In August 2020, Donald Trump announced that his administration had brokered a groundbreaking treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the first normalization agreement between Israel and an Arab state in more than twenty years. Soon afterward, Bahrain joined the agreements, known as the Abraham Accords. How were these treaties achieved, and why did the parties involved see normalization as in their interest? In what ways have the accords altered the Middle East's political landscape, and how have they affected the question of Palestine?
This book is a groundbreaking in-depth analysis of the Abraham Accords, shedding new light on their causes and consequences. Elham Fakhro demonstrates how shared security concerns, economic interests, and regional political shockwaves led to a surprising strategic convergence between the Gulf states and Israel, setting the stage for covert relations to come out into the open. She examines the role of the Trump administration in negotiating the agreements and shows how the UAE and Bahrain have instrumentalized the accords to burnish their reputations in Western capitals. Fakhro underscores how Washington's Middle East policy shifted toward expanding the agreements at the expense of attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict-with profound costs. Offering a critical lens on a much-hailed agreement, this book argues that the pursuit of normalization in isolation from a lasting solution to the conflict has entrenched the conditions that continually plunge the Middle East into crisis.
Industry Reviews
The Abraham Accords were a watershed moment in Middle East politics. Elham Fakhro's well-researched book provides a much-needed comprehensive account of the origins of the accords, how it was negotiated, and what is its legacy. Clear, insightful, and timely, this is a must-read book for scholars and policymakers interested in Middle East today. -- Vali Nasr, Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University
Deeply researched, meticulously documented, cogently argued, and studded with original detail, this book sheds fascinating light on the complex and changing geopolitics of Israel and the Gulf. -- Avi Shlaim, author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
The Abraham Accords offers the first serious academic analysis of the efforts to promote normalization between Arab states and Israel, using wide-ranging interviews and acute analytical insights to shed light on a central but often misunderstood process in contemporary Middle East politics. -- Marc Lynch, author of The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East
While studies of the Abraham Accords abound, few, if any, have critiqued them from the perspective of its Gulf signatories: the UAE and Bahrain. Taking this as her starting point, Elham Fakhro challenges the efficacy of the accords as the basis for a new regional order that, at its core, denies agency to the Palestinians. Crisp in analysis, bold in argument, yet accessible in style, this innovative study will be essential reading for those wishing to understand how normalization between Israeli and Arab elites, the very premise of the Abraham Accords, is really seen across much of the Middle East. -- Clive Jones, Durham University and NTNU Norway
