When President Trump spoke in Israel on Monday to celebrate the cease-fire in Gaza, he declared that it was time to seek “the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity” for the entire region.
The moment carried strong echoes of another speech that Mr. Trump gave in 2020, announcing the Abraham Accords — a series of diplomatic deals that saw Israel establish relations with several Arab countries..
On Monday, Mr. Trump praised the accords, saying that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, “did something very special” when he helped to broker them. He also hinted at his longstanding wish to expand them, suggesting that Israel could even make a deal with Iran, its archenemy in the region.
Though a comprehensive end to the war between Israel and Hamas has yet to be hammered out, Mr. Trump said the cease-fire meant “the historic dawn of a new Middle East.”
What are the Abraham Accords?
Signed in 2020 on the White House lawn, the first of the deals known as the Abraham Accords established diplomatic ties between Israel and two Gulf Arab states, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. A similar agreement with Morocco soon followed.
Until then, the only Arab states that had formally recognized Israel were Egypt and Jordan. Most others had pledged not to do so until the creation of a Palestinian state.
The lack of diplomatic relations meant that citizens of Israel could not travel to those countries, and vice versa. It also forced any trade and security cooperation under the table. Until the Abraham Accords, even direct phone calls to Israel were blocked in several Arab countries, including the Emirates.
President Trump has described the Abraham agreements as the crowning foreign policy achievement of his first term, and they have received bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers.
At the White House signing ceremony in 2020, Mr. Trump said that they marked “the dawn of a new Middle East,” speaking of a future in which “people of all faiths and backgrounds live together in peace and prosperity.”
What impact have the deals had?
The Abraham Accords have created an opportunity for expanded trade, security cooperation and tourism between the countries that signed them.
Israeli tourists and investors have poured into Dubai, the biggest city in the Emirates, and technology and energy companies have signed new deals. In 2024, trade between the two countries exceeded $3 billion, and regular flights continue to ferry travelers between the Emirates and Tel Aviv.
Morocco has also seen an influx of Israeli tourists. And to sweeten its incentives to sign the deal, the United States agreed to recognize the disputed Western Sahara territory as a sovereign part of Morocco.
The impact in Bahrain has been more modest, and protests against the accords have become a regular occurrence in the Gulf nation.
The accords have done nothing to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has deepened, rather than eased, contrary to the hopes of Emirati officials when they signed the deal. The current prospects for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza — a longstanding goal of Arab leaders — appear dim, even though several European countries have recently recognized Palestine.
Is this a peace deal?
Over the five years since the Abraham Accords were signed, Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, along with other American and Israeli officials, have repeatedly referred to the agreements as a “peace deal.”
“The blessings of the peace we make today will be enormous,” Mr. Netanyahu declared from a White House balcony when the accords were announced in 2020. “Ultimately, it can end the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all.”
Scholars of the region say that is merely a turn of phrase, belying the fact that there has never been a war between Israel and the U.A.E. or Bahrain. Morocco has also largely stayed out of the Arab-Israeli conflicts, aside from sending a token force to a 1973 war, more than 50 years ago. In effect, the deals bypassed the central conflict, between Israel and the Palestinians, declaring harmony between parties that were not fighting.
Will the Abraham Accords expand?
American and Israeli officials have frequently stated their desires, and expectations, for other countries to sign the accords. So far, that has fallen flat.
The biggest prize for supporters of the accords would be Saudi Arabia, the powerful, oil-rich kingdom that hosts the two holiest sites in Islam. But years of overtures to persuade Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel have so far failed. The Biden administration took up that mantle fervently, pursuing a deal that was predicated on the United States granting major benefits to the kingdom.
Analysts say that Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, with the immense suffering of Palestinian civilians, has made joining the accords a much harder sell for Arab nations.
Saudi officials have insisted recently that they would be unable to recognize Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel insists that it will never cede East Jerusalem, which it seized in the 1967 war and formally annexed in 1980.
Even if the war in Gaza ends permanently, the views of Saudi citizens toward dealing with Israel are overwhelmingly negative. That limits the space that the kingdom’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, has to maneuver for a deal.
David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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