{"id":464792,"date":"2026-05-28T18:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T18:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/464792\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T18:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T18:18:13","slug":"gulf-nations-unlikely-to-meet-trumps-abraham-accords-demands-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/464792\/","title":{"rendered":"Gulf nations unlikely to meet Trump\u2019s Abraham Accords demands, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gulf states are likely not taking US President Donald Trump\u2019s demand that they join the Abraham Accords seriously, viewing it as \u201cpremature and disconnected,\u201d two Middle East experts told The Jerusalem Post this week.<\/p>\n

A deal with Tehran<\/a> would largely hinge on Saudi Arabia<\/a>, Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf states normalizing ties with Israel, Trump suggested on Wednesday. \u201cI\u2019m not sure we should make the deal if they don\u2019t\u2026 join the Abraham Accords,\u201d he said in a cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n

Trump made the first public demand for normalization on Sunday, which was outright rejected by Pakistan, the mediator. Though not yet accepted by many of the countries enlisted to join the accords, some have previously expressed a willingness on the condition of the establishment of a Palestinian state. That condition which has not yet been met.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross much of the Persian Gulf, the proposal is viewed as premature and somewhat disconnected from postwar realities,\u201d Mojtaba Dehghani, a senior political analyst who has authored multiple articles on the Iranian regime for Independent Persian, the Persian-language edition of UK newspaper The Independent, told the Post.<\/p>\n

While Saudi Arabia\u2019s addition to the accords remains hinged on the prospect of Palestinian statehood, \u201cDoha and Muscat are currently more focused on constructing a regional balance that restrains both Iran and Israel, rather than joining a clearly anti-Iranian or pro-Israel bloc,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Bahrain'sBahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed participate in the signing of the Abraham Accords in Washington, September 15, 2020. (credit: TOM BRENNER\/REUTERS)UAE: A financial, technological, and commercial hub of a ‘new Middle East’<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sudden reintroduction of the Abraham Accords framework may raise more questions about Trump\u2019s broader strategic intentions than strengthen support for a deal itself,\u201d Dehghani said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Arash Azizi, an Iranian-American expert on the region, said he doubted that Trump or countries in the region were taking his condition seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously\u201d no country would be willing to normalize with Israel as long as it continues its current policies and is \u201cheaded by a prime minister indicted for war crimes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While new agreements seemed unlikely to both experts, Dehghani said such a trend would not apply to the United Arab Emirates, which is already a party to the accords and therefore has more to lose.<\/p>\n

Abu Dhabi\u2019s assessment is not limited to the \u201clens of energy security or Iran containment,\u201d he said, adding that it must also consider its influential regional competitor, Riyadh.<\/p>\n

For the past decade, the UAE<\/a> has centered Israel\u2019s security role in its plans to become an \u201cagile financial, technological, and commercial hub of a new Middle East,\u201d making it riskier should a \u201cweakened but intact\u201d Iran be left capable of continuing to disrupt shipping routes, ports, infrastructure, and the region\u2019s economic stability, Dehghani said.<\/p>\n

Both Azizi and Dehghani said regional trust in Washington was in question even if the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz was largely considered an important first step.<\/p>\n

Regional priorities now lay with \u201cdefining their relations with Tehran in a new era in which the US\u2019s commitment to the Gulf, and its abilities to hold on to such a commitment, are in question,\u201d Azizi said.<\/p>\n

Gulf states, unprepared for war, would be further angered if the conflict continued, he told the Post a few hours before Tehran launched a new wave of attacks on Kuwait.<\/p>\n

Dehghani said the consequences of the latest Iran war had \u201ceroded confidence in the traditional US-led security architecture\u201d in the region. A lack of real resolution to the conflict would likely see \u201cgreater security diversification,\u201d which would see relationships deepened with actors such as China and Turkey, he said.<\/p>\n

‘Enormous cost’ and ‘limited gains’ of American intervention<\/p>\n

The ramifications of such a regional pivot would likely also impact trust in Washington from countries outside the Middle East, and they would \u201creconsider excessive dependence on the United States as their sole security guarantor,\u201d Dehghani said.<\/p>\n

Both Azizi and Dehghani acknowledged that Gulf pressure had likely contributed to Washington agreeing to negotiate a deal with Tehran.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Dehghani said the \u201cenormous cost\u201d of the American military action compared with the \u201climited gains\u201d had led Trump to the conclusion that the war would not complete its objectives anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe war and the Hormuz crisis demonstrated that Persian Gulf economies are directly hostage to maritime security,\u201d he said. \u201cAttacks on infrastructure and energy routes sent a clear message to regional governments that even carefully maintained neutrality offers little protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar<\/a>, and Oman had strong incentives to encourage Washington toward de-escalation and diplomacy, even if their pressure was not the decisive factor by itself,\u201d Dehghani said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gulf states are likely not taking US President Donald Trump\u2019s demand that they join the Abraham Accords seriously,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[83,54,83420,42,87,6606,43,1823,78,3336,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-464792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abraham-accords","tag-donald-trump","tag-gulf-states","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-kuwait","tag-news","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-tehran","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}