Only a few days before Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, the Jewish State and the leading Muslim nation of Saudi Arabia seemed on the verge of normalizing their relations. This would have been the culmination of a process which saw, three years ago, Gulf and North African governments unveiling the official secrecy of their ties with Israel, in what became known as the Abraham Accords.
But following the October 7th massacre and the Israeli counter-offensive with the visible plight of Palestinian civilians, regimes once friendly toward Israel changed course, condemned Israel’s response and cooled the relationship. The question now is : will there be a revival of the Abraham Accords? Or even an expansion towards Riyadh, once the war is over?
