Opinion | Can the Abraham Accords hold after the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire?

As US President Joe Biden assumed office in January, the long-settled geopolitical presumption of the Middle East order – that Arab states would never normalise relations with Israel without a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict – had already been jettisoned in a strategic realignment of the Gulf states with Israel and against Iran.

The announcement of the United Arab Emirates’ agreement to establish full relations with Israel in August 2020, followed by Bahrain’s announcement of a similar agreement less than a month later, brought about a rapprochement between Israel and moderate Gulf Sunni states that would have been unimaginable a year earlier. By the year’s end, Sudan and Morocco had signed similar normalisation agreements with Israel.

After little more than 100 days since taking office, Biden has brought about reversals in almost every aspect of the Middle East order that marked the Abraham Accords at the tail end of the Trump administration.

It is apparent that the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians and the Israeli military’s response in the occupied Palestinian territories took place in a regional context marked by Biden’s sudden reversal in US policies towards Israel and the Middle East of the previous administration.

Assuming the Egypt-brokered ceasefire announced last week holds, the question as to who has come out better off is on the mind of every observer of Middle East affairs.

The Hamas narrative surrounding their missile and rocket attacks refers to the expulsion of Palestinian tenants in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in east Jerusalem, and Israeli police actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan as motivating causes.