When assessing the evolving regional order in the Middle East, two pivotal moments stand out in shaping the concept of coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.

The first was the 1978 Camp David Agreement, which introduced the idea of Palestinian “self-autonomy” and laid the groundwork for the 1993 Oslo Accords. Camp David did not resolve the conflict, but it established a diplomatic vocabulary that acknowledged Palestinians as a distinct political community with rights that needed to be negotiated. The second — and perhaps equally transformative — was the 2020 Abraham Accords, which redefined the terms of regional engagement at a moment when the two-state solution was on the brink of collapse. At a time of eroding trust and rising skepticism, the Accords reintroduced the possibility that regional diplomacy could still shift political trajectories and prevent the conflict from entering a more extreme phase.

A diplomatic brake on annexation

Without the Abraham Accords, Israel’s 2020 annexation plan for the West Bank would likely have proceeded rapidly. At that time, under the Netanyahu–Gantz coalition, political momentum for annexation was strong domestically while international pressure was weak and fragmented. The United Arab Emirates’ intervention, brokered with US mediation, halted this trajectory. In exchange for normalisation with Israel, the UAE secured a commitment to suspend annexation, effectively rescuing the two-state solution framework from becoming obsolete. This suspension prevented a decisive break that would have made future negotiations nearly impossible. For many diplomats, it was a rare example of regional leverage shaping Israeli decision-making at a crucial moment.

Khamis Obaid Al Ali

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