How it all began

On September 15, 2020, the world watched as Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain shook hands in Washington, D.C., in a moment that broke decades of diplomatic deadlock. Brokered by the Trump administration, these were the first public Arab–Israeli normalization deals since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Morocco signed on in December 2020, in exchange for U.S. recognition of its claim to Western Sahara, and Sudan followed in early 2021 — though its path has been rocky ever since, complicated by civil war. In a surprise move in November 2025, Kazakhstan became the first Central Asian, and first non-Arab, non-MENA country to join the framework, a development detailed by the Caspian Policy Center.

The name “Abraham Accords” wasn’t accidental. It deliberately invokes the patriarch shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, signaling a hope for what officials at the time called a “culture of peace among the three Abrahamic religions.” More pragmatically, the deals shattered the old Arab League consensus that no normal relations with Israel could happen until the Palestinian issue was fully resolved — a shift examined at length by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

What everyone hoped to achieve

From the start, the Accords aimed for more than just swapping ambassadors. The goals, laid out in an INSS policy paper, were broad and interconnected:

• Full diplomatic ties — embassies, direct flights, and regular ministerial visits.
• Economic integration — trade, investment, tourism, tech, energy, water, agriculture, and health cooperation.
• Security collaboration — especially against Iran and extremist groups.
• People-to-people connections — cultural exchange, education, and tourism.
• A new regional architecture — a framework that could expand, reduce Israel’s isolation, and advance U.S. interests with less direct military or financial commitment.

Later initiatives built on this foundation. The Negev Forum, launched in 2022, brought signatories together to work on education, health, tourism, food and water security, and energy. The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), announced at the 2023 G20, envisioned a trade and infrastructure route linking India through the Gulf and Israel to Europe.

What’s actually happened since 2020

The biggest surprise to many observers has been resilience. Despite the Gaza war and a sharp drop in public support for normalization across the Arab world, no signatory has pulled out. Governments have kept ties pragmatic and functional, even when rhetoric cooled — a pattern documented by the Quincy Institute.

Trade and economic gains

The numbers tell a clear story of growth, especially between Israel and the UAE, per the Heritage Foundation’s five-year report:

Israel’s trade with UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan combined rose from roughly $1.97 billion in 2021 to about $4.56 billion in 2025 — an increase of around 131%. Total trade from 2020 through mid-2025 with these partners reached approximately $16.7 billion. Morocco–Israel goods trade totaled about $576 million between 2021 and 2024, while Bahrain’s volume was smaller, around $50 million cumulative over the same period, though it showed signs of recovery later, according to the Mises Institute.

Official merchandise statistics likely undercount the full picture, since they often exclude services, software, cyber, defense sales, and investments. Broader estimates of total economic value have exceeded $10 billion in peak years, per the Heritage Foundation.

Tourism and people-to-people ties

Travel has surged where politics allow it. Israel–UAE passenger traffic reached about 1.53 million travelers in 2025, up more than 70% from 892,000 in 2024. At peak, there were 136 direct flights per week between the two countries. Cumulative Israeli visits to the UAE have surpassed 2 million since normalization, according to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Defense and security cooperation

Behind the scenes, security ties have deepened significantly. Morocco has acquired roughly $2 billion in Israeli military equipment, including air-defense systems and reported satellite deals. Abraham Accords countries’ share of Israel’s defense exports rose from about 3% in 2023 to 12% in 2024, amid record Israeli arms exports of $14.8 billion, per the Heritage Foundation.

Quiet coordination — intelligence sharing, joint exercises, air-defense coordination, and technology partnerships in drones, cyber, and surveillance — has expanded, especially between the UAE and Israel and between Morocco and Israel. Shared concerns about Iran have kept this cooperation going even during the Gaza war, according to a JINSA insight brief.

Dozens of intergovernmental agreements and memoranda of understanding have been signed across AI, space, water technology, precision agriculture, fintech, and health. The Negev Forum made working-level progress before the 2023 war interrupted plans for a ministerial expansion.

“The Accords function as a resilient foundation rather than a finished edifice.” — Quincy Institute analysis, 2026

What’s still unfinished

For all the progress, the Accords’ original, sweeping vision remains incomplete. The biggest missing piece is Saudi Arabia, whose absence looms over every conversation about the framework’s future, notes the Quincy Institute.

• Saudi Arabia. Before October 2023, talks were advancing. After the Gaza war, Riyadh hardened its public stance: normalization is now explicitly conditioned on credible progress toward a Palestinian state, including an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza and a “clear and irreversible path” to statehood. Saudi officials have called this position “unequivocal and non-negotiable.”
• Sudan. Full ratification remains stalled due to ongoing civil conflict, per Times of Central Asia.
• Other potential partners. Countries like Indonesia and Qatar face similar public-opinion and Palestinian-issue hurdles, according to JINSA.
• Aspirational projects. A broader Middle East Security Alliance, free-trade areas among Accords members, and large infrastructure visions like IMEC remain largely on paper.
• Public opinion. Support for normalization in many Arab societies fell sharply after October 2023, in some polls dropping into the low teens or single digits, limiting the political space for leaders to move.

As of late 2026, the Trump administration has publicly pushed for further expansion — naming Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan among others — but concrete new Arab accessions have not materialized at scale. Security coordination continues, and economic ties with existing partners have largely recovered or grown, per Israel National News.

Why Israel — and the U.S. — drove this forward

Israel had clear, hard-nosed reasons to pursue the Accords: end decades of regional isolation, open new markets and technology partnerships, and build a de facto coalition against Iran and its proxies. Public normalization delivered tangible legitimacy, investment, tourism revenue, and defense customers without requiring prior concessions on core security or territorial issues, according to INSS.

The United States — especially under Trump, with key roles played by figures like Jared Kushner — supplied the diplomatic energy, incentives, and political cover. The long-standing U.S.–Israel relationship, shared strategic concerns, and domestic political support in the U.S. made Washington the natural broker. American Jewish organizations and individuals had for years encouraged quiet engagement between Israel and Gulf states, but the Accords themselves were a state-to-state project driven by overlapping national interests, not a singular initiative of any one community.

Gulf states, particularly the UAE and Bahrain, had already developed clandestine security and commercial ties with Israel in the 2010s. Their calculations rested on threat perceptions of Iran, frustration with the Palestinian leadership’s approach, and a desire for Israeli technology and economic diversification away from oil. Morocco sought U.S. recognition of Western Sahara; Sudan sought removal from the state-sponsors-of-terrorism list and debt relief. These were mutual-interest bargains, not one-sided concessions.

Why others didn’t move first

Most other Arab and Muslim-majority countries didn’t launch equivalent initiatives earlier, for structural reasons laid out by INSS:

• The Arab League’s historical consensus linked recognition of Israel to a comprehensive Palestinian settlement.
• Domestic public opinion and Islamist opposition made open ties politically costly.
• Many lacked the same intensity of shared Iran threat perception, or the same economic complementarity with Israel’s high-tech and defense sectors.
• Without active U.S. brokerage and tangible side-payments — arms, recognition, debt relief — the political risk outweighed the perceived gains.

In short: Israel had the strongest incentive to break its isolation; the United States had the leverage and relationships to facilitate deals; and a subset of Arab states calculated that the benefits of open partnership now exceeded the costs of waiting for a Palestinian breakthrough that had not materialized for decades.

Where things stand in 2026

Six years on, the Abraham Accords have delivered durable bilateral relationships, measurable economic gains — especially between the UAE and Israel — growing defense integration, and a new paradigm that prioritizes pragmatic interests over ideological linkage to the Palestinian issue. They survived their most severe stress test, the post-October 7 war, without collapse. Trade, flights, and security cooperation continue.

Yet the vision of a broad, transformative regional realignment remains incomplete. Saudi Arabia is the pivotal missing piece. Public Arab support has eroded. Palestinian statehood and Gaza reconstruction questions continue to constrain further expansion. The Accords function as a resilient foundation rather than a finished edifice: economic and security ties among existing members are real and growing, but the larger architecture of Middle East integration still depends on resolving — or managing — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and restoring political space for additional governments to join.

The data show that where politics permit engagement, the results are tangible: billions in trade, millions of travelers, and shared security capabilities. Whether that model expands further will depend on leadership choices in Riyadh, Jerusalem, Washington, and beyond — and on whether the underlying mutual interests can again outweigh the political costs of open partnership.