In September 2020 Israel with the US mediation signed bilateral agreements of normalization with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Later they were joined by Sudan (although unratified by Khartoum authorities until now) and Morocco. These revolutionary agreements were called "Abraham Accords" to show the common religious ground between Judaism and Islam, both seeing prophet Abraham as their forefather.
By Roman Yanushevsky
Jerusalem (INPS Japan) – Within the framework of the Abraham Accords, Arab states have recognized Israel’s sovereignty. It enabled the establishment of full diplomatic relations between them. （P-33)｜JAPANESE｜RUSSIAN｜
In fact, there are more Arab and Muslim states willing to improve their ties with Israel, and in the coming years we will see more countries joining the Abraham Accords. But due to certain domestic and regional issues they are not ready to shed light on their aspirations.
In practice the Arab-Israel alliance against Iran emerged by the end of 2017. Iran’s animosity towards the Jewish state and moderate Sunni states as well, Iranian nuclear ambitions and the Iranian support of various militant groups in the region, caused rapprochement between the enemies of the Islamic state.
Common enemy creates common grounds
Close unadvertised cooperation on the political and military level based on mutual regional interests between some Muslim states and Israel existed for many years. But the rise of a regional superpower of Iran with aggressive ambitions threw them in the arms of each other due to a common threat. In fact, the Abraham Accords helped to facilitate this communication and opened new ways of both secret and undisguised cooperation on different levels and in various spheres. One of these Arab-Jewish dialogues is related to nuclear technologies.
Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons since the 1960s, while its nuclear stockpile is between 80 to 400 warheads according to different estimates. Nevertheless, the Jewish states traditionally maintain a policy of nuclear ambiguity neither denying nor admitting the possession of nuclear weapons.
One of the reasons to do it was not to cause a nuclear arms race in the region. But Iran’s nuclear ambitions raise serious concerns and make this arms race almost inevitable.
Israel is ready to share with friends
In September 2022 Moshe Edri, director-general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (the atomic chief), declared that Israel could share different aspects of its nuclear technology and knowledge with Arab states that became a part of the Abraham Accords.
“We are hopeful that the new spirit in our region, as demonstrated in the Abraham Accords, will mark a path forward for meaningful, direct dialogue within our region, including in the nuclear fora,” he said.
“Israel’s state-of-the-art technology provides us with significant levels of knowledge and capabilities, which we are ready to share with others… under the IAEA umbrella,” he said in a speech to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Austria.
In general we can see a coordinated and determined effort in the region to counter the Iranian threat to the region both regarding its support of terrorist organizations and its nuclear program. It has all been enhanced in recent months.
The wind of change
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White house the nuclear dialogue with Iran has sharpened. We can see an American ultimatum to Iran to start negotiations on the curtailment of its nuclear program and the exchange of threats.
Although Iran’s positions weakened in the war with Israel, while main Iranian proxies suffered a serious blow to their capacities, some of these proxies are still causing devastation. For example, Houthis in Yemen, who are fomenting violence and havoc.
Iranians refused to lead direct talks with the US, but are willing to negotiate in an indirect way. If these negotiations fail, we might see a new regional war when Iran and its nuclear program are faced with an international coalition led by the US with Israel and moderate Gulf states. The basis for this coalition was laid by the Abraham accords, and was tested twice in April and October 2024 when Iran tried to retaliate against Israel and fired hundreds of missiles, the majority of them intercepted due to the common regional effort.
This article is brought to you by INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.