also share the gulf’s waters, an ecological disaster was likely to impact their ecosystems.

COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS

In mid-December 2020, a delegation from the UAE and Bahrain visited Israel with the aim of cultural exchange as part of the normalization process. The delegations held a meeting with Israel President Reuven Rivlin. In January 2021, a collaborative event was organized by Tel Aviv International Salon, Sharaka and OurCrowd with the objective to attain 'business of peace' between the Gulf Countries and the state of Israel.

From March 23–25, 2021, a virtual hackathon event was organized by Israel-is, which garnered participants from the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco as well as Israel. Then on 27 March 2021, an event was organized to commemorate International Holocaust Memorial Day, which again saw participation from the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, as well as Saudi Arabia. March 2021 also saw the Israel and UAE national rugby teams play their first-ever match, in honor of the Abraham Accords.

Gulf Cooperation Council

The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf originally (and still colloquially) known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional, intergovernmental political and economic union that consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council main headquarter is in the city of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.

All current member states are monarchies, including three constitutional monarchies (Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain), two absolute monarchies (Saudi Arabia and Oman), and one federal monarchy (the United Arab Emirates, which is composed of seven member states, each of which is an absolute monarchy with its own emir). There have been discussions regarding the future membership of Jordan, Morocco, and Yemen.

A proposal in 2011 to transform the GCC into a "Gulf Union" with tighter economic, political and military coordination was advanced by Saudi Arabia during Arab Spring, a move meant to counterbalance the Iranian influence in the region. Objections were raised against the proposal by other countries. In 2014, Bahrain prime minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa said that current events in the region highlighted the importance of the proposal. The Peninsula Shield Force is the military arm of the GCC, formed in 1984. In order to reduce their future dependence on oil, the GCC states are pursuing unprecedented economic structural reform.

 Founding

                         The original 2,673,110-square-kilometre(1,032,093 sq mi) union comprised Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The unified economic agreement between the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council was signed on 11 November 1981 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. These countries are often referred to as "the GCC states" or "Gulf countries".

OBJECTIVES

In 2001, the GCC Supreme Council set the following goals:

·        Customs union in January 2003

·        Common market by 2007

·        Common currency by 2010

Oman announced in December 2006 that it would not be able to meet the 2010 target date for a common currency. Following the announcement that the central bank for the monetary union would be located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and not in the UAE, the UAE announced their withdrawal from the monetary union project in May 2009. The name Khaleeji has been proposed as a name for this currency. If realised, the GCC monetary union would be the second-largest supranational monetary union in the world, measured by the GDP of the common-currency area.

Other stated objectives include:

·        Formulating similar regulations in various fields such as religion, finance, trade, customs, tourism, legislation, and administration.

·        Fostering scientific and technical progress in industry, mining, agriculture, water and animal resources.

·        Establishing scientific research centers.

·        Setting up joint ventures.

·        Unified military (Peninsula Shield Force)

·        Encouraging cooperation of the private sector.

·        Strengthening ties between their people.

This area has some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, mostly due to a boom in oil and natural gas revenues coupled with a building and investment boom backed by decades of saved petroleum revenues. In an effort to build a tax base and economic foundation before the reserves run out, the UAE's investment arms, including Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, retain over US$900 billion in assets. Other regional funds also have several hundreds of billions of dollars of assets under management.

Associated Members

The associate membership of Iraq in certain GCC-related institutions was discontinued after the invasion of Kuwait.

Yemen was in negotiations for GCC membership in 2007, and hoped to join by 2016. The GCC has already approved Yemen's accession to the GCC Standardization Authority, Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC), GCC Auditing and Accounting Authority, Gulf Radio and TV Authority, The GCC Council of Health Ministers, The GCC Education and Training Bureau, The GCC Council of Labour & and Social Affairs Ministers, and The Gulf Cup Football Tournament. The Council issued directives that all the necessary legal measures be taken so that Yemen would have the same rights and obligations of GCC member states in those institutions.

 How the Abraham Accord Might Impact the Middle East

From behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office Thursday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a “historical peace agreement” between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to commence "full normalization of relations." Part of the deal includes Israel’s commitment to suspend annexation of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank.

The agreement is called the "Abraham Accord" after the father of monotheistic religions founded in the Middle East ; Christianity, Islam and Judaism. “I wanted it to be called the Donald J. Trump Accord,” Trump said to aides’ laughter. “But I didn't think the press would understand that.”

In a statement, the White House said the “historic breakthrough” was made possible by Trump’s “leadership and expertise as a dealmaker.” Hours later, national security adviser Robert O’Brien told White House reporters that he wouldn’t be surprised if the president is eventually nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Israeli Annexation

Trump administration officials refuse to clarify how long Israel will suspend annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank as a result of this deal, and under what circumstances the U.S. would support Netanyahu returning to annexation plans. “Somewhere between a long time and a short time. That's what temporary means,” said Jared Kushner, White House senior adviser in charge of the Middle East Peace Process. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Melech Friedman confirmed that the issue could be revisited. “It's not off the table,” Friedman said. “It's just something that will be deferred until we give peace every single chance.”

The administration officials’ statements appear to protect Netanyahu’s domestic interest. “Israel for its own domestic political reasons will have to couch this as a suspension, and not totally forswearing it,” said William Wechsler, director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.

However, Wechsler added, it’s unlikely that Israel would restart annexation discussions once full normalization has occurred. Annexation suspension at this point “makes a lot of sense from the Israeli point of view” Wechsler said, adding that in the long term, control over Palestinian land will put Israel in the bind of choosing between a Jewish identity versus a liberal democratic state where Palestinians have the same citizenship rights as Israelis.

Palestinians have reacted with anger, with a spokesperson to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas calling the deal "treason." Palestinian analysts say there will be no changes on the ground. “There is no suspension,” said Dana El Kurd of the Palestinian policy network Al-Shabaka. “Annexation and the theft of Palestinian land continues unabated, as it did before the Israeli government pointed to a date in the calendar as ‘annexation’ day and will continue to do so after.” El Kurd said normalization of relations with Israel was one of the few remaining bargaining chips the Arabs had. “They just squandered it for literally nothing in return,” he said.

What it meant for Iran

The deal, which Tehran has condemned as an act of “strategic stupidity” between Israel and UAE, is seen as a further consolidation of American allies in countering Iran’s influence in the region. In the short term, this deal will not have much impact on Tehran, said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute. But if the dialogue between UAE and Israel is followed by other Gulf countries, or if normalization expands beyond economic and cultural ties to some kind of military relations, there could be significant geopolitical impact. While Iran said the deal will only strengthen the “axis of resistance” ; Tehran’s military approach of resistance using proxies in the region ; the strategic dialogue option currently endeavored by the UAE could emerge as an alternative to sway public opinion in the “Arab Street.”

Vatanka said the deal is “a strong, powerful alternative” that has now come to the public. “Everyone can see it, and everyone can judge it for what it is.”

Israel–United Arab Emirates Normalization Agreement

The Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement, officially the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement: Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization Between the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel, was initially agreed to in a joint statement by the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on August 13, 2020, officially referred to as the Abraham Accords. The UAE thus became the third Arab country, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, to agree to formally normalize its relationship with Israel, as well as the first Persian Gulf country to do so. Concurrently, Israel agreed to suspend plans for annexing parts of the West Bank. The agreement normalized what had long been informal but robust foreign relations between the two countries. The agreement was signed at the White House on September 15, 2020. It was approved unanimously by the Israeli cabinet on October 12 and was ratified by the Knesset on October 15. The UAE parliament and cabinet ratified the agreement on October 19.

On August 16, 2019, Israel's foreign minister Israel Katz made a public declaration about military cooperation with the UAE amidst rising tensions with Iran. Also, on the same day, the UAE for the first time established telephone links to Israel by unblocking direct dialling to Israel's +972 country code. The first direct commercial flight from Israel to the UAE took place on August 31, 2020,  and the first ship carrying cargo from the United Arab Emirates to Israel entered the Port of Haifa on October 12.

 BACKGROUND

As early as 1971, the year in which the UAE became an independent country, the first president of the UAE Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan had referred to Israel as "the enemy". The UAE and the United States had a strategic relationship since the 1990 Gulf War, growing to a significant US Air Force presence at Al Dhafra Air Base after the September 11 attacks. In November 2015, Israel announced that it would open a diplomatic office in the UAE, which would be the first time in more than a decade that Israel had an official presence in the Persian Gulf.

In the months leading up to the agreement, Israel had been working in secret with the UAE to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. European news media reported that Mossad had discreetly obtained health equipment from the Gulf states. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, reported at the end of June 2020 that the two countries were in cooperation to fight the coronavirus and that the head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, had traveled numerous times to the UAE. However, the UAE appeared to downplay this a few hours later by revealing that it was merely an arrangement among private companies rather than at state level.

The move also comes in the wake of the Trump administration's repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal and following persistent Israeli suspicions that the Iranian nuclear program includes a program to develop atomic bomb capacities, something which Tehran denies. Currently, Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in backing different factions in proxy wars from Syria to Yemen, with the UAE supporting the Saudi-led and US-sponsored coalition against the Iran-aligned forces. In recent years, the countries' informal relations warmed considerably and they engaged in extensive unofficial cooperation based on their joint opposition to Iran's nuclear program and regional influence

 AGREEMENT

On August 13, 2020, the UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, announced the UAE's agreement to normalize relations with Israel saying that his country wanted to deal with the threats facing the two-state solution, specifically annexation of the Palestinian territories, and urging the Palestinians and Israelis to return to the negotiating table. He indicated that he did not think that there will be any embassy in Jerusalem until after there is a final agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. According to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "Israel and the United Arab Emirates will fully normalize their diplomatic relations. They will exchange embassies and ambassadors and begin cooperation across the board and on a broad range of areas including tourism, education, healthcare, trade and security.

TREATY

The treaty was signed on September 15, 2020. The treaty recognizes each state's sovereignty, obliges the two states to exchange ambassadors and conclude bilateral agreements on several topics including visa agreements, and will enter into force upon ratification. The agreement was ratified by the Israeli government on October 12 and was ratified by the Knesset on October 15.

AFTERMATH

On August 16, 2020, Israel and the UAE inaugurated direct telephone services. The Emirati company APEX National Investment and Israel's Tera Group signed an agreement to partner in research on COVID-19, making it the first business deal signed between companies of the two nations since normalization of ties. The director of the Mossad Yossi Cohen arrived in the UAE on August 18 to discuss security cooperation, regional developments as well as issues that concerned both countries with the National Security Advisor Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan. This marked the first visit of an Israeli official since the announcement of the deal. The UAE formally ended its boycott of Israel on August 29.

On August 17, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel was working to start direct flights to the UAE using Saudi Arabia's airspace. Netanyahu's office and other officials later denied reports of approving the United States' sales of F-35 warplanes to the UAE following the deal. Emirati foreign minister Anwar Gargash said in an interview with the Atlantic Council that the peace deal should remove any obstructions in acquiring the jets, though any sale would take years to negotiate and deliver and the UAE had not made a new request for them after the deal.

The Regional Impact Of The Abraham Accords

Israel’s relations with the Arab Gulf States have long been analyzed from the perspective of a tacit security regime based on shared political security and economic interests. Further and deeper developments were also expected. For example, a recent futurist scenario that came out in June 2020 in the US Air Force Global Futures Report foresaw that the Arab Quartet of “Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain are increasingly converging on shared interests with Israel”. The report predicted such a convergence as a product of the main “fault line” in the Middle East that pits the Turkey-Qatar alliance against the Arab Quartet plus Israel. Yet at the regional level, the accords themselves made a significant impact manifested in the following three main ways. First, by going public and enlarging and deepening cooperation, the Abraham Accords consolidate the status quo alignment in the Middle East against the revisionist alignment. The Arab Spring’s impact of empowering the revisionist alignment, as noted earlier, persisted. Iran’s commitment is central to the revisionist alignment both for its nuclear potential and its military presence, on its own or by proxy, in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. But Iran is not alone. The UAE ranks the threat of Turkey; especially its alliance with Qatar; as a higher priority than Iran in the immediate term. The Turkish-Qatari alliance confronts the UAE forces and its partners and is believed to be the foremost external threat to the UAE. Turkey has also recently grown as a challenge for Israel, as well, through its support of Israeli adversaries (i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, and Iran) and its destabilization attempts of partners (mainly Egypt). Despite their competition in Syria, Iran and Turkey both want a government in Damascus that remains outside the US sphere of influence and supports the conflict against Israel. They also both have a mutual proQatar stance in the recent Arab Quartet–Qatar dispute and increasingly troubled relations with the United States.  The accords signal the determination of its parties to face this challenge. The UAE and Bahrain broke the Arab taboo of normalizing relations with Israel, which likewise indicated a willingness to break its own taboo against defense commitments to other nations. The accords formalize Israel’s membership in the status quo alignment. Up to this point, Israel had been only a de facto member of the status quo alignment. Ever since the 1950s, in the so-called Periphery Doctrine, Israel extended ties to Kemalist Turkey and the Imperial State of Iran to weaken a potential Arab-nationalist alliance against it. As Iran and Turkey turned revisionist, in the late 1970s and 2000s, respectively, Israel’s Arab status quo partners increased their cooperation with Israel, either openly following formal peace treaties (Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994) or tacitly, as with the pre-1994 Jordan and the Gulf States since the 1990s. Nevertheless, this constitutes the first time that normalization of relations would reach that extensive level, since normalization with Egypt and Jordan remained limited nevertheless.

Second, the Abraham Accords bear an important symbolic weight; the revisionists are losing. The accords explicitly focus on development and prosperity through cooperation in various civilian fields: health, agriculture, tourism, energy, environment, and innovation. Cooperation in these fields would yield significant economic benefits for the parties. But there is more. This cooperation corresponds to the vital interests that concern the peoples of the region. Unlike in the past, when massive demonstrations would denounce peace or normalization deals with Israel—which has for decades constituted the Arabs’ archenemy and therefore a convenient diversion for dissent against regimes; the accords received little popular criticism in the Arab world. This fact shows that in today’s Middle East, the people no longer seek pan-Arab or pan-Islamic unity but the rule of law, better public services (e.g., social welfare, education, and health), and greater economic opportunity and innovation. This, in turn, confirms a trend that has, with the violent turns of the Arab Spring uprisings, gone unnoticed; Israel’s name was almost never heard in the domestic focused Arab uprisings; rather, “the main motivation of the masses to join the intelligentsia, forming a critical mass to challenge the long-ruling regimes was to protest against the failure of the state to provide”. The implication, therefore, is that the revisionist rationale has been losing ground at the street level. Third, the Abraham Accords demonstrate the Gulfization of the Middle East, in the sense of the leadership of Gulf parties and the priority of Gulf issues. The Gulf leadership of the status quo alignment is well noted in the reactions of the alignment’s two other members from the Levant, which used to be the center of Arab politics. Egypt, which was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel in 1979, welcomed the accords as a “historic peace step … [that would] bring stability to the Middle East.” Jordan, which followed suit in 1994, welcomed the accords, too, though with some restraint in the official statements. This restraint is reported to be a result of being “pushed aside” as leading brokers between Israel and the Palestinians when the UAE and Bahrain received the credit for postponement of annexation by Israel of parts of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Implications and Policy Recommendations One critique of the Abraham Accords points out that the accords “don’t end a single conflict in the Middle East” and that normalization “without a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority erodes further the prospect of a two-state solution”. Another warns against the potential of making the belligerence of Iran even worse by encouraging more aggressive policies by the UAE and Israel. Reality, however, is more complex and discussion should be more comprehensive by focusing on the following three implications of the accords: the prospects for a US-proposed Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), a potential resolution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the resilience of the accords. True, the accords do not end any conflict, and in fact, neither party to the accords has claimed otherwise. However, they do attempt to prevent an expansion of the many existing conflicts in the Middle East. By definition, status quo powers (in this case, Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain) aim at preserving the established order; “rules of the game” and distribution of goods—and stand to benefit from it. Revisionist powers; which are dissatisfied, as they “value what they covet more than what they currently possess”; seek to change the established order to improve their position within it or may even attempt to reorder it in their favor. An important incentive of the status quo parties to reach the accords has been to deter the revisionists (i.e., Iran, Turkey, and their proxies) from reshaping the region to their own order, especially given the perceived US retreat from the region.

With respect to the implications for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the critics’ view is that “a broad Arab recognition of Israel, and the prospect of cooperation and business partnerships, was one of the few remaining incentives for Israel to make territorial concessions to the weakened Palestinians.” Nevertheless, this view ignores two important facts. First, this incentive offer has been available at least for the last three decades, but it did not produce the expected result. Second, Israel has implicitly followed the “land for peace” formula when it accepted, in exchange for normalization with the UAE, an extended halt of Israel’s plans to annex 30 percent of the occupied West Bank. Furthermore, polls in Israel show that the accords have, for the first time in decades, reintroduced the terms “peace” and “normalization” as positive aspects in the Israeli public mindset.

Finally, the future stability of the accords should not be taken for granted. The Abraham Accords, despite the benefits they bring to the parties and to the United States, have their own challenges, just as the successful Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has had. The bilateral peace made in 1979 remains stable to this day after four decades; in fact, Egypt and Israel have now lived in peace longer than they lived in war; and is founded on strong security cooperation. Nevertheless, it is easy to forget that the Egyptian-Israeli peace faced serious challenges, especially deterioration of relations against the background of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the First Palestinian Intifada in 1987, the Second Intifada in 2000, the Gaza war in 2012, several lethal incidents on the border, and of course, the attempted attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo during the Egyptian revolution in 2011. It has not always looked so stable. The Egyptian-Israeli peace survived these challenges not only because of peace dividends. Of course, Egypt restored Sinai to its sovereignty, and Israel received an efficient security mechanism. But cooperation in economic and other civilian fields has never been critical until recently with the bilateral cooperation in the natural gas industry, which extended to multilateral cooperation involving other countries in the eastern Mediterranean. Rather, the treaty has withstood primarily because it saves both countries the costs of war, because their two defense establishments both have a strong commitment to peace, and because the United States has committed to extending substantial military and economic aid to the two countries for decades.

 

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