Abraham Accords
The Abraham Accords are a set of agreements that established diplomatic normalization between Israel and several Arab states, beginning with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Announced in August and September 2020 and signed in Washington, D.C. on September 15, 2020, the Accords were mediated by the United States under President Donald Trump. The UAE and Bahrain became the first Arab countries to formally recognize Israel since Jordan in 1994. In the months that followed, Sudan and Morocco also agreed to normalize relations with Israel, although Sudan's agreement remains unratified as of 2024. In July 2025, it was reported that the second Trump administration was seeking to expand the Accords to include Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and in November, it was announced that Kazakhstan agreed to join. In December 2025, Netanyahu expanded the accords on his own initiative after Israel recognized Somaliland as an independent country, with Somaliland pledging to join the accords.
The Accords emerged against the backdrop of growing unofficial cooperation between Israel and Sunni Arab states throughout the 2010s, driven by shared concerns about Iran. Efforts to build ties had become increasingly public by 2018, with visits by Israeli officials to Gulf states and the start of limited military and intelligence cooperation. In mid-2020, a normalization deal between Israel and the UAE was brokered in exchange for the suspension of Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank, as proposed in the Trump peace plan.
The agreements formalized economic, diplomatic, and security cooperation. In Morocco's case, normalization came with U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. For Sudan, it included removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and access to international financial support. The Accords were presented in elaborate ceremonies and widely promoted by the Trump administration as a major diplomatic achievement.
Reactions in the Arab world were mixed. While governments expressed support, public opinion in many countries remained opposed, particularly due to the Accords' lack of progress on resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Despite this, the Accords led to new initiatives in trade, defense, energy, technology, and cultural exchange. The name "Abraham Accords" was chosen to reflect the shared heritage of the Abrahamic religions—Judaism and Islam.
Background
The Israeli–Palestinian peace process was advanced with the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995 but later collapsed with the start of the Second Intifada and the ending of committed peace broker Bill Clinton's term as US president. Israel increased settlement construction in the West Bank and withdrew from Gaza in 2005. After Hamas came to power in Gaza in the 2006 election, Israel began to tighten the Gaza blockade, with Egypt's assistance from 2008 onward. A rapprochement between Israel and Sunni Arab states took place in the 2010s due to their shared fear of Shiite Iran and its nuclear program. By 2017, unofficial cooperation with Saudi Arabia had been ongoing for at least 5 years, with intelligence services from both countries assisting each other and officials regularly sharing intelligence. By 2016,summits and conferences between high-ranking Israeli—Palestinian and Israeli—Arab politicians and direct contacts between their security and intelligence services had not only become routine but were openly discussed in major Arab media.
In 2018, the Omani foreign minister visited Jerusalem, and Netanyahu, accompanied by his national security advisor and the head of Mossad, visited Oman in October "to advance the peace process in the Middle East as well as several matters of joint interest regarding the achievement of peace and stability in the Middle East", according to a joint statement. Also in October 2018, the Israeli sports minister attended the 2018 Judo Grand Slam Abu Dhabi. Two Israeli judokas won gold medals, and Israel's national anthem was played during the award ceremonies, a first at Gulf state sporting events. In August 2019, Israel's foreign minister announced military cooperation with the Emirates amidst rising tensions with Iran.
The February 2019 Warsaw Conference was proposed by the US with the intent to build up a coalition against Iran. Due to West European states opposing withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and resumption of economic sanctions against Iran, host Poland played down the anti-Iranian aspects of the two-day conference, and the closing Polish-US statement did not mention Iran. Among the representatives of the 70 nations in attendance were a number of Arab officials, creating the first situation since the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 where an Israeli leader and senior Arab officials were all in attendance at the same international conference focused on the Middle East. The Madrid Conference at the time set the stage for the Oslo Accords. Among those with whom Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met was the Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah—whose country he had visited in October 2018. Two days after Netanyahu's visit at the time, bin Alawi suggested while at a conference in Bahrain that it was time for Israel to be treated like the other states in the Middle East, and the officials of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia did not disagree.
In January 2020, Trump announced the Trump peace plan for the Middle East in a joint press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan provided for a unified Jerusalem as Israel's capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the principal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, amounting to annexation of roughly 30% of the territory. The Palestinians would get some desert areas near the Egyptian border, limited sovereignty, and a non-contiguous state with numerous Israeli enclaves. The New York Times wrote that "ather than viewing it as a serious blueprint for peace, analysts called it a political document by a president in the middle of an impeachment trial working in tandem with Mr. Netanyahu, a prime minister under criminal indictment who is about to face his third election in a year".
History
Agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain
When Netanyahu took office in May 2020, he hinted that his cabinet would begin discussing annexation of parts of the West Bank, as envisioned in the Trump peace plan, in July. On June 12, 2020, Emirati ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba published an op-ed on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth warning that annexation of West Bank territory would put a stop normalization of relations with the Emirates and other Arab states.At the end of June, Al Otaiba told Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and his assistant, Avi Berkowitz, that the Emirates "would agree to normalization with Israel in return for an Israeli announcement that West Bank annexation was off the table". The White House also had reservations about annexation, which Berkowitz had discussed with Netanyahu over three days of meetings in June 2020. Berkowitz then told Netanyahu of Al Otaiba's offer of the UAE alternative to annexation. On July 2, 2020, Al Otaiba met with Berkowitz to further discuss the plan. Along with a mutual opposition to Iran, the concerns detailed by Al Otaiba's op-ed and planning with Kushner and Berkowitz helped bring vested parties to the negotiating table to identify an alternative solution that ultimately resulted in a normalization agreement reached in August 2020. As a result of the deal, annexation was postponed.
Hours after the August 13 announcement of the agreement between Israel and the Emirates, senior Bahraini officials called Kushner and Berkowitz with the message "We want to be next." Over the next 29 days, Kushner and Berkowitz negotiated with and traveled to Bahrain before closing the deal on September 11, 2020, in a call between Trump, Netanyahu, and the king of Bahrain.
Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, Emirati foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Bahraini foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani signed the agreements on September 15, 2020, on the Truman Balcony overlooking the South Lawn of the White House. The elaborate ceremony was staged to suggest the grandeur of significant treaties of the past. According to the Washington Post, Trump's political backers saw the staging as a way to bolster Trump's "standing as a statesman".
Developments after the Gaza war
On November 2, 2023, in view of the ongoing Gaza war, Bahrain said that it had recalled its ambassador to Israel and that the Israeli ambassador had left Bahrain. Israel said that its relations with Bahrain were stable.Following the escalation of the Gaza conflict, several indicators suggested a decline in the pace of economic and defense engagement between Israel and the Arab signatories of the Abraham Accords. In October 2025, organizers of the Dubai Airshow announced that Israeli security and defense companies would not participate in the event. The decision, described by officials as the result of a “technical review,” was viewed by analysts as reflecting growing political sensitivities and a cooling of public cooperation between the United Arab Emirates and Israel in the aftermath of the war.
Sudan
On October 23, 2020, Israel and Sudan agreed to normalize ties in an agreement mediated by Trump administration officials. As part of the agreement, the US removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and gave it a loan to help the Sudanese government clear the country's debts to the World Bank. Sudan agreed to pay US$335 million in compensation to American victims of terror, but denied any wrongdoing. On January 6, 2021, the government of Sudan signed the "Abraham Accords Declaration" in Khartoum.On February 2, 2023, Israel and Sudan announced they had finalized an agreement to normalize relations, with the signing to take place after the establishment of a civilian government in Sudan. Normalization is widely opposed in Sudan, and fighting between rival military factions has delayed the signing.