What did one year of war in Gaza do to the Abraham Accords?

One year after the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel’s brutal war on Gaza has proven contagious.

It has dangerously expanded into other countries and territories in the Arab world, most notably Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and the occupied West Bank.

After Israel’s recent killing of Hezbollah’s third Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and other high-ranking officials in the Lebanese organisation, hostilities between Iran and its allies in the ‘Axis of Resistance’, on one side, and Israel and the US, on the other, are intensifying across the region.

How Tel Aviv and/or Washington will respond to Iran’s two-wave ballistic missile attack on Israel at the start of this month is less than clear. In that episode’s immediate aftermath, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Tehran “made a big mistake and will pay”. US President Joe Biden said, “Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel”.

To state the obvious, the stakes are extremely high. There are legitimate concerns about the Middle East’s conflict dynamics spiralling further out of control with unbelievably catastrophic consequences for countries in the region and beyond.

Most disturbing is the fact that it seems difficult to imagine the warring parties having off-ramps for de-escalation while the “escalate to de-escalate” idea proves illogical and insane.

Impact of the year-long Gaza war

The past 12 months of bloodshed in Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen will profoundly change the Middle East for decades, including in ways not yet fully realised.

Nonetheless, as of now, it is easy to conclude that the process of expanding Arab-Israeli normalisation has frozen due to the ongoing conflicts. Even if the Arab states which currently have formalised relations with Tel Aviv will probably not abrogate their diplomatic deals with Israel, it is extremely difficult to imagine more Arab governments joining the Abraham Accords in the foreseeable future.

It was not that long ago when many prominent figures in the West, Israel, and the Arab world were confident that more Arab countries would join the Abraham Accords. To them, it was almost as if the normalisation camp’s expansion was inevitable.

An underlying assumption was that the concept of Israeli normalisation was set to grow less and less controversial in Arab societies. Many voices in the Israeli media as well as high-ranking US officials, including then-President Donald Trump himself, constantly spoke about Kuwait, Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia possibly being on the verge of joining the Abraham Accords.

In the case of some of these countries, especially Kuwait, that was totally unrealistic. However, that was the overall mood in many American and Israeli elite circles. However, the past year of death and destruction caused by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East has made talk of Israeli normalisation extremely toxic in Arab societies.

Biden administration officials continue trying to pull Saudi Arabia and other Arab states into the Abraham Accords. But a point that they fail to comprehend is that statesmen in the Arab region are not in a position to ignore public opinion in their countries, which is overwhelmingly opposed to normalisation with Tel Aviv. As demonstrated by polling data, this is true in Arab countries both inside and outside the normalisation camp.

“The war [in Gaza] made relations with Israel more controversial. Notwithstanding those Arab states who normalised relations with Israel still having them, Israel has become more unappealing to the Arab masses - something respective ruling elites are very cognisant of,” said Dr Aziz Alghashian, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation Middle East (ORF-ME), in an interview with The New Arab.

“Moreover, part of [the purpose of Israeli] normalisation in the region is to change its perception from a taboo country to an openly embraced country. To borrow a term used by an Israeli commentator, before 7 October, Israel was moving from being a mistress to an openly embraced partner,” Alghashian added.

“But after the war, Netanyahu and his coalition of extremists are keeping Israel in mistress stage - relations are illegitimate, and will be for time to come, especially since he is trying to expand the war and drag the US in.”

Even if, theoretically, the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon would freeze tomorrow with ceasefires being implemented, experts do not expect any Arab states to join the Israeli normalisation camp at any point in the foreseeable future.

Dr Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, believes that the Abraham Accords will not expand for at least a decade.

“The images of death and destruction in Gaza have traumatised another young Arab generation both living within and out of the region and will come to shape perceptions of Israel for decades to come. Those Arab populations that had come to accept Israel being part of the region and had signed up to their leaders’ bid to normalise relations are now utterly disillusioned. As such, selling normalisation will be nearly impossible,” he told TNA.

The state of Saudi-Israeli relations

A huge blow for the Biden administration has been its failure to bring Saudi Arabia into the normalisation camp, especially given how much diplomatic energy the White House has invested into this effort.

“While talks between the two countries will likely continue, relations are highly unlikely to move forward,” Dr Quilliam told TNA. “Although the Saudi leadership might quietly welcome the dismantling of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, Israel's capacity to disrupt the organisation's communications system, eliminate its entire senior leadership, and target weapons stashes without concern for civilians will be a cause for concern.”

Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) told US lawmakers in August that Riyadh normalising with Tel Aviv would put his life on the line, referencing Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. Some in Washington read those remarks as MbS simply trying to extract more concessions from the US in exchange for a Saudi-Israeli normalisation deal.

Regardless, the Saudi leader is right to point out to officials in Washington that any Saudi-Israeli normalisation accord would come with huge political risks given that in the kingdom there is a widespread consensus that Israel is guilty of genocide.

Saudi Arabia also has its own leadership role in the wider Arab-Islamic world that would suffer a huge loss of soft power if Riyadh would abandon its longstanding position in favour of the Arab Peace Initiative (API) - set forth by the Saudis in 2002 - and join the Abraham Accords under current circumstances.

What took place last month at the UN General Assembly was telling. While addressing the body in New York, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We must continue the path we paved with the Abraham Accords four years ago. Above all, this means achieving a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia”.

Yet, Saudi Arabia’s delegation joined many others in walking out when Netanyahu was at the podium, highlighting how far away Riyadh is from accepting normalisation with Tel Aviv without any progress being achieved toward a Palestinian state’s establishment.

The kingdom’s leadership has been crystal clear about its position towards normalisation, which remains in line with the API. “A two-state solution is not merely an ideal; it is the only viable path to ensuring Palestine, Israel and the region’s long-term security,” wrote Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in a Financial Times op-ed on 2 October.

“Peace cannot be built on a foundation of occupation and resentment; true security for Israel will come from recognising the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. By embracing a solution that allows both peoples to coexist in peace, we can dismantle the cycle of violence that has entrapped both sides for far too long,” he added.

Nonetheless, although there is no reason to expect Saudi Arabia to normalise with Israel under current conditions, Ferial Saeed, a former senior American diplomat, believes that a continuation of these normalisation negotiations would serve Riyadh’s interests.

“MbS recently stated that there will be no normalisation before the ‘establishment of a Palestinian state’ with East Jerusalem as its capital. This position is consistent with polling conducted over the past two decades on Arab public attitudes towards normalisation. MbS is also clearly trying both to pressure the United States to do something and to position himself as the Arab leader with the willingness and ability to achieve a political settlement,” she told TNA.

“However, unless Washington can move Netanyahu and the hard right members of his coalition to compromise, Riyadh will find it more attractive to continue working with Israel unofficially. There is no upside to alienating the Arab world. The incentives the United States has promised for normalisation are enticing but they have no expiration date,” holds Saeed.

Future of the Abraham Accords

Although it is unrealistic to expect more Arab countries to join the Abraham Accords in the upcoming years, it seems safe to assume that Emirati-Israeli normalisation is irreversible. Perhaps it is also reasonable to assess that Bahrain and Morocco’s diplomatic deals with Tel Aviv will not be abrogated despite their unpopularity in the Arab world.

This is not to say, however, that Israeli aggression against Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and other Arab countries will not impact the state of these normalised relationships.

Looking ahead, officials in Abu Dhabi, Manama, and Rabat will probably seek to maintain their countries’ positions in the Abraham Accords because of the many ways in which they see themselves benefiting from normalisation. But their relationships with Israel are likely to be low-profile and strictly on a government-to-government basis without ties deepening on any societal level.

“Beyond governments, the relationships will in effect be in abeyance, as public hostility towards Israel in Bahrain and the UAE is now very high, and it will prevent any non-government related activity from advancing. The cold peace that has characterised Israel’s ties with Egypt and Jordan will be replicated in the UAE and Bahrain in spite of the earlier promise that normalisation offered,” offered Dr Quilliam.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics

Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero