- Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have signed agreements to establish formal relations, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy as power and priorities shift in the Middle East.
- It is the first Arab-Israeli peace deal in 26 years.
- Egypt was the first Arab State to sign a peace deal with Israel in 1979.
- Jordon signed a peace pact in 1994.
- Abraham Accords, after the biblical father of three monotheistic religions.
- The texts of the agreements detail how the three countries will open embassies and establish other new diplomatic and economic ties, including tourism, technology and energy.
- Israel and the Emirates are beginning commercial air travel between their countries for the first time, and Bahrain has opened its airspace for those flights.
- The Abraham Accords also open the door for Muslims around the world to visit the historic sites in Israel and to peacefully pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam.
- They make scant reference to the fate of the Palestinians, but include a call for “a just, comprehensive and enduring resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.”
- They are also another step toward the formation of a de facto alliance
- between Israel and the Gulf’s Sunni Arab monarchies
- Against their common enemy, Shiite Iran.
- Pressuring Iran has been a central goal of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, and Trump officials have worked to build a common regional front against Tehran in which Saudi Arabia has played a major role.
- The Palestinians expressed their anger over the agreements by launching rockets into Israel from Gaza during the White House ceremony.
- Less than 50 days before the US November election.
- The Trump campaign, eager to portray the belligerent president as a diplomat and peacemaker, has capitalized on the agreements with online ads suggesting he deserves nothing less than the Nobel Prize, for which two right-wing Scandinavian lawmakers have nominated him.
- Trump said that if re-elected, he would try to strike a deal with Iran, which has so far refused to negotiate with him after he withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration.
- As a condition for the Emirates’ agreement to normalize relations, Mr. Netanyahu agreed to freeze his plan to annex portions of the West Bank.
- A public statement from the Palestine Liberation Organization called it “a black day in the history of the people of Palestine,” saying that peace requires “the end of Israel’s occupation.”
