Diplomacy as leverage: How the Abraham Accords nudged Israel away from its hardest choices

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.

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.

Five years later, as Israel came under its most ideologically hardline government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich, and as regional instability intensified amid multiple conflicts, the Abraham Accords once again served as a moderating influence. The Israeli leadership, recognising the strategic and economic importance of its relationship with the UAE, and understanding the seriousness of the UAE anti-annexation stance, refrained from actions that could have jeopardised those ties, such as formal annexation or the outright rejection of Palestinian statehood. Even when rhetoric escalated domestically, the practical value of maintaining newly established regional partnerships acted as a counterweight. The Accords did not transform Israeli politics, but they introduced an external constraint that would not have existed otherwise and that continued to shape calculations even during periods of acute domestic polarisation.

In Gaza, the UAE’s role proved equally significant. It emerged as one of the largest providers of humanitarian aid, contributing nearly half of all international assistance entering the Strip through air, land, and sea. The fact that this aid was delivered without objection from Israeli ministers underscores the Accords’ pragmatic value: they created a channel of cooperation insulated from political hostility. The normalisation framework transformed the UAE into an engaged stakeholder able to leverage its relationship with Israel to advance humanitarian objectives and sustain vital corridors of assistance at moments when they were most needed. It also demonstrated that Arab engagement with Israel could yield concrete, immediate benefits for Palestinians, even when broader peace negotiations remained stalled or politically frozen.

At its core, the Abraham Accords offered Israelis a vision of what regional integration could deliver: connectivity, economic opportunity, and legitimacy extending beyond Western-led alliances. This experience stood in sharp contrast to the zero-sum mindset that had long shaped Israel’s security doctrine. For many in Israel, the benefits of peace and normalisation with Arab states became tangible and therefore politically valuable. Without such incentives, Israeli public discourse might have moved more firmly toward unilateralism and geopolitical isolation. The Accords illuminated an alternative path: one rooted in mutual interests rather than perpetual confrontation, and showed that regional cooperation could become a cornerstone of long-term stability rather than a distant aspiration.

Had the Abraham Accords not been signed, the region might have followed a path of deeper isolation, annexation, and irreversible damage to the idea of the two-state solution. Instead, the Accords preserved diplomatic space and anchored coexistence within a broader regional framework. Their future promise lies in leveraging normalisation not as a substitute for Palestinian statehood, but as a pathway toward it, demonstrating that peace, prosperity, and regional inclusion are inseparable components of a cohesive regional vision. In this sense, the Abraham Accords illustrate how strategic engagement, when paired with political will, can help prevent the most destabilising outcomes and keep alive the possibility of a more just and durable settlement.

Khamis Obaid Al Ali is a researcher in Israeli and Middle Eastern Affairs, ECSSR