‘Normalisation’ with Israel: What it means and why it’s not happening

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was a welcome guest of US President Donald Trump in Washington earlier this month, promising billions of dollars of investment and striking deals to buy F-35 fighter jets.

But he refused to announce something that Trump, and indeed, previous occupants of the Oval Office have longed for: full and formal ties between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Israel.

Under Trump, Israel signed the Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain (both in September 2020), Morocco (December 2020), and Sudan (January 2021).

It resulted in formal recognition of Israel, full diplomatic relations, and, crucially, bilateral trade agreements.

But since then, Israel has embarked on genocide in Gaza, war on Lebanon and attacks on the likes of Yemen, Iran, Syria and Qatar, causing anger across the region, major headaches for those Arab states who struck deals, and governments considering their own accords to think again.

During his meeting at the White House, the crown prince said in response to reporters’ questions: “We believe having a good relation with all the eastern countries is a good thing. And we want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of a two-state solution.”

What is ‘normalisation’ with Israel?

Arab neighbours of Israel, as well as many Muslim-majority countries, have boycotted the state since its creation in 1948.

“Normalisation” is the process through which ties are formalised, not just economic and diplomatic but also across intelligence sharing, communications, technology and culture among others.

For many, the word “normalisation” is problematic, given the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, including Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as wider Israeli policies in the region.

Israel has long been regarded as a “rogue state”, calling into question how there can be such a thing as “normal” relations. It also implies that there has been no contact between Israel and the country with which it has signed a deal, when in fact these ties have happened covertly or through third parties.

Even before the creation of Israel, Arab and Muslim-majority states boycotted Jewish settlements in Palestine.

The new state was subsequently not recognised by the Arab League’s founding member states (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and North Yemen) after it was declared in May 1948 amid the Nakba, during which an estimated 13,000 Palestinians were killed and a further 750,000 expelled by Zionist militia.

In December 1954, the League passed Resolution 849, which further formalised the boycott. Nations outside the region, many of which had just secured independence, also shunned Israel, including Indonesia and Pakistan. Iran, which maintained ties under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah, cut all relations in 1979 following the Islamic Revolution.

Egypt and Jordan strike deals with Israel

In 1977, under the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the US adopted laws banning US companies from participating in the Arab boycott.

Carter said that the legislation was borne out of the US’s “special relationship with Israel” and would “help lessen tension in the Middle East and lead to permanent peace in that region”.

In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat met Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli parliament. Egypt began diplomatic relations with Israel in 1978 following the US-brokered Camp David Accords.

The accords gained Egypt favour in Washington, including economic support, and the return of the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East war. 

In return, Egypt loosened its economic boycott, finally allowing Israeli cargo to pass through its waters, including the Suez Canal.

But the deal was met by anger in the Arab World, and the Arab League suspended Egyptian membership until 1989. Opposition ultimately also led to the assassination of Sadat at an annual victory parade in Cairo in October 1981.

No further deals followed until 1994, when Jordan signed a treaty with Israel after the US-brokered Oslo Accords, which secured mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation with a view to the creation of a future Palestinian state.

In 2002, the Arab League endorsed the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative, which aimed to “normalise” Arab-Israeli relations in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights and to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. 

The initiative was further backed at League summits in 2007 and 2017, and had the support of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas. But it was rejected by Israel. 

The Abraham Accords with Bahrain and UAE

In September 2020, Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the UAE and Bahrain at the White House, where they signed the first of the Abraham Accords.

The deal saw the Arab countries exchange embassies and secure trade with Israel, and ensure favour from the US.

Since then, trade between the UAE and Israel has risen sharply to $3.2bn in 2024, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.

The UAE has bought into Israeli arms exports, with Israeli arms giant Elbit and state-owned Controp now operating subsidiaries out of the UAE. 

Netanyahu told the Gulf states: “You have unequivocally stood by Israel's side. You have boldly confronted the tyrants of Tehran. You have proposed a realistic vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and you have successfully brokered the historic peace that we are signing today.”

The accords were regarded as a betrayal by many Palestinians. Yet they met little criticism from other Arab leaders, and no one was suspended from the Arab League. 

But Iran critcised the accords. In September 2020, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said: “The UAE betrayed the world of Islam, the Arab world, regional countries and the Palestinian cause. What the UAE government did is a stain of dishonour. Of course, their policy will not work.”

In the coming months Sudan and Morocco joined the accords, although Sudan’s commitment remains unratified amid the country’s ongoing civil war. 

Morocco and Israel prviously had open diplomatic ties, notably after the Oslo Accords, but their diplomatic offices were closed amid the Second Intifada of the early 21st century.

In exchange for Morocco recognising Israel, Washington reciprocated by recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which the kingdom has occupied since the 1970s. 

Morocco has also strengthened ties with the Israeli arms industry, selecting Elbit as its main arms supplier in February 2025, and sending military delegations to Israel in August 2025. 

Meanwhile, following the accords, Sudan was no longer described as “a state sponsor of terror” by the US, a designation which had hurt its economy for three decades.

Genocide in Gaza hits deals

There was an expectation that the next country to be party to the Abraham Accords would be Saudi Arabia, the region’s biggest economic power.

In September 2023, a US-brokered deal between the two states appeared imminent, with Mohammed bin Salman telling Fox News “every day we get closer” to a deal, calling it “the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War”.

But any proposals were abandoned following Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 69,000 Palestinians so far, and drawn mass protests in states with diplomatic relations with Israel, including Jordan and Morocco.

Saudi Arabia has long said that it will not normalise ties with Israel before the establishment of a Palestinian state, and has assured the Palestinian leadership that it won’t do so while Netanyahu leads Israel. 

And Israel, far from withdrawing from occupied Palestine as proposed by the Arab Peace Initiative, has passed provisional legislation to formally annex the West Bank, which it has illegally occupied since 1967.  

Qatar, Palestine’s firmest Arab advocate in the Gulf, explicitly ruled out a deal with Israel during Trump’s first term. This stance hasn’t changed, not least in the wake of Israel’s bombing of Hamas negotiators in Qatar in September 2025, which forced an apology from Netanyahu.

Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Sharaa has also ruled out ties with Israel - despite Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar talking up potential “normalisation” with Syria to journalists in June 2025.  Sharaa told Fox News on 11 November: “I believe that the situation in Syria is different from the situation of the countries who signed on to the Abraham Accords.

“Syria has borders with Israel, and Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967. We are not going to enter into negotiation directly right now. Maybe the United States administration with President Trump will help us reach this kind of negotiation.”

Having seized further territory from Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel has troops stationed in southern Syria.

Turkey, which has held diplomatic ties with Israel since 1949, announced it would sever these in November 2024 amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Ankara subsequently closed its airspace to Israel, banned Israeli ships from its ports and said it had ceased trade. But there is continued evidence of exports, not least Turkish tankers delivering crude oil to Israeli ports.

Saar also named Lebanon, which Israel technically regards as an “enemy state” and vice versa, for possible “normalisation”, but it has also so far resisted. 

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The country’s leadership, under President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, wants to disarm Hezbollah. But Aoun has distinguished between making peace with Israel and full ties, including recognition, which many in Lebanon would see as capitulation. 

Aoun said on 11 June: “Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalisation, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy.”

Other Arab states still resistant to the idea of deals with Israel include Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Yemen. 

Meanwhile, Iran, a long-time opponent of Israel that backs Hamas and Hezbollah, is perhaps the least likely state to normalise relations.

In September 2025, during a joint press conference with Netanyahu, Trump said that Iran could one day join the Abraham Accords. “Who knows, maybe even Iran can get in there. We hope we’re going to be able to get along with Iran. I think they’re going to be open to it. I really believe that. But they could be a member.”

But on 12 October, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said: “Iran will never recognize an occupying regime that has committed genocide and killed children.”

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority state, has denied that its right-wing president, Prabowo Subianto, was set to visit Israel.

The move would have been a major step, which some speculated could help Indonesia's entry to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Western-led trade forum. The country has seen protests in support of Palestine throughout Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have seen strong public opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, are also against any deal.

This month's Abraham Accord

Widespread anger at the Gaza genocide poses serious problems for any Arab or Muslim-majority leader thinking of signing an Abraham Accord. Whether this shifts in the coming months will depend on what happens in the devastated enclave.

Under Trump’s 20-point peace plan, passed by the UN Security Council on 17 November, an international stabilisation force will be deployed to Gaza, which could include troops from Indonesia, Turkey, Qatar and the UAE among others. 

But Israel is still routinely violating its ceasefire agreement in Gaza, continuing to bomb Lebanon, maintaining its occupation in Syria and escalating its military operations in the West Bank. 

In the absence of any major deals, Trump has instead promoted more minor ones. 

Amid courting from the US, Kazakhstan announced it would formally join the Abraham Accords in November 2025. The move was largely symbolic: like much of Central Asia, the state has had full diplomatic relations with Israel for decades.