What specific compromises did the Abraham Accords include, and how did Palestinians and regional actors respond?
Executive summary
The Abraham Accords were a set of U.S.-brokered normalization agreements by which Israel established formal diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and (to varying degrees) Sudan in 2020–2021, trading recognition, trade and cooperation for political and economic incentives rather than territorial concessions to the Palestinians [1] [2]. Palestinians and many regional actors responded with anger, political exclusion claims, and strategic recalibrations—some Gulf states emphasized that broader normalization would require Palestinian concessions or progress toward a state, while Iran and Palestinian factions framed the accords as a sidelining or betrayal of Palestinian rights [3] [4] [5].
1. What the Accords actually committed to: normalization, cooperation, and bilateral deals
The documents formalized diplomatic relations—embassies, direct flights, trade, technology, and security cooperation—between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, creating bilateral frameworks rather than a single multilateral treaty and signaling a shift from the Arab consensus that normalization must wait for Palestinian statehood [1] [6]. Each agreement emphasized mutual recognition, economic collaboration and sectoral ties (energy, defense, tourism, tech), with the U.S. as a prominent sponsor and security guarantor of the process [1] [7].
2. The limited “compromises” baked into the deals: what was given, what was deferred
Rather than exchanging Israeli policy shifts in the occupied territories for normalization, the Accords delivered concrete benefits to Israel (diplomatic legitimacy and new markets) and to the Arab signatories (investment, technology access, security cooperation and U.S. backing), while only offering Palestinians indirect or implied gains—most prominently, the UAE’s public claim that its deal helped pause Israeli annexation plans in 2020, a political concession some analysts accept as real but limited [8] [6]. The accords explicitly avoided negotiating Palestinian sovereignty or refugee issues; they did not require Israel to halt settlement expansion or end occupation—facts repeatedly noted by critics and scholars [9] [10].
3. Palestinian reactions: exclusion, delegitimization, and calls for resistance
Palestinian leaders and much of Palestinian public opinion rejected the accords as a betrayal that normalized Israel without securing Palestinian rights, with critics arguing the deals cemented “peace without the Palestinian people” and politically marginalized Palestinian claims to statehood and refugees [3] [11]. Some Palestinian commentators saw the UAE move as shelving the two-state dream and damaging negotiating leverage, and grassroots anger helped fuel protests and political polarization across Palestinian society [8] [3].
4. Regional responses: pragmatic embrace, strategic hedging, and vocal opposition
Gulf and North African rulers adopted pragmatic calculations: some accelerated diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel for security and economic gains, while others—most notably Saudi Arabia—publicly conditioned any normalization on meaningful progress toward Palestinian statehood, signaling a limit to the Accords’ expansion [12] [4]. Iran and allied actors denounced the Accords as a betrayal of Palestinian aspirations and as part of an anti-Iran axis, intensifying regional rivalries and prompting reactive security posturing [5] [7].
5. Competing narratives and hidden agendas behind the “compromises”
Supporters framed the Accords as a regional modernization and anti-Iran security realignment that could create a new political space for Palestinian progress via economic integration and leverage, while critics argued the real U.S.–Israeli goal was to decouple Arab-Israeli normalization from Palestinian concessions and to embed U.S. influence—an outcome that sidelined Palestinian agency and reduced leverage on Israel [6] [13]. Analysts differ on whether economic inducements constituted a meaningful compromise for Palestinians or simply a transactional sidelining of their rights [10] [2].
6. Where this left the conflict: stalled peace, new alignments, and political costs
By design or effect, the Accords shifted regional diplomacy away from Palestinian-centered prerequisites for normalization, producing immediate bilateral gains but leaving core Israeli–Palestinian questions unresolved; when violence later escalated, many observers argued the Accords’ failure to address occupation made them fragile and politically costly for signatories with domestic and regional publics sympathetic to Palestinians [13] [7]. Reporting and scholarship agree that while the Accords rewired some regional ties, they did not deliver the political compromises Palestinians demanded, and responses ranged from condemnation to conditional engagement across the region [3] [4].