TEL AVIV, Israel—After Oct. 7, 2023, and amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, the Abraham Accords remain in place and may soon be expanded, according to a Heritage Foundation visiting fellow based in Israel.
“To be honest, President [Joe] Biden was not able to add any additional countries to the Abraham Accords. Now that President [Donald] Trump is back in office, we’re seeing a great amount of interest,” Asher Fredman told The Daily Signal.
Under Trump’s first administration, the U.S. brokered the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and four nations, Morocco, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Sudan, though the agreement with Sudan has been affected by the Sudanese civil war.
The accords aim to foster peace and healthy trade relations between Israel and counties in the Middle East and North Africa, and are named after Abraham, a significant religious figure for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.
The nations that signed onto the Abraham Accords have “benefited both in terms of their relationship with Israel and in terms of their relationship with the United States,” Fredman said, noting that trade between the nations has increased even after the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The UAE-based Technology Innovation Institute, for example, has opened an office for artificial intelligence research in Israel. “Now, imagine if we combine that with the relationship that Israel and the United States have on AI, the United States and the UAE [have], that through cooperation [on AI] could help ensure American and Israel and Emirati technological leadership in this key field,” Fredman said.
Fredman was a part of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, which was established under the leadership of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, but which has since been absorbed into The Heritage Foundation. The mission of the institute was, and remains, to track and advance the relationships between the countries who are a part of the accords.
Because there are “great benefits for all the countries involved” in the accords, “additional countries are looking to join,” Fredman said.
“There’s a lot of interest. There’s a lot of talk about Saudi Arabia,” he said, noting, “that of course would be the jewel in the crown, peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
Other nations that have previously been reported to have considered signing onto the agreement include Indonesia, Mauritania, the Maldives, and the Comoros, he said.
While the war between Israel and Hamas has changed the situation in the Middle East, and Iran remains a major threat to Israel, the “logic” of the Abraham Accords is still very attractive to countries in the region, Fredman asserted.
Because of “the economic logic, the security logic, but also the logic that’s built on the shared desire for a future that’s based on cooperation, not conflict, that’s based on mutually beneficial, multilateral initiatives,” he said, there remains “quite a lot of interest in the Abraham Accords.”
Even given the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel, Fredman estimates more countries will join the Abraham Accords in the next two years.
