34 | SEPTEMBER 23 • 2021 

ERETZ

J

ared Kushner had plenty of folks to 
praise at an event in Washington 
Sept. 14 marking the first anniversary 
of the Abraham Accords, the deals he bro-
kered normalizing relations between Israel 
and four Arab countries.
There were the ambassadors from Israel 
and two of the Arab lands, Bahrain and 
the United Arab Emirates. There were his 
Trump administration colleagues who 
worked through the agreement. There were 
even some Democrats.
Together, it was a remarkable show of 
comity over Middle East policy at a time 
when Republicans and Democrats seem fur-
ther apart than ever.
For Kushner, the priority was to uphold 
bipartisan backing for the accords as a 
means of expanding them. The accords have 
“achieved a bipartisan consensus, and this is 
very, very important,
” he said.
Rep. Deutch (D-Fla.), the chairman of 
the House Middle East subcommittee, gave 
Kushner’s claim credence.
“It’s impossible not to be optimistic 
one year in,
” he told reporters afterward. 
“The Biden administration is committed 
to strengthening and building upon the 
Abraham Accords and that, of course, 
means bringing more countries to the table.
”

Here’s an update on the Accords so far:

THE UAE
The United Arab Emirates deal is the big-
gest success of the four, and Israel and the 
UAE have already exchanged official ambas-
sadors. The UAE has rolled out the red car-
pet for top Israeli officials, including Foreign 
Minister Yair Lapid.
Commercial ties are also thriving. A 
massive UAE investment in Israel’s offshore 
natural gas extraction is going ahead. Tens 
of thousands of Israelis visited the UAE in 
the months after the signing. A kosher food 
industry is blossoming in Dubai.
There is still one important point of 
tension: Israel’s military actions against the 
Palestinians.

BAHRAIN
Bahrain, which houses a Jewish community 
that’s more than a century old and which 
has had quiet relations with Israel and the 
pro-Israel community since the 2000s at 
least, did not need a lot of convincing to 
buy into the accords. Two months after the 
signing, Bahrain’s commerce minister was 
in Jerusalem formalizing already existing 
commercial ties.
Bahrain has named an ambassador to 

Israel, but has not yet established an embas-
sy in Israel. Houda Nonoo, who in the 2000s 
made history as the first Jewish ambassador 
from an Arab country to Washington, said, 
“I believe that the growing partnerships 
between Bahrain and Israel will lead to sus-
tainable peace in the region.
” 

MOROCCO
There’s a huge Moroccan Jewish community 
in Israel that has since the 1990s traveled 
back to the country on pilgrimages. And it 
has a large remnant Jewish community. A 
number of Moroccan Jews are advisers to 
King Mohammed VI. Morocco and Israel 
have existing commercial and, reportedly, 
security ties.
The countries have so far exchanged 
envoys and have launched for the first time 
ever direct commercial flights. 
But the overwhelmingly pro-Palestine 
Moroccan citizens are not thrilled about the 
relationship. Israeli violence in Jerusalem 
and Gaza in May 2021 did not help the mat-
ter and led to numerous protests across the 
country.

SUDAN
Sudan is another country that has long had 
sub rosa ties with Israel; it played a critical 
role in the 1980s in the wave of Ethiopian 
Jewish immigration.
Right now, its deal with Israel is stuck, not 
because any of the parties are having second 
thoughts. Sudan’s government is contending 
with internal tensions as it transitions to 
democracy that have frustrated its overall 
efforts to engage with the international 
community. 

WHO’S NEXT?
The big domino that could lead to a cas-
cade of mutual recognition in the Arab and 
Muslim worlds is Saudi Arabia. 
But that’s not likely to happen soon: 
Lawmakers in Congress, mostly Democrats 
but a number of Republicans as well, see the 
country as toxic because of its human rights 
abuses, including its murder of a U.S.-based 
journalist in 2018, and because of its Yemen 
war interventions. 
That said, there are a number of countries 
that already have informal ties with Israel 
that could easily transition to full-blown ties, 
among them Oman, Mauritania, Indonesia 
and Qatar. 

Abraham Accords:
One Year Later

RON KAMPEAS JTA

RON KAMPEAS/JTA

Jared Kushner, fourth from the right, poses 
with the ambassadors from Israel and the 
UAE and others at an event marking the 
Abraham Accords anniversary.

