The Paradox of Peace: When Normalization Survives War But Cannot Survive Justice
In September 2020, the Abraham Accords were announced with the kind of ceremony reserved for moments that claim to change history. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and later Morocco and Sudan signed normalization agreements with Israel, brokered by the United States, in what was presented as the dawn of a new Middle East. The old paradigm — no peace with Israel without Palestinian statehood — was declared obsolete. A new era of pragmatic, interest-based diplomacy had arrived.
Six years later, in April 2026, the Abraham Accords tell a far more complicated story. They have survived a regional war with Iran, the most devastating assault on Gaza in modern history, and a global shift in public opinion that has made “normalization” a politically toxic word across much of the Arab world. Parts of the Accords are thriving commercially. Other parts are barely breathing. And the fundamental question they were designed to bypass — Palestine — has returned with a force that no amount of trade agreements can suppress.
This is the honest assessment. Not the version promoted by Washington think tanks or Tel Aviv PR firms, but the view from the region itself — from the streets of Manama, the trading floors of Abu Dhabi, the diplomatic corridors of Riyadh, and the refugee camps of Gaza where the cost of “peace” without justice is measured in human lives.
The Original Promise: What the Abraham Accords Were Supposed to Achieve
To understand where the Accords stand in 2026, we must first be honest about what they were and were not. The Abraham Accords were, at their core, a transactional arrangement with three primary objectives:
- For the UAE and Bahrain: Access to Israeli technology, intelligence sharing against Iran, and favor with the Trump administration (including F-35 fighter jets for the UAE)
- For Israel: Diplomatic legitimacy in the Arab world without conceding anything on Palestinian statehood
- For the United States: A foreign policy “win” that could be marketed domestically, plus the foundation for an anti-Iran regional alliance
Notice what is absent from this list: the Palestinians. The Abraham Accords did not merely sideline the Palestinian question — they were explicitly designed to prove that it could be bypassed entirely. As Jared Kushner, the architect of the Accords, stated at the time, the deals would create such economic prosperity that Palestinians would eventually accept whatever terms were offered.
This was the theory. The reality of 2026 has tested it beyond recognition.
The Iran War Factor: How Regional Conflict Reshaped the Accords
The escalating confrontation between Israel and Iran — which moved from shadow warfare to open military exchanges between 2024 and 2025 — fundamentally altered the dynamics of the Abraham Accords in ways that neither supporters nor critics predicted.
The Security Dimension: Cooperation in the Shadows
Behind closed doors, the Iran conflict accelerated security cooperation between Israel and the UAE. Intelligence sharing on Iranian military capabilities, joint air defense coordination during missile threats, and technology transfers in areas like drone detection and cyber warfare all increased during the conflict’s most intense phases.
According to regional defense analysts, the UAE and Israel conducted at least three joint military exercises between 2024 and 2025, though neither government officially confirmed them. The Abraham Accords’ security architecture — always the most substantive component — proved more resilient than its diplomatic facade.
Bahrain, however, told a different story. Located just across the water from Iran and home to the US Fifth Fleet, Bahrain found itself in an impossible position. Its normalization with Israel made it a potential target for Iranian-aligned groups, while its Shia-majority population had deep sympathies with both Iran and the Palestinian cause. The result was a quiet but significant withdrawal from visible cooperation with Israel — a strategic retreat that preserved the formal agreement while emptying it of practical content.
The Public Backlash: Streets vs. Palaces
The Iran conflict, combined with the ongoing Gaza crisis, unleashed a wave of public anger across the Arab world that no normalization agreement could withstand. According to the Arab Barometer surveys conducted in late 2025, opposition to normalization with Israel exceeded 85% in every surveyed Arab country, including the UAE and Bahrain.
This matters enormously. While the Abraham Accords were signed by governments, not populations, the gap between official policy and public sentiment creates a structural instability that limits how far normalization can go. Emirati and Bahraini citizens did not vote for these agreements, and surveys consistently show that they do not support them — particularly in the context of what they see happening in Palestine.
The social media dimension amplified this disconnect. During the most intense phases of the Gaza crisis, Arabic-language social media was overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian, with normalization-related content generating fierce backlash. Businesses in the UAE and Bahrain that were seen as too closely associated with Israeli partners faced boycott campaigns that, while not always successful, demonstrated the commercial risks of visible normalization.
UAE-Israel Relations: The Commercial Core Holds
Of all the Abraham Accords signatories, the UAE-Israel relationship remains the most substantive and the most complex. It is simultaneously a commercial success story and a diplomatic headache — thriving in boardrooms while struggling in public discourse.
Trade and Investment: The Numbers
Bilateral trade between the UAE and Israel reached approximately $3.2 billion in 2025, according to estimates from both countries’ trade ministries. Key sectors include:
- Technology: Israeli cybersecurity and AI firms have established significant operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office reportedly providing incentives to Israeli tech companies
- Finance: Cross-border banking and fintech cooperation continues, though with less public visibility than in the initial post-Accords period
- Diamonds: The Dubai-Tel Aviv diamond trade has become a significant commercial channel, building on both cities’ roles as global diamond centers
- Agriculture and water technology: Israeli agtech companies are active in UAE projects, particularly in food security initiatives
However, the tourism dimension — once the most visible symbol of normalization — has declined significantly. Israeli tourist arrivals in the UAE dropped from a peak of approximately 350,000 in 2022 to an estimated 180,000 in 2025, reflecting both security concerns and the general cooling of public-facing ties.
The Quiet Distancing
What is most notable about UAE-Israel relations in 2026 is not what is happening, but what is not happening. The grand visions articulated in 2020 — joint tourism campaigns, cultural exchanges, university partnerships, joint infrastructure projects — have largely failed to materialize or have been quietly shelved.
The UAE government has adopted a strategy of “normalization without celebration” — maintaining commercial and security ties while avoiding any public posture that could be seen as endorsing Israeli policies toward Palestinians. This approach reflects a sophisticated reading of regional politics: the UAE wants the benefits of the relationship without paying the reputational costs.
Whether this balance is sustainable remains the central question. The UAE’s position essentially requires that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain at a manageable intensity — bad enough to require diplomatic caution, but not so catastrophic that it forces a rupture. The events of 2023-2025 have repeatedly tested this calculus.
Bahrain: The Weakest Link
Bahrain’s participation in the Abraham Accords was always the most fragile, and the events of 2024-2025 have pushed it to its limits.
The Domestic Pressure
Bahrain’s ruling Al Khalifa family governs a country where the Shia majority population has historically been marginalized from political power. This demographic reality means that normalization with Israel — widely seen as an enemy by Bahrain’s Shia community — was never going to achieve popular legitimacy.
The Iran conflict intensified these dynamics. For Bahraini Shia citizens, the spectacle of their government maintaining ties with Israel while Iran — viewed by many as a protector of Shia interests — was under attack created a deeply uncomfortable situation. Street protests, while suppressed, occurred repeatedly throughout 2024 and 2025.
The Ambassador Recall and Its Aftermath
Bahrain recalled its ambassador from Israel in November 2023 during the initial Gaza crisis — a move that was intended as a temporary gesture but has become semi-permanent. As of April 2026, Bahrain has not sent a new ambassador to Israel, and diplomatic contacts have been reduced to a minimum.
The Bahraini parliament, though largely advisory, has passed multiple resolutions calling for the suspension of the normalization agreement. While the government has not formally complied, these resolutions reflect the depth of public opposition that constrains Manama’s options.
What Remains
In practical terms, Bahrain-Israel normalization in 2026 exists primarily on paper. There are no significant bilateral trade flows, tourism is negligible, and cultural exchanges have been suspended. The formal agreement remains technically in force, but it functions more as a diplomatic placeholder than a living relationship — something that can be reactivated if conditions change but that generates no meaningful activity in its current state.
Saudi Arabia: The Deal That Never Was
The most significant Abraham Accords story of 2026 is the one that did not happen: Saudi normalization with Israel.
The Pre-War Momentum
In the summer of 2023, Saudi-Israeli normalization appeared to be on the verge of completion. The Biden administration was actively mediating a deal that would have included Saudi recognition of Israel in exchange for a US defense treaty, access to civil nuclear technology, and a commitment to Palestinian statehood. The megadeal was described as the crowning achievement of Biden’s Middle East policy.
Then came October 7, 2023, and everything changed.
The Conditions That Cannot Be Met
Saudi Arabia’s position, articulated repeatedly by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, has remained consistent: normalization requires “irreversible progress toward Palestinian statehood”. This is not merely a rhetorical position — it reflects a genuine calculation that the Saudi public, and the broader Muslim world over which Saudi Arabia claims religious leadership, will not accept normalization without justice for Palestinians.
As of April 2026, the conditions for Saudi normalization are further from being met than at any point since the Abraham Accords were signed:
- Gaza remains under devastating conditions with no clear path to reconstruction or governance
- Settlement expansion in the West Bank has accelerated, reaching record levels in 2025
- No credible Palestinian state framework exists
- The US defense treaty that Saudi Arabia demanded faces opposition in the US Congress
- Public opinion across the Muslim world makes normalization politically toxic
The Strategic Patience
What makes Saudi Arabia’s approach sophisticated is that it has managed to extract benefits from the normalization process without actually normalizing. The mere possibility of Saudi-Israeli normalization has given Riyadh enormous leverage with Washington, resulting in expanded arms deals, defense cooperation, and economic partnerships that might not have materialized without the normalization carrot.
Saudi Arabia has also maintained its credibility in the Arab and Muslim world by holding firm on the Palestine condition. While the UAE took reputational damage for normalizing before Palestinian issues were addressed, Saudi Arabia positioned itself as the responsible actor — willing to engage but not at the expense of principle.
This is arguably the most strategically successful outcome of the Abraham Accords era — and it belongs to the country that did not sign.
Palestine: The Ghost at the Feast
Any honest assessment of the Abraham Accords must center Palestine, because Palestine is the reason the Accords are failing to achieve their broader objectives.
The Fundamental Miscalculation
The architects of the Abraham Accords believed that by demonstrating the economic benefits of normalization, they could create enough momentum to make the Palestinian issue irrelevant. This was a catastrophic miscalculation that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of Arab and Muslim public sentiment.
The Palestinian cause is not merely a political issue in the Arab world — it is a moral and identity question that transcends government policy. No amount of trade revenue or technology transfer can compensate for what hundreds of millions of Arabs see as the ongoing dispossession of a people. The events since October 2023 have reinforced this with a clarity that cannot be ignored.
The Human Cost
While this article focuses on diplomatic and economic analysis, it would be dishonest to discuss the Abraham Accords without acknowledging what is happening on the ground in Palestine. The humanitarian situation in Gaza — with massive displacement, infrastructure destruction, and civilian casualties — is not an abstraction for the Arab world. It is lived reality that shapes every conversation about normalization.
For the Middle East Insider, our position is clear: standing with Palestine is not about politics. It is about the fundamental principle that no diplomatic framework can be considered successful if it is built on the denial of basic human rights. The Abraham Accords, whatever their commercial merits, have not and cannot address this foundational issue.
What Palestinians Want
It is worth noting what is consistently absent from Abraham Accords discussions: Palestinian voices. Palestinians were not consulted on the Accords, were not offered meaningful concessions as part of the process, and have been the primary casualties of the political dynamics the Accords unleashed.
Palestinian civil society, academic institutions, and political organizations have been overwhelmingly critical of the Abraham Accords, viewing them as a mechanism for legitimizing occupation without addressing its causes. This perspective deserves to be centered, not footnoted, in any assessment of the Accords’ legacy.
Morocco and Sudan: The Peripheral Players
Morocco: Quiet Continuity
Morocco’s normalization with Israel was always primarily about one thing: US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. That recognition, granted by the Trump administration in 2020 and maintained by subsequent administrations, gave Morocco what it wanted before the ink was dry.
As a result, Morocco has the least interest in either deepening or abandoning its Israel relationship. Bilateral trade remains modest at approximately $500 million annually, focused primarily on agriculture, technology, and tourism. Moroccan public opinion is broadly pro-Palestinian, but the monarchy’s strong grip on foreign policy insulates the normalization from domestic pressure more effectively than in Bahrain.
The Israel-Morocco relationship in 2026 is best described as functional but low-profile — a practical arrangement that both sides maintain without enthusiasm.
Sudan: Effectively Suspended
Sudan’s participation in the Abraham Accords has been effectively suspended since the outbreak of civil war in April 2023. The country is consumed by a devastating internal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, with no functioning government capable of maintaining international agreements.
Whatever normalization existed between Sudan and Israel — which was always minimal and largely transactional (tied to Sudan’s removal from the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list) — is now irrelevant to a country where millions face displacement and famine. Sudan’s Abraham Accords participation is, for all practical purposes, a dead letter.
The Iran War’s Lasting Impact on Regional Diplomacy
The Iran conflict reshaped the Abraham Accords not just through direct military effects, but by transforming the broader regional diplomatic landscape.
The End of the Anti-Iran Alliance Fantasy
One of the original selling points of the Abraham Accords was that they would form the foundation of an Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran. This vision, promoted aggressively by both Netanyahu and Trump administration officials, assumed that shared threat perception would override the Palestinian issue.
The reality was more complicated. When the Iran conflict escalated in 2024-2025:
- The UAE prioritized its own security calculations over alliance commitments, maintaining back-channel communication with Tehran even while cooperating with Israel
- Bahrain’s proximity to Iran made it more cautious, not more aggressive, about its Israeli ties
- Saudi Arabia used the crisis to reinforce its insistence on resolving the Palestinian issue before any normalization, arguing that regional stability required justice rather than just alliances
- The Gulf states collectively showed that they would manage their Iran relationship independently, not as junior partners in an Israeli-led coalition
The anti-Iran alliance that was supposed to be the Abraham Accords’ security dividend never materialized in the form its architects envisioned. Gulf states cooperated with Israel on specific security matters, but they also cooperated with Iran on economic issues, and they made clear that being pro-Israel and anti-Iran was not a package deal they were interested in buying.
The China Factor
A development that has received insufficient attention in Abraham Accords analyses is the growing role of China as a Middle Eastern mediator. China’s brokering of the Saudi-Iran rapprochement in March 2023 demonstrated that the United States was no longer the only power capable of shaping regional diplomacy.
This has direct implications for the Abraham Accords. The Accords were fundamentally a US-brokered framework, dependent on American leverage and guarantees. As China’s regional influence grows and Gulf states diversify their strategic partnerships, the US-centric architecture of the Accords becomes less relevant. Gulf states increasingly have options that do not require them to choose between Washington and Beijing — or between Israel and their Arab and Muslim constituencies.
The Economic Ledger: Winners and Losers
Who Benefited
The primary economic beneficiaries of the Abraham Accords have been:
- Israeli tech companies: Access to Gulf capital and the Dubai hub for regional expansion has been genuinely valuable
- UAE financial services: Attracting Israeli fintech and establishing cross-border banking relationships has strengthened Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s positions as financial centers
- Defense contractors: Both Israeli and Western defense firms have benefited from increased security cooperation
- Real estate: Israeli investment in Dubai property has been a notable, if modest, new capital flow
Who Lost
The economic losers are less discussed but equally important:
- Palestinian workers and businesses: The Accords did nothing to address the economic strangulation of the Palestinian territories, and the political dynamics they created arguably made conditions worse
- Bahraini businesses: Companies that invested in Israeli partnerships have faced boycott pressure and reduced revenues
- Regional tourism: The promise of integrated regional tourism — where travelers could move seamlessly between Tel Aviv, Dubai, and Marrakech — has not materialized due to political complications
The overall economic assessment is that the Abraham Accords generated real but limited economic value, concentrated primarily in the UAE-Israel corridor. The transformative regional economic integration that was promised remains a projection, not a reality.
What Comes Next: Scenarios for 2026-2028
Scenario 1: Continued Fragmentation (Most Likely)
The most probable trajectory is continued fragmentation, where each Abraham Accords relationship follows its own path:
- UAE-Israel: Commercially active, diplomatically cautious
- Bahrain-Israel: Formally maintained, practically dormant
- Morocco-Israel: Low-profile continuity
- Sudan-Israel: Suspended indefinitely
- Saudi Arabia: No normalization without Palestinian statehood
Scenario 2: Expansion Through Palestinian Progress (Unlikely but Possible)
If a credible framework for Palestinian statehood emerged — perhaps through renewed international pressure or a change in Israeli government — the Accords could theoretically expand. Saudi normalization would become possible, potentially bringing other holdout states along. However, this scenario requires political changes that are not currently on the horizon.
Scenario 3: Formal Collapse (Unlikely but Not Impossible)
A major escalation — such as Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, another devastating operation in Gaza, or a direct military confrontation involving a Gulf state — could force one or more signatories to formally withdraw. Bahrain is the most likely candidate for this scenario, given its domestic pressures and the weakness of its bilateral relationship with Israel.
Lessons for the Region
The Abraham Accords experience offers several critical lessons for Middle Eastern diplomacy:
1. You Cannot Buy Your Way Out of a Justice Issue
The fundamental lesson is that economic incentives cannot substitute for addressing legitimate grievances. The Palestinian issue persists not because of insufficient economic engagement, but because of unresolved injustice. No amount of trade deals can change this equation.
2. Public Opinion Matters — Even in Authoritarian States
The assumption that Gulf governments could normalize with Israel without public support has been proven wrong. While these governments can pursue unpopular policies, they cannot sustain them indefinitely without consequences. The Accords have shown that even in states with limited democratic participation, public sentiment constrains foreign policy.
3. Security Cooperation Does Not Require Normalization
One of the ironies of the Abraham Accords is that the security cooperation they formalized was largely happening anyway through informal channels. The Accords added a diplomatic layer that created as many problems as it solved, particularly by linking defense cooperation to the politically toxic concept of normalization.
4. American Brokerage Has Limits
The Accords demonstrated both the power and the limits of American mediation. The US could bring parties to the table, but it could not ensure that the resulting agreements would withstand regional pressures — particularly when those pressures stemmed from American inaction on the Palestinian issue.
The View from Palestine
We end where any honest analysis of the Abraham Accords must end: with Palestine.
The Palestinian people did not ask for the Abraham Accords. They were not consulted, not represented, and not considered except as an obstacle to be managed. The promise that normalization would eventually benefit Palestinians through economic spillover and diplomatic pressure on Israel has been proven hollow.
In April 2026, Palestinians in Gaza face reconstruction needs estimated at over $50 billion by the United Nations. Palestinians in the West Bank face continued settlement expansion, military incursions, and the daily indignities of occupation. Palestinians in Jerusalem face ongoing displacement and restrictions on worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
None of this has been addressed by the Abraham Accords. The agreements were designed to work around Palestine, not for Palestine — and this fundamental design flaw is why they will never achieve the regional peace they promised.
The Middle East Insider stands firmly with the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, sovereignty, and justice. Any diplomatic framework that does not center these rights is not a peace agreement — it is a business arrangement wearing diplomatic clothing.
Conclusion: The Accords’ True Legacy
The Abraham Accords in 2026 are neither the historic breakthrough their supporters claimed nor the complete failure their critics predicted. They are something more instructive: a partial, fragmented, and deeply contested experiment in whether the Middle East can be reorganized around commercial interests rather than principles of justice.
The answer, six years in, is: partially, temporarily, and at a significant moral cost.
The UAE-Israel commercial relationship will likely endure because it serves genuine economic interests on both sides. But the broader vision of the Abraham Accords — a new Middle East where normalization spreads across the Arab world, where the Palestinian issue fades into irrelevance, where an Arab-Israeli alliance contains Iran — that vision is effectively dead.
What killed it was not the Iran war, though that contributed. What killed it was the persistent, undeniable, and increasingly visible reality that you cannot build lasting peace on a foundation of injustice. The Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom and dignity is not a side issue that can be negotiated away — it is the central moral question of the modern Middle East, and any diplomatic framework that ignores it will ultimately fail.
The Abraham Accords proved that Arab governments can normalize with Israel. What they could not prove — and what the next decade of Middle Eastern diplomacy will continue to test — is whether normalization without justice can survive the judgment of history.
