Can the Abraham Accords evolve from a Middle Eastern normalization project into a practical model of Muslim–Jewish partnership, development and maritime security — with Somaliland as the bridge to Africa?

The experiment begins where the old diplomatic map runs out

The Abraham Accords were never merely a collection of ceremonies. Announced in 2020 under U.S. sponsorship, they represented a strategic attempt to change the structure of the Middle East: move Israel from diplomatic isolation within much of the Arab world toward a network of normal relations, commercial links, security contacts and people-to-people exchange.

The original breakthrough came with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September 2020, followed by Morocco and Sudan. The official U.S. text presented the project in deliberately broad language — peace, tolerance, commerce, science, medicine and cooperation — rather than as a conventional peace treaty alone.

That architecture has proved more durable than its critics expected. Yet it has also exposed a fundamental limitation: the Accords have been strongest when governments act on pragmatic interests and weakest when public opinion, the Palestinian question, domestic politics or wider regional wars become dominant.

Carnegie’s 2025 review found that the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco maintained diplomatic relations despite the Gaza war, but that societal-level contact and public enthusiasm weakened sharply. The Washington Institute likewise concluded that the architecture survived but that expansion would require a credible diplomatic pathway around Gaza.

Somaliland now presents a different kind of test. It is a Muslim-majority society in Africa, not an Arab state; it did not fight a war against Israel; it is not party to the Arab–Israeli peace process; and it has spent more than three decades campaigning for recognition of its own statehood. On December 26, 2025, Israel became the first UN member state to formally recognize Somaliland, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly said the declaration was “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords.” Somaliland’s leadership declared its intention to join the Accords.

What the Abraham Accords changed — and what they did not

Historically, Arab–Israeli diplomacy had been structured around Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty, Jordan’s 1994 treaty, the failed Oslo process, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative and repeated efforts to link normalization to Palestinian statehood. The 2020 Accords altered that sequence. Instead of waiting for a final Israeli–Palestinian settlement, several Arab governments concluded that direct national interests — Iran, technology, trade, investment, tourism, aviation, intelligence and U.S. partnership — justified normalization first. The model was geoeconomic as much as diplomatic.

The record is substantial. The UAE–Israel Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement entered into force in 2023, direct air links expanded, travel barriers fell, and trade in goods surged. OECD analysis notes that the Accords also created frameworks for cooperation in tourism, security, communications, technology, energy, health, culture and the environment. UAE government data put two-way UAE–Israel trade at about $3.21 billion in 2025. Across Israel’s Accords partners, official Israeli trade data cited by the Heritage Foundation put 2025 goods trade at roughly $4.56 billion, although such figures exclude important services, investments, software, cyber and defense transactions.

But the Accords are not one uniform bloc. Sudan signed the declaration in 2021, yet never completed the bilateral normalization process; a military coup and then civil war effectively froze implementation. Morocco’s relationship has deepened in security and diplomatic terms but remains more politically sensitive in society. Bahrain has maintained relations but with more limited economic depth.

Kazakhstan joined in November 2025, an important symbolic expansion because it shows that the framework can be attractive to a Muslim-majority country that already had diplomatic ties with Israel. That accession was largely symbolic; the real test would be a country joining from a different geographic and historical environment.

The religious complication: “Abrahamic” is an idea, but the conflict is modern

The word “Abraham” is deliberate. Abraham/Ibrahim is a major figure in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the name was designed to emphasize shared religious heritage rather than permanent civilizational conflict. This narrative gave Israeli and Emirati leaders a language of common ancestry that could support political reconciliation.

Yet it would be historically misleading to describe Jewish–Arab Muslim hostility as existing “since time immemorial.” The decisive political conflict that shapes contemporary attitudes is modern: the rise of Zionism, the creation of Israel in 1948, wars between Israel and Arab states, the Palestinian displacement and statehood question, and decades of regional political mobilization. This distinction matters for Somaliland: Somaliland has no direct history of interstate war with Israel, and its national political trauma is centered primarily on its own experience of war, state collapse and contested sovereignty.

That distinction helps explain why the Somaliland–Israel relationship can look unusual in a Muslim-majority setting. Contemporary reporting from Hargeisa has documented visible public........

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