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.