Israel and the Gulf States have increasingly divergent views on Middle Eastern security.

Now that the United States and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding that could lead to a peace agreement, it is time to reflect on the future of the Abraham Accords, which, according to American reckoning, is linked to the future of US-Iran relations. Last month, President Donald Trump revealed that he had asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan to join the Abraham Accords en masse to normalize relations with ‌Israel, tying such a move to ending the war with Iran. The reception from these countries was uniformly cool if not hostile.

When the Abraham Accords were signed in 2020 by Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, later joined by Morocco and Sudan, the agreement was heralded as a historic turning point in Middle Eastern politics. The agreements appeared to overturn decades of conventional wisdom by demonstrating that Arab states were prepared to normalize relations with Israel without first resolving the Palestinian issue. Economic opportunities and shared security concerns seemed finally to have eclipsed the centrality of the Palestinian question in Arab-Israeli relations.

For supporters of the accords, the agreements represented the emergence of a new order in the Middle East under American supervision. The Gulf states would benefit from Israeli technology and investment. Israel would gain regional legitimacy and economic opportunities. Most importantly, Arab states and Israel would cooperate to counter what they viewed as the principal threat to regional stability: Iran. The United States, it was implied, would underwrite the security of all the signatories and help coordinate their strategies toward Iran.

Six years later, however, the future of the Abraham Accords appears far less secure than their architects anticipated. The devastation and Israel’s de facto ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the continuing erosion of prospects for a Palestinian state due to Israel’s creeping annexation of the West Bank, and widening differences between Israel and its Arab partners over regional security have exposed serious weaknesses in the normalization project. The war against Iran launched by the United States and Israel, and the strategic stalemate that has resulted from it, have further exposed the flaws built into the project.

Consequently, the Gulf states are reassessing the three principal strategic assumptions that underpinned normalization. 

First, Iran represented the primary threat to regional security. 

Second, Israel could serve as a valuable strategic partner in confronting that threat. 

Third, that normalization would contribute to a more stable regional order while facilitating economic modernization and technological cooperation.

The economic rationale remains largely intact. However, the strategic rationale has come under increasing strain, almost reaching a breaking point. The Gulf regimes continue to harbor reservations about Iranian regional ambitions and its nuclear program. But over the past several years, they have pursued policies aimed at reducing tensions with Tehran. Saudi Arabia’s restoration of diplomatic relations with Iran in 2023, thanks to Chinese mediation, reflected a broader regional trend. Until the war, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, and other Gulf states had increasingly emphasized de-escalation and diplomacy over confrontation.

This shift reflected changing priorities. Gulf governments today are focused on economic transformation. Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia and similar initiatives elsewhere depend upon attracting foreign investment, expanding tourism, developing infrastructure, and further integrating their economies into global markets. Such ambitions require regional stability, not conflict.

It is against this backdrop that Israeli policies have generated a high degree of concern bordering on alarm among the Arab states of the Gulf. The invasion of Gaza and the high level of Palestinian civilians killed have undoubtedly been the most important catalysts. The scale of destruction and civilian suffering has produced unprecedented anger throughout the Arab world. Public opinion in countries that have normalized relations with Israel has become overwhelmingly hostile to continued engagement. Governments that once highlighted the benefits of cooperation increasingly find themselves compelled to distance themselves from Israeli actions.

But Gulf concerns extend well beyond Gaza. The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the related attacks by settlers on Palestinian inhabitants, and the gradual de facto annexation of Palestinian territory have convinced many Arab observers that Israel has no interest in a viable two-state solution. In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several of his cabinet colleagues have repeatedly made it clear that they are fervently opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel.

The assumption that normalization could proceed while the Palestinian issue remained unresolved appears increasingly untenable. Developments on the ground suggest the permanent marginalization of Palestinian national aspirations and repeated Palestinian displacement and expulsion will create massive refugee problems for Israel’s neighbors.

Equally important, Gulf unease has expanded to encompass Israel’s broader regional behavior. Israeli attack on Doha in September last year created tensions with one of Washington’s closest Arab allies and showed Israel as an unreliable partner. Above all, Israel’s increasingly aggressive approach toward Iran and its persistent efforts to encourage greater American military pressure on Tehran have unnerved the Gulf regimes.

They realize that Israel pushed Washington to attack Iran in partnership with it in June 2025 and in February 2026 to serve its own goal of maintaining military dominance in the Middle East without any concern for regional stability, so essential for the Gulf states.

Israel’s current policies towards Lebanon, especially its continued bombing and occupation of parts of that country despite repeated rebukes by President Trump, have clearly signaled that it plans to act as the principal spoiler preventing a peace agreement between Washington and Tehran. This has further added to the concerns among Arab countries that Israel is interested in continued instability in the Middle East because it suits its goal of permanently dominating the region.

This forms the greatest challenge facing the future of the Abraham Accords. While Israel views Iran as the preeminent challenger to its regional hegemony, requiring military action to neutralize its ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities, Gulf governments are wary of policies that risk triggering another regional war. The recent conflict clearly demonstrated that any large-scale confrontation involving Iran would be fought in its neighborhood and at its expense. Their energy infrastructure, shipping lanes, investment climate, and economic development projects would be among the first casualties of such a conflict.

This has been proven true since the February attacks on Iran. Tehran has retaliated by targeting the Gulf states’ industrial and economic infrastructure, thus driving away investors and expatriates with very adverse consequences for their economies. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz brought the export of several Gulf states’ oil and gas to a standstill.

As a result, many Gulf policymakers increasingly regard their own security priorities as at odds with Israel’s. This represents a remarkable reversal. The Abraham Accords were justified in large part by the argument that Israel and the Gulf monarchies shared a common perception of Iran as the principal source of instability in the Middle East. Today, while concerns regarding Iran remain, many Gulf observers have begun to view Israel as far more of a threat to regional stability and to their own security.

This does not mean that the Abraham Accords are likely to collapse immediately. But survival should not be confused with success. The most important test concerns Saudi Arabia. Before the Israeli invasion of Gaza, negotiations involving Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States appeared to be making significant progress. A Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement backed by American security guarantees for Saudi Arabia would have transformed the regional balance of power and represented the crowning achievement of the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia’s participation would have bestowed a degree of religious and political legitimacy on the normalization process that smaller Gulf states could not provide. It would have signaled that Israel’s integration into the region had become irreversible.

Today, such an outcome appears far more distant. Saudi leaders have repeatedly emphasized that normalization cannot proceed absent credible movement toward Palestinian statehood. The massacre and expulsion of civilians from Gaza have made the expansion of ties with Israel indefensible for the Saudi regime, especially because of its role as “the keeper” of the two most sacred sites in Islam.

The future of the Abraham Accords, therefore, hinges on more than preserving existing diplomatic relationships. It depends upon whether the strategic consensus that produced them can be restored. This seems unlikely in the short term and very problematic in the long term in light of Israel’s current policies.

The central question is no longer whether Arab governments can live with Israel. The question is whether they can continue to view Israel as a contributor to regional stability. The answer to that question will determine whether the accords remain a limited set of bilateral agreements whose value could erode over time or evolve into the foundation of a new regional order, as some analysts had touted.

The future of the Abraham Accords may ultimately depend less on Arab willingness to normalize relations with Israel than on Israel’s willingness to convince its Arab partners that it seeks a stable Middle East rather than perpetual confrontation, which would result in a very high level of regional instability. Until that question is answered, the accords may survive in a formal sense, but the possibility of their expansion, especially to Saudi Arabia, will become increasingly remote. This will render it marginal if not irrelevant to the construction of a stable and secure regional order in the Middle East.

About the Author: Mohammed Ayoob

 ​​Mohammed Ayoob is a university distinguished professor emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University. His books include The Many Faces of Political Islam (Second Edition, 2020), Will the Middle East Implode? (2014), and, most recently, From Regional Security to Global IR: An Intellectual Journey (2024). He was also the editor of Assessing the War on Terror (2013).

The post Can the Abraham Accords Survive Israel’s Regional Strategy? appeared first on The National Interest.

Source link