Abraham Accords
2020 Sep 15Anti-Iran Axis Replaces the Palestinian Question
On September 15, 2020, Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords — the first Arab-Israeli normalization since Jordan in 1994. Sudan and Morocco followed. The Trump-brokered deals replaced the Palestinian question with a shared anti-Iran axis. Israel gained diplomatic legitimacy without concessions; Gulf states gained Israeli technology and closer U.S. alignment.
The accords deliberately bypassed Palestinian statehood, treating it as an obstacle rather than precondition. Critics argued this was sustainable only if the Palestinian situation remained contained. October 7, 2023 would prove that assumption catastrophically wrong. Can a regional peace architecture survive when built explicitly on deferring the central conflict?