The Abraham Accords – the 2020 agreements brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump in his first term – made the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain the first Arab states in a quarter-century to recognise Israel, with Morocco following and Sudan beginning a process it never completed. They were one of Trump’s genuine foreign-policy achievements. July 2026 is the month their method exposed its ceiling.
The U.S.-Iran war has reignited after a mid-June truce collapsed within weeks. American strikes resumed, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to unauthorised shipping and struck two Emirati tankers, and nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel. The question is no longer whether transactional diplomacy can open embassies. It can. The question is whether peace assembled from government bargains can survive a region where armed movements hold a veto over commerce, Gaza holds a veto over Saudi normalisation — and Israel has become the partner Washington finds hardest to manage.
What the Accords Actually Built
The name invoked Abraham, the patriarch shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The machinery was less theological: diplomacy, investment and security cooperation, with Israel and the UAE building especially close economic and defence ties.
That was not cosmetic. The accords overturned the assumption that every Arab-Israeli relationship must wait for a final settlement with the Palestinians. They created institutions with a stake in keeping relations alive. Even the Iran war has demonstrated part of their durability: after coming under Iranian attack, the UAE deepened its ties with both Washington and Israel rather than retreating from normalisation.
But the strength of the accords was also their limit. They connected states whose rulers already saw value in doing business. They did not settle the Palestinian question, rebuild failed states or disarm armed movements. Sudan’s process stalled before civil war shattered the state. Yemen’s Houthis were never candidates for an accord, yet can threaten shipping through Bab al-Mandeb. Libya’s rivals may now train together with American support, but that means rebuilding a state, not opening an embassy. The accords were a successful diplomatic club. They were never a regional security system.
The Stress Test They Could Not Contain
Trump nevertheless tried to turn them into one. In late May, while negotiating with Tehran, he declared that an Iran settlement should bring in new members, naming Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. The logic was recognisably Trumpian: stack enough bilateral bargains and the regional puzzle locks into place. Pakistan rejected the proposal, Riyadh’s position did not move, and Egypt and Jordan already recognised Israel.
Then the truce unravelled. By mid-July, U.S. strikes had resumed, the blockade of Iranian ports was reimposed and Iranian missiles struck two Emirati tankers.
That is the accords’ blind spot. Iranian state forces and aligned armed groups — the Revolutionary Guard at Hormuz, the Houthis at Bab al-Mandeb and Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border — hold a veto over regional commerce that no bilateral trade treaty reaches. The accords did not cause the failure. They contain no mechanism capable of preventing it.
Gaza raises a different wall. Saudi Arabia remains the indispensable prize, but Riyadh has tied recognition to an end to the war and a credible path towards Palestinian statehood. The Saudi king’s role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques makes normalisation politically harder while Gaza’s devastation dominates the region’s airwaves. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Palestinian statehood outright. No arms package or investment framework closes that gap.
The Qatari Boeing 747 accepted for the Air Force One fleet became an extraordinary symbol of Qatar’s access in Washington. Yet Doha still did not join the accords. A spectacular transaction can open a door. It cannot buy what a government considers survivable.
When Israel Becomes the Hardest Partner
The deeper problem is that Israel is no longer merely the beneficiary of Trump’s architecture. It is increasingly capable of breaking it. Netanyahu and Trump moved onto a collision course over the Iran settlement. Washington wants out of the war; Israel wants permanent freedom of military action and declared itself unbound by the preliminary agreement. Lebanon is now the practical test. The Rome framework’s “pilot zones” – Hezbollah disarmed, Lebanese troops deployed and Israeli forces progressively withdrawn – are transactional and incremental, precisely Trump’s preferred method. They work only if Hezbollah yields its weapons and Israel leaves. Netanyahu is indispensable to the agreement and equipped to destroy it.
Israel’s political cover in Washington is also thinning. A March Pew Research Center survey found that 60% of Americans viewed Israel unfavourably, including 57% of Republicans under 50. On July 15, 103 House Democrats joined Republican Thomas Massie in voting to strip $3.3 billion in military assistance. The amendment failed, but Democratic leaders split.
This is no unified movement. The progressive left, pro-Palestinian activists, fiscal conservatives and Republican non-interventionists arrive from different directions. Some criticism crosses into antisemitism, which must not be conflated with opposition to Netanyahu’s government or military aid. The decisive fact is simpler: automatic support for Israel is no longer secure in either party’s younger generation.
The shift extends abroad. Britain, Canada, France and Norway have sanctioned networks supporting violent Israeli settlers, while European governments debate trade restrictions tied to West Bank settlements. Israel is not a pariah: it retains the American alliance, powerful European relationships and durable Emirati ties. But Netanyahu’s government is drifting into partial isolation at the precise moment Trump needs Israel to become easier, not harder, for Arab states to embrace.
The accords should not be buried. Their existing relationships have survived because the interests beneath them are real. But their larger promise — that transactions could compound into a stable Middle East — has failed its first serious stress test. Transactions can break taboos, reward cooperation and keep embassies open. They cannot settle Palestine, rebuild Sudan, contain Iran or make Israel accept the discipline an American regional strategy requires.
Trump built a diplomatic marketplace. But the Middle East is not a bazaar where peace goes to the highest bidder. Gaza cannot be discounted, Iran cannot simply be bought off, and Israel cannot always be controlled. Sooner or later, geopolitics overturns the table.
