The Abraham Accords: Diplomatic Normalisation, Geopolitical Recalibration and the Limits of a New Regionalism in the Middle East
Authors: Admiral (ret.) PhD Aurel POPA and Cam Fl (ret.) Dr Sorin LEARSCHI
Maritime Security Forum
Abstract
The Abraham Accords, signed in Washington on 15 September 2020, established the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and several states with a Muslim majority population, starting with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The article examines the origins, legal architecture and strategic rationale of the agreements, analysing their evolution over a five-year period. The central argument maintains that the agreements have reconfigured regional dynamics by replacing the ‘land for peace’ paradigm with one of geo-economic integration and protection against Iran, whilst leaving the Palestinian issue unresolved. The study assesses the trade and security outcomes, the impact of the war in Gaza from October 2023 onwards, and the expansion of the framework following Kazakhstan’s accession in November 2025. The conclusion suggests that the resilience of the agreements depends on the ability of economic incentives to overcome security crises and address underlying political claims.
Keywords: Abraham Accords; normalisation; Israel; Middle East; diplomacy; geoeconomics; the Palestinian question.
1. Introduction
On 15 September 2020, on the South Lawn of the White House, representatives of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed a series of documents collectively known as the Abraham Accords. The Emirates and Bahrain became the first Arab states to formally recognise Israel since Jordan in 1994.[1] The name refers to Abraham, a central figure in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, invoking a shared heritage and interfaith reconciliation.[2]
For most of the post-war period, the dominant doctrine in the Arab world made any normalisation with Israel conditional on a prior resolution of the Palestinian question, in accordance with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The Abraham Accords have reversed this sequence: normalisation precedes, rather than follows, a solution for the Palestinians.[3] This reordering constitutes the analytical focus of this paper.
The article has three objectives. First, it reconstructs the historical context and legal framework of the agreements. Secondly, it assesses their economic, security and diplomatic outcomes over a five-year period. Thirdly, it analyses the tests to which they have been subjected by the Gaza war and the prospects for expansion, including Kazakhstan’s accession and Saudi Arabia’s hesitation.
2. Historical context and theoretical framework
Prior to 2020, relations between Israel and the Arab states had seen only two formal peace treaties: with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994. Both followed direct military confrontations and functioned as a ‘cold peace’, limited to the state level.[4] The Abraham Accords depart from this model: they link states that had not waged direct war against Israel and emphasise exchanges between societies, not just between governments.
From a theoretical perspective, the agreements can be interpreted through the lens of realism: small Gulf states and Israel are converging against a perceived common threat, Iran, and seeking security guarantees from the United States.[5] A second, liberal-inspired interpretation highlights the role of economic interdependence and societal contacts as sources of stabilisation. A third, critical, interpretation views the agreements as a strategy to marginalise Palestinian claims, by substituting the national cause with commercial benefits intended for the elites.
The Trump administration offered concrete incentives to each signatory. The Emirates secured a promise to suspend Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank and access to advanced weaponry. Morocco received US recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara. Sudan was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.[6] This ‘carrot’ approach explains the transformation of previously discreet ties into open relations.
3. The architecture and signatories of the agreements
The Abraham Accords do not constitute a single treaty, but rather a package comprising a general declaration and separate bilateral agreements between Israel and each partner. The declaration sets out common principles: interfaith dialogue, pragmatic cooperation and the fight against extremism. The bilateral agreements establish full diplomatic relations, including the opening of embassies, direct flights and cooperation in trade, investment, tourism, technology and security.[7]
The table below summarises the timeline of accessions.
| State | Date | Comments |
| United Arab Emirates | 15 Sept. 2020 | Original signatory; full bilateral agreement |
| Bahrain | 15 Sept. 2020 | Original signatory; full bilateral agreement |
| Morocco | December 2020 | Normalisation; US recognises sovereignty over Western Sahara |
| Sudan | January 2021 | Signatory to the declaration; bilateral agreement not ratified due to internal instability |
| Kazakhstan | November 2025 | First accession in 2021; first Central Asian state |
Table 1. Timeline of accessions to the Abraham Accords (2020–2025).
The Sudanese case illustrates the fragility of the framework. Although Khartoum signed the declaration in January 2021, the coup d’état that same year and the subsequent instability prevented the ratification of the bilateral agreement. A text was finalised in 2023, but its signing has been suspended.[8]
4. The economic dimension
The relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has become the economic driving force behind these agreements. Bilateral trade has risen from approximately $200 million in 2020 to over $3 billion in 2024, including the trade in diamonds.[9] In 2023, the two states signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the most extensive ever concluded by Israel with an Arab country, with the aim of exceeding ten billion dollars in trade over a five-year period.[10]
However, the actual growth in trade flows remained more modest than initially announced. After peaking in 2022, volumes stagnated, and the war in Gaza has negatively affected regional trade since 2024.[11] Israel and Morocco, in turn, signed an economic cooperation agreement in 2022, which significantly increased trade compared to the period prior to normalisation.[12]
The economic benefits have been concentrated in the tourism, technology, energy and defence sectors. Critics note, however, that these have predominantly benefited the political and commercial elites, without generating a broad redistribution of gains to the population.
5. The geopolitical and security dimension
The strategic common ground among the signatories was their shared concern regarding Iran’s influence. Cooperation in the fields of security, air defence and intelligence sharing constituted the most visible immediate outcome of the agreements.[13] The United States encouraged this convergence, including through the integration of Israel into the area of responsibility of US Central Command.
The Biden administration continued this framework through the Negev Forum in March 2022, which brought together Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the Emirates and the United States at ministerial level.[14] In the US Congress, a bipartisan group established a committee dedicated to the agreements in 2022, relaunched in 2025, a sign of cross-party institutional support.[15]
The agreements were accompanied by broader connectivity projects, such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, designed as an alternative trade and infrastructure route.[16] Such initiatives reflect the ambition to transform diplomatic normalisation into a sustainable regional architecture.
6. The test of the Gaza war
The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip profoundly altered the political context of the agreements. Public opinion in Arab states has deteriorated towards Israel, and some economic and defence commitments have been slowed down. However, no signatory has suspended the agreements or withdrawn from them.[17]
Analyses carried out five years after the signing converge on the idea of resilience. Cooperation in the fields of security and the economy has continued quietly, even though public initiatives for expansion have been put on hold.[18] Several observers warn, however, that a possible unilateral annexation by Israel of parts of the West Bank could irreversibly compromise the framework.[19]
The war has thus demonstrated the limits of the paradigm that assumed the Palestinian issue could be sidestepped. Although the agreements have survived the shock, the reputational cost to the signatory governments has risen, and the room for manoeuvre for further normalisations has narrowed.
7. Expanding the framework: Kazakhstan and the Saudi stake
7.1. Kazakhstan’s accession
On 6 November 2025, following a meeting between President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and President Donald Trump at the White House, Kazakhstan announced its accession to the Abraham Accords. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Astana confirmed the decision on 7 November.[20] Kazakhstan becomes the first Central Asian state and the first state outside the Middle East and North Africa region, apart from the United States, to join this framework.
The move is largely symbolic. Kazakhstan has recognised Israel and maintained diplomatic relations with it since 1992, and Astana supplies around a quarter of Israel’s oil imports.[21] The accession reflects more a desire to strengthen relations with Washington and attract American investment, particularly in critical mineral resources and technology, than a sudden shift in orientation.
Astana has balanced this move within the logic of its multi-vector foreign policy. Shortly after the Washington summit, Tokaev travelled to Moscow, where he signed a strategic partnership with Vladimir Putin, signalling that the rapprochement with the United States and Israel does not amount to a geopolitical reorientation.[22] Analyses point to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan as potential future candidates.[23]
7.2. Saudi Arabia: the prize everyone is waiting for
Saudi Arabia remains the central focus of any expansion. Before the war in Gaza, the kingdom was considered the main candidate for normalisation. However, as custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites and leader of the Sunni world, Riyadh is proceeding with caution.
Its conditions became more stringent after October 2023: concrete progress towards a Palestinian state or, at the very least, significant steps in that direction, alongside US guarantees regarding security and access to civilian nuclear technology. The war has pushed the prospect of an agreement further away, but the kingdom has left the door open to future normalisation once hostilities cease.[24]
8. Criticisms and limitations
The main criticism concerns the avoidance of the Palestinian issue. By decoupling normalisation from a solution for the Palestinians, the agreements have weakened the leverage of collective Arab pressure on Israel, without offering the Palestinians political guarantees. For its critics, the framework has turned a national cause into a negotiable variable, in exchange for commercial advantages.[25]
A second limitation relates to the transactional nature of the agreements. The incentives offered, ranging from the recognition of Western Sahara to the supply of arms, link the framework’s sustainability to the maintenance of these concessions and the continuity of US support. Kazakhstan’s accession, interpreted by some analysts as a gesture of alignment with Washington, illustrates this logic.
Thirdly, the promised economic benefits were distributed unevenly and were smaller than initial estimates. For supporters, however, the agreements remain the most significant transformation of regional geopolitics since the Israeli-Jordanian peace, providing a framework for direct flights, exchanges between societies and business partnerships that did not previously exist.
9. Conclusions
The Abraham Accords have reshaped the basic assumptions of Arab-Israeli diplomacy, prioritising normalisation over the resolution of the Palestinian conflict and anchoring it in geo-economic and security interests. Over the course of five years, the framework has proved more resilient than many observers anticipated, surviving the war in Gaza without any formal withdrawals.
Kazakhstan’s accession in 2025 extended the framework beyond the Middle East and North Africa, suggesting potential for expansion into Central Asia. Structural limitations persist, however: without real progress on the Palestinian issue, Saudi Arabia’s accession remains unlikely, and the political costs of normalisation rise during times of crisis.
The future of the agreements hinges on an open question: can economic incentives and strategic convergence against Iran overcome security shocks and absorb unresolved political grievances? The answer will determine whether the Abraham Accords remain an episode of selective normalisation or become the nucleus of a new regional architecture.
Selected bibliography
Atlantic Council. (November 2025). Experts react: Kazakhstan will join the Abraham Accords. Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council.
Caspian Policy Center. (January 2026). Kazakhstan Joins the Abraham Accords: Strategic Opportunities and Risks.
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2025). Abraham Accords. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (November 2025). Kazakhstan to Join the Abraham Accords, Signalling Opportunity in Central Asia.
Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). (September 2025). Five Years On: Are the Abraham Accords Here to Stay? Tel Aviv: INSS.
Makovsky, D. (2025). Resilience and Roadblocks: The Abraham Accords at Five Years. Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Middle East Institute. (2025). The Abraham Accords (Backgrounder). Washington, D.C.: MEI.
The Astana Times. (7 November 2025). Kazakh MFA Confirms Kazakhstan’s Accession to Abraham Accords After Trump–Tokayev Talks.
The Jerusalem Post. (2025, 15 September). Five years on, what have the Abraham Accords achieved?
U.S. Department of State. (2020). The Abraham Accords Declaration. Washington, D.C.
Methodological note: This article is based on public sources (official documents, research institutes and specialist press) accessed in May 2026. Quantitative data on trade and the timeline of accessions reflect the latest available estimates and may be revised as new data becomes available.
[1]Encyclopædia Britannica, ‘Abraham Accords’, 2025; U.S. Department of State, ‘The Abraham Accords Declaration’, 2020. The UAE and Bahrain became the first Arab states to formally recognise Israel following the 1994 Israeli–Jordanian treaty.
[2]The name of the agreements invokes the figure of Abraham as the common patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, symbolising a shared heritage and interfaith reconciliation.
[3]The Arab Peace Initiative (2002) made normalisation with Israel conditional on a withdrawal to the 1967 lines and a solution for Palestinian refugees. The Abraham Accords have reversed this sequence.
[4]Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 (Camp David), and Jordan in 1994. Both followed direct military confrontations.
[5]Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), ‘Five Years On: Are the Abraham Accords Here to Stay?’, September 2025; The Washington Institute, ‘Resilience and Roadblocks’, 2025. Containment of Iran and rapprochement with the United States feature among the signatories’ strategic common ground.
[6]Encyclopædia Britannica, “Abraham Accords”, 2025. The US recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara (December 2020) and removed Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism (December 2020).
[7]U.S. Department of State, ‘The Abraham Accords’, 2020 (Declaration and bilateral agreements between Israel and the UAE, Israel and Bahrain, and Israel and Morocco).
[8]Encyclopædia Britannica, “Abraham Accords”, 2025. The coup in Sudan (2021) blocked ratification; a bilateral text was finalised in 2023, but signing remains suspended due to instability.
[9]The Jerusalem Post, “Five years on, what have the Abraham Accords achieved?”, 15 September 2025. Bilateral trade between Israel and the UAE has risen from around $200 million (2020) to over $3 billion (2024), including diamonds.
[10]Middle East Institute, “The Abraham Accords” (Backgrounder), 2025. The 2023 Israel–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) aimed to exceed $10 billion in trade over five years.
[11]Middle East Institute, 2025. Actual growth in trade flows remained modest after peaking in 2022 and was affected by the war in Gaza.
[12]The Jerusalem Post, 15 September 2025. Israel and Morocco signed an economic cooperation agreement in 2022.
[13]INSS, September 2025; MERIP, ‘The Limits of Protection and Profits’, October 2025. Security cooperation and intelligence sharing were the most visible immediate outcomes of the agreements.
[14]Middle East Institute, 2025. The Negev Forum (March 2022) brought together Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE and the US at ministerial level in Israel.
[15]Middle East Institute, 2025. The bipartisan caucus dedicated to the agreements was established in the US Congress in 2022 and relaunched in 2025.
[16]The Washington Institute, ‘Resilience and Roadblocks’, 2025. The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is designed as an alternative trade and infrastructure route.
[17]The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza altered the regional political context and slowed down some economic and defence commitments.
[18]The Washington Institute, 2025; INSS, September 2025. No signatory has suspended or withdrawn from the agreements; cooperation has continued quietly.
[19]The Washington Institute, 2025. A possible unilateral Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank could irreversibly compromise the framework.
[20]The Astana Times, “Kazakh MFA Confirms Kazakhstan’s Accession to Abraham Accords After Trump–Tokayev Talks”, 7 November 2025. The announcement followed the Tokaev–Trump meeting at the White House on 6 November 2025.
[21]Foundation for Defense of Democracies, November 2025; Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute (BISI), January 2026. Kazakhstan has recognised Israel since 1992 and supplies around a quarter of its oil imports.
[22]BISI, January 2026. On 12–13 November 2025, Tokaev signed a strategic partnership with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, signalling the continuation of a multi-vector policy.
[23]Foundation for Defense of Democracies, November 2025. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are mentioned as potential future candidates.
[25]MERIP, October 2025. Critics argue that the agreements have weakened Arab collective leverage and turned the Palestinian cause into a negotiable variable.
[24]INSS, September 2025; The Jerusalem Post, 15 September 2025. Riyadh makes normalisation conditional on progress towards a Palestinian state and on US security guarantees and access to civilian nuclear technology.