The social media post by President Trump made it sound straightforward. The United States would orchestrate a deal to end the war with Iran and, in exchange, a slew of countries across the Middle East and South Asia would join an agreement, called the Abraham Accords, establishing relations with Israel.<\/p>\n
In fact, he said, that \u201cshould be mandatory.\u201d But half of the countries he named \u2014 such as Egypt, Jordan and Turkey \u2014 already have relations with Israel. And the other half \u2014 including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan \u2014 have no interest<\/a> in establishing them anytime soon.<\/p>\n As a result, the meandering ultimatum<\/a> that Mr. Trump shared on Monday was met with a mix of silence and bemusement across the Middle East. Regional analysts said they were not even sure that they understood the rationale behind his proposal. Why would ending the war, which the United States and Israel initiated by bombing Iran on Feb. 28, provide an incentive to recognize Israel for countries like Qatar, which had lobbied desperately to prevent the war in the first place?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just bizarre,\u201d said Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University in Israel. \u201cWhat\u2019s the connection between a deal with Iran and that? I\u2019m honestly puzzled.\u201d<\/p>\n Two Western diplomats in the region said that no one was really taking the idea seriously. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomacy.<\/p>\n Asked to explain the connection between peace negotiations with Iran and expanding the Abraham Accords, a White House spokeswoman did not answer directly. Instead, she referred to remarks made by Mr. Trump on Wednesday, when he suggested that U.S. agreement on a deal with Iran could be made contingent upon countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar agreeing to recognize Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cI think those countries owe it to us,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure we should make the deal, if they don\u2019t sign.\u201d<\/p>\n The Saudi and Qatari governments did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Under the Abraham Accords<\/a> \u2014 a deal brokered by the first Trump administration in 2020 \u2014 the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. A wide range of American politicians have portrayed the pact as a major diplomatic achievement, and have frequently referred to the accords as a \u201cpeace deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Scholars from the region say that is merely a turn of phrase, belying the fact that there has never been a war between Israel and Bahrain or the Emirates. In effect, the deals bypassed the central conflict \u2014 between Israel and the Palestinians \u2014 declaring harmony between parties that were not fighting.<\/p>\n Since then, the Abraham Accords have created opportunities for expanded trade, security cooperation and tourism between the countries that signed them. The Emirates, the Arab architect of the accords, has grown especially close<\/a> to Israel. But the accords did not usher in a new era of regional peace \u2014 far from it<\/a> \u2014 and the Emirates\u2019 warm ties with Israel have increasingly made it an outlier<\/a> in the Middle East.<\/p>\n For Israel, the crowning of the Abraham Accords would be the normalization of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy and home to Islam\u2019s holiest sites. Saudi Arabia does not formally recognize Israel, although successive U.S. administrations have made it their goal<\/a> to change that.<\/p>\n Few consider that a possibility now. Over the past couple of years, Saudi officials have consistently predicated ties with Israel on the creation of an independent state for Palestinians. Israel\u2019s current government \u2014 the most right-wing in the country\u2019s history \u2014 vehemently opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and is unwilling to even talk of a pathway to one.<\/p>\n \u201cSaudi Arabia will not be rushed into a historic decision that ignores Palestinian statehood,\u201d said Salman al-Ansari, a Saudi political analyst. \u201cSaudi Arabia\u2019s commitment to a two-state solution is not a slogan, and it is not a bargaining chip.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s language implied that he was giving an order, not making a request.<\/p>\n \u201cIt should start with the immediate signing by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and everybody else should follow suit,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, they should not be part of this Deal in that it shows bad intention.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps even Iran \u2014 Israel\u2019s archenemy \u2014 could join the Abraham Accords, Mr. Trump mused.<\/p>\n \u201cWow, now that would be something special!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Soon after, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who had recently slammed the potential deal with Iran, wrote his own post<\/a> on social media calling it a \u201csimply brilliant\u201d idea to link the deal with the expansion of the Abraham Accords.<\/p>\n \u201cI expect our Arab allies to embrace this,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n If taken at face value, those statements would seem to indicate an ignorance of political dynamics in the Middle East, analysts said. An association with Israel \u2014 never popular<\/a> among Arab populations \u2014 has become even more toxic for many governments in the Middle East as a result of the devastating wars that Israel has waged in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023.<\/p>\n The more that American officials push for normalization as an imposition rather than as part of a mutually beneficial deal<\/a>, \u201cthe more unpalatable it becomes,\u201d said Abdulaziz Alghashian, a Saudi scholar and senior nonresident fellow at the Gulf International Forum, a research organization.<\/p>\n Under the Biden administration, the Saudi crown prince had been seeking substantial incentives from the United States in exchange for establishing ties with Israel, including access to American nuclear technology and a U.S.-Saudi defense pact.<\/p>\n The extent to which Mr. Trump\u2019s mandate came across as a complete non sequitur in the Middle East made Mr. Alghashian think that the Abraham Accords were possibly \u201cthe only clear strategy the U.S. has in the region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A deal with Iran appears shaky at best<\/a>, and fighting has continued to flare<\/a> as diplomats have negotiated the details. In Israel, Mr. Trump\u2019s linkage between that deal and an expansion of the Abraham Accords has been largely met by baffled silence.<\/p>\n