TRUMP PREDICTS MORE COUNTRIES WILL BE ADDED TO ABRAHAM ACCORDS

Mon 24 March 2025:

U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Monday that more countries will be added to the Abraham Accords, the series of normalization that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.

Trump, speaking to reporters at a Cabinet meeting at the White House, said more countries want to join the accords. The White House has singled out Saudi Arabia as a possible participant in the accords, although the Saudis have qualms about Israel due to the Gaza war.

The Abraham Accords are a series of historic normalization agreements signed in 2020 between Israel and several Arab nations, brokered by the United States. The first agreements involved the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed later by Sudan and Morocco.

They marked a significant shift in Middle East diplomacy, as these countries established diplomatic ties, trade relations, and cooperation with Israel, bypassing the long-standing precondition of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict first.

The accords aimed to promote peace, economic growth, and regional stability, though they’ve been praised by some for fostering dialogue and criticized by others for sidelining Palestinian statehood aspirations.

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The Saudi variable

Looking ahead, Israel’s position in the Middle East will remain precarious if it cannot build on the accords and expand its cooperation with more countries in the region.

The biggest prize is Saudi Arabia, which has significant leverage over the future of the Abraham Accords.

Since 2020, Riyadh has been able to monitor how the accords played out. If it joins, which seems unlikely in the foreseeable future, that would likely facilitate other Arab-Islamic countries following suit.

The Arab public has repeatedly shown itself to be committed to the Palestinian cause. In the last Arab Opinion Index of 2019-2020, conducted in 13 Arab countries representing some 300 million people, 88 percent of respondents rejected the idea of normalising relations with Israel. Seventy-nine percent said that Palestine remains the major concern for all Arabs. In Sudan, 79 percent of respondents said they oppose having relations with Israel before Palestinian rights are secured.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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