By Ephraim Agbo
In September 2020, as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain joined Israel on the White House lawn to sign the Abraham Accords, a uncomfortable question hung in the air, unspoken but inescapable: Why now? And more pointedly, why would any Arab state formalize ties with a country whose nationalist right wing openly dreams of a "Greater Israel"—a biblical vision that, in its maximalist interpretation, encompasses vast swaths of Arab land?
The question has only grown more urgent in the years since. Far-right Israeli ministers now regularly visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to assert sovereignty claims. Settlement expansion in the West Bank continues unabated. And in August 2025, the UAE felt compelled to issue a public warning that Israeli annexation of Palestinian land would constitute a "red line" that could unravel the very agreements signed five years earlier .
How did the architects of the Abraham Accords believe they could reconcile normalization with an Israeli government increasingly animated by territorial maximalism? The answer reveals a complex tapestry of strategic calculus, threat perception, and a calculated bet that engagement, not boycott, would ultimately constrain the very ideology the Accords were meant to bypass.
The Threat That Overcame the Taboo
To understand the Arab calculus, one must first understand the scale of the perceived threat from Iran. For Gulf states, the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, and its network of proxies across the region presented an existential challenge that gradually outweighed the traditional taboo of dealing with Israel .
This was not a sudden conversion to Zionism but a pragmatic realignment of priorities. The UAE and Bahrain calculated that Israel's intelligence capabilities, cyber expertise, and missile defense technology were assets they needed in their portfolio. As one analyst noted, the Abraham Accords function less as a peace agreement and more as a "security pact wrapped in scriptural language" .
From this perspective, the Accords were never about endorsing Israel's ideological project. They were about survival in a dangerous neighborhood. The "Greater Israel" rhetoric emanating from Jerusalem was a irritant, even a concern—but it was not yet a tanks-on-the-border threat. Iran was.
The Annexation Off-Ramp
There is a more immediate, and often overlooked, reason the UAE agreed to normalize: stopping Israeli annexation of the West Bank .
In the summer of 2020, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was poised to unilaterally annex parts of the occupied West Bank, implementing a campaign promise that would have effectively buried the two-state solution. Emirati Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba made clear to the White House that normalization was possible—but only if Israel formally suspended its annexation plans .
The deal that emerged was therefore framed by the UAE as a diplomatic intervention to preserve the possibility of Palestinian statehood. It was, in the Emirati telling, not an abandonment of the Palestinians but a rescue mission. "Preventing annexation" became the official rationale, allowing Gulf leaders to argue that they had extracted a tangible concession from Israel in exchange for diplomatic recognition .
Whether that concession was temporary or durable remains an open question. By 2025, with annexation threats resurfacing, the UAE was forced to reiterate its "red line," suggesting that the original bargain may be wearing thin .
The "Honey Trap" Theory: Soft Power as Strategy
A more sophisticated—and controversial—interpretation suggests that Gulf states signed the Accords not despite "Greater Israel" ideology, but because they recognized that traditional methods of confronting Israel had failed. Military force had not bent Israeli will. Boycotts had not delivered Palestinian statehood. Perhaps a new approach was required .
This perspective, articulated by some Israeli defense analysts, posits that the Gulf states view the Accords as a strategic "honey trap." By engaging Israel economically and technologically, they aim to compete in the very arenas where Israel has long dominated—artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced technology—and gradually erode its comparative advantages .
In this reading, normalization is not capitulation but a long-term project to reshape the regional balance through soft power. If Gulf states can match or surpass Israel's technological edge, and if they can position themselves as indispensable partners to global powers from Washington to Beijing, they may eventually gain the leverage that decades of confrontation failed to produce .
This is a bet on the future, not an endorsement of the present. It assumes that "Greater Israel" ideology, while rhetorically potent, cannot survive the erosion of Israel's practical advantages.
The Limits of the Bet: Public Opinion and the Palestine Question
Yet for all the strategic sophistication of Gulf elites, they govern societies that remain deeply committed to the Palestinian cause. Polling throughout the 2023–2025 Gaza war showed a widespread decline in Arab public support for normalization . Protests erupted in Morocco and Bahrain. Criticism mounted across the region.
The Gulf states have so far weathered this storm. No signatory has withdrawn from the Accords . But the strain is evident. Saudi Arabia, the ultimate prize for normalization advocates, has repeatedly insisted that it will not formalize ties with Israel without a "clear path to Palestinian statehood"—a position that has hardened, not softened, since the Gaza war began .
The Saudis, who custodian Islam's two holiest sites, cannot easily ignore the religious and moral dimensions of the Palestine question. Their religious legitimacy is intertwined with their posture on Jerusalem. For them, "Greater Israel" is not an abstract ideological curiosity; it is a direct challenge to their role in protecting Muslim holy sites .
The Ideological Elephant in the Room
Which returns us to the original paradox: Can the Abraham Accords survive the ideological currents they were designed to bypass?
"Greater Israel" is not a coherent government policy, but it is a powerful mobilizing myth within Israel's ruling coalition. When ministers assert Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount, when settlement expansion accelerates, when annexation threats resurface, they test the limits of what Gulf states can tolerate .
The UAE's "red line" warning in August 2025 was a reminder that normalization has boundaries. It signaled that while Gulf states are willing to engage Israel strategically, they are not prepared to endorse—or be seen as complicit in—the erasure of Palestinian national aspirations.
The Accords, in this sense, are a wager: that the pragmatic benefits of engagement will outweigh the ideological provocations of Israeli maximalism. It is a bet that security cooperation and economic integration can build constituencies for restraint on both sides. And it is a gamble that the alternative—a return to boycott and confrontation—offers even less hope of constraining "Greater Israel" than the uncertain path of normalization.
The "Appeasement" Argument
Framing the Abraham Accords as "appeasement" draws a direct line to one of history's most cautionary tales: the 1930s policy of conceding to Nazi Germany's territorial demands in the hope of avoiding a wider war . Applying this lens to the current Middle East reveals a more complex reality. While there are superficial similarities—giving concessions to a revisionist power to manage a shared threat—the core logic and outcomes diverge significantly. The evidence from recent analyses suggests that what we are witnessing is not appeasement, but a strategic hedging strategy that is already beginning to fail and fracture.
At first glance, the analogy seems to fit a particular narrative. From this perspective, Arab states, particularly the UAE, chose to "give in" to Israel, normalizing relations and integrating it into the region's security architecture . They did this despite the ongoing occupation and the presence of an Israeli government with ministers who openly entertain the concept of a "Greater Israel." The gamble, in this reading, was that engaging Israel would moderate its behavior and that the shared goal of containing Iran was worth setting aside the Palestinian cause .
This could be seen as a form of appeasement: sacrificing a long-standing principle (the demand for Palestinian statehood) and a people (the Palestinians) to pacify a powerful actor and secure an alliance against a common enemy. The initial "concession" extracted from Israel—a temporary suspension of annexation—resembles the kind of limited, and ultimately reversible, promise that characterized the 1930s .
Why the Analogy Fails: Strategic Hedging vs. Abject Surrender
However, a deeper, journalistic analysis of the current geopolitical landscape reveals critical flaws in the appeasement analogy. The signatories of the Abraham Accords were not Chamberlain, naively trusting in Hitler's promises. They were, and remain, shrewd actors pursuing a multi-layered strategy that is fundamentally about managing risk, not capitulating to it.
1. The Threat Was Shared, Not Just "Aggressor vs. Appeaser"
Unlike the 1930s, where Britain had no direct grievance with Germany's targets, Gulf states share Israel's primary security concern: Iran. The Abraham Accords were built on a "deceptively simple logic: shared hostility toward Iran could anchor a new Gulf-Israeli security compact" . This was not about giving in to an adversary; it was about aligning with a powerful state to confront a mutually perceived existential threat . It was a realignment of interests, not a surrender of principles. As one analysis notes, the Accords were from the beginning a "security strategy in a regional alliance aimed against Iran" .
2. Concessions Were Not One-Sided
The appeasement analogy implies a one-sided flow of concessions. In reality, the UAE extracted a significant, immediate price for normalization: a suspension of Israel's planned annexation of West Bank territory . This was a tactical win, framed domestically as a diplomatic intervention to save the two-state solution. The signatories also anticipated concrete economic and technological gains, leveraging Israel's innovation economy to fuel their own diversification plans . This was a transactional bargain, not a capitulation.
3. The Crucial Shift: From Partner to Threat
This is where the historical analogy collapses entirely. The appeasement of the 1930s emboldened Hitler, leading to increasingly aggressive demands until war was unavoidable. The current dynamic has taken the opposite turn: the party that was being "appeased" (Israel) has become so aggressive that it is now被视为 by its erstwhile partners as a primary source of regional instability.
Recent analyses indicate a "profound transformation" in Gulf capitals. They increasingly view Israel not as a stabilizing partner, but as a "central security risk, often comparable to, or even greater than, Iran itself" . This perception was crystallized by events like the Israeli strike in Doha, which was seen as a direct threat to Gulf sovereignty and the region's vision of itself as an "island of safety and stability" .
The talk of a "Greater Israel" by members of Israel's government is not being appeased; it is being monitored with growing alarm. It amplifies the concern that Israel's "aggressive posture may draw them into unwanted conflict" . Far from falling in line, Gulf states are now pursuing a policy of "dual containment"—hedging against both Iran and Israel .
Conclusion: The Unresolved Tension
Five years after the Abraham Accords were signed, the tension at their heart remains unresolved. Arab states normalized relations with Israel not because they embraced its ideological project, but because they calculated that engagement served their strategic interests better than isolation.
They did so in the full knowledge that "Greater Israel" thinking persists within significant segments of Israeli politics and society. Their bet was that the practical logic of regional integration—the shared threat from Iran, the economic dividends of cooperation, the diplomatic leverage of recognition—would gradually marginalize the maximalists.
The events of 2023–2025 have tested that bet severely. The Gaza war, the settlement expansions, the annexation threats, and the far-right provocations at holy sites have all reminded Gulf leaders that the ideology they hoped to bypass remains very much alive.
Yet they have not walked away. For now, the calculation holds: engagement, however fraught, remains preferable to the certainties of conflict. Whether that calculation survives the next crisis, the next annexation threat, or the next outbreak of violence, is the question that will define the Middle East's future.
In the region where diplomacy, faith, and military calculus are inseparably intertwined, the Abraham Accords represent not a resolution but an ongoing experiment: Can strategic interest tame ideological ambition? The answer is still being written.
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