Israeli Recovery of Core Objectives from the Abraham Agreements

Author: أنطوان شلحت

Most Israeli analyses coinciding with the five-year anniversary of the Abraham Agreements suggest that these are peace and normalization agreements between Israel and both the UAE and Bahrain (signed in September 2020, subsequently joined by Sudan and Morocco), do not evoke shock or lead to confusion, as what we are facing is a revelation of Israel's core goals from these agreements without any intention to cool the embers that are meant to remain smoldering. Although there are doubts about whether these objectives will be realized under the burden of Israeli aggression against Doha, the ongoing genocide, starvation, and destruction in the Gaza Strip, and the escalation of annexation and control measures in the West Bank, the recovery of these objectives may refer to a way of non-adaptation to them.

The first point highlighted by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University is that despite the war on Gaza in 2024, Israel's defense exports reached a new peak: $14.8 billion, with 12% of these exports going to the countries of the Abraham Agreements, whereas they were only 3% in 2023. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute indicated that Morocco imports 11% of its overall defense imports from Israel. Meanwhile, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics noted that trade volume between Israel and the UAE rose from $200 million in 2020 to over $3 billion in 2024. According to this Israeli institution's conclusions, despite the atmosphere of crisis suggested by the continuation of the war on Gaza, none of the signatory countries of the Abraham Agreements have officially severed or frozen their relations with Israel. In its estimation, this is due to several reasons, the most important of which is the fear that such steps could lead to a crisis in relations with the United States under the current administration of President Donald Trump, who was the chief architect of those agreements during his first presidential term five years ago.

In a related context, there was a consensus in those analyses that looking back, the discussion at the time revolved around what was described as a "historical turning point indicating a fundamental change in the Arab world's stance towards Israel." This turning point was attributed to two main reasons. The first is that the Abraham Agreements broke what one Israeli Orientalist termed "the glass ceiling in Israeli-Arab normalization relations," as the prevailing hypothesis until the year of signing those agreements was that no Arab state would dare to normalize its relations with Israel before finding a solution to the Palestinian issue, as agreed upon within the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative (remember it?) in 2002. However, as the same Israeli Orientalist writes, Arab states began one after another to show willingness, even enthusiasm, to sign peace agreements with Israel, in a step that could only be interpreted by Israel as ignorance of the Palestinians, who have come to be seen as a nuisance and an obstacle to general Arab interests.

The second reason for considering the agreements as a historical turning point in the Arab world's stance towards Israel, as noted in several Israeli analyses, is that the Abraham Agreements represented an Arab recognition of the importance of relations with Israel, which has transformed into a regional power with economic and military influence, capable of helping Arab states develop their economies and defend themselves against the Iranian threat. This contrasts with the past, when Arab states sought peace with Israel solely in order to recover territory or to draw closer to the heart of the United States and its purse (!).