IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/crmide/v11y2024i1p23-49.html

Arab State Narratives on Normalization with Israel: Justifying Policy Reversal

Author

Listed:
  • Maia Carter Hallward
  • Taib Biygautane

Abstract

When the Abraham Accords were announced in 2020, some lauded these deals as a groundbreaking advancement in Israeli–Arab relations, whereas others saw them as backstabbing the Palestinians. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API), largely ignored by Israel, offered normalized relations with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from the 1967 Occupied Territories, the establishment of a Palestinian state, and a resolution to the Palestinian refugee situation. However, the four Arab states that established relations with Israel under the aegis of the Abraham Accords did so despite Israel’s failure to fulfill API conditions. Given the dismay of many in the region regarding this move and the turnaround in decades of official policy toward Israel, this article investigates the rationale provided by the Arab states for making this diplomatic shift, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data. The study examines the messaging of Arab states and analyzes the economic, geostrategic, and sociocultural justifications in the official media outlets of the four states—the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, including comparisons with US and UK press. Specifically, it seeks to understand the justifications Arab state elites provided for shifting their policies toward Israel despite the historical conditions set by the API and whether they acknowledge the concerns of Palestinians in their discussion of the Accords. Quantitative findings suggest that media coverage of cooperation varied across the Arab signatories. The coverage in the UAE and Bahrain tended to be more frequent, optimistic, and focused on general and economic cooperation with Israel. In comparison, there tended to be more varied media coverage of the Accords in Sudan and Morocco. Qualitatively, results show that overall economic justifications tended to be used more frequently, and Morocco used sociocultural explanations more than others. Further, the agreements were not presented as peace agreements, unlike how the Accords were discussed in the US and UK press.

Suggested Citation

  • Maia Carter Hallward & Taib Biygautane, 2024. "Arab State Narratives on Normalization with Israel: Justifying Policy Reversal," Contemporary Review of the Middle East, , vol. 11(1), pages 23-49, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:crmide:v:11:y:2024:i:1:p:23-49
    DOI: 10.1177/23477989231220444
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23477989231220444
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/23477989231220444?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    2. Chaim Fershtman & Neil Gandal, 1998. "The Effect of the Arab Boycott on Israel: The Automobile Market," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(1), pages 193-214, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mitja Kovac & Rok Spruk, 2025. "The Economic Dividends of Peace: Evidence from Arab-Israeli Normalization," Papers 2510.14517, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2025.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tovar, Jorge, 2012. "Consumers’ Welfare and Trade Liberalization: Evidence from the Car Industry in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 808-820.
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8m2hh491 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Chang, Yang-Ming & Sanders, Shane & Walia, Bhavneet, 2015. "The costs of conflict: A choice-theoretic, equilibrium analysis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 62-65.
    4. Charles H. Anderton, 2017. "The bargaining theory of war and peace," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 12(2), pages 10-15, October.
    5. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    6. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    7. Jillienne Haglund, 2016. "Leslie Johns. 2015. Strengthening international courts: The hidden costs of legalization. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press)," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 151-154, March.
    8. Itamar Milrad, 2018. "GREEN TAXATION: THE INFLUENCE AND DESIRABILITY OF THE FEEBATE SCHEME IN THE ISRAELI NEW CAR MARKETIn August 2009, a “green taxation”," Israel Economic Review, Bank of Israel, vol. 16(2), pages 1-36.
    9. Eric Sjöberg, 2014. "Settlement under the threat of conflict-The cost of asymmetric information," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2014_02, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    10. Alejandro Quiroz Flores, 2011. "Alliances as Contiguity in Spatial Models of Military Expenditures," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(4), pages 402-418, September.
    11. Cattaneo, Cristina & Foreman, Timothy, 2023. "Climate change, international migration, and interstate conflicts," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    12. Magnus Lundgren, 2017. "Which type of international organizations can settle civil wars?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 613-641, December.
    13. Blouin, Max & Pallage, Stéphane, 2016. "Warlords, famine and food aid: Who fights, who starves?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 18-38.
    14. Kjetil Bjorvatn & Alireza Naghavi, 2010. "Rent seekers in rentier states: When greed brings peace," Center for Economic Research (RECent) 039, University of Modena and Reggio E., Dept. of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    15. Chan, Kenneth S. & Laffargue, Jean-Pierre, 2016. "Plunder and tribute in a Malthusian world," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 138-150.
    16. Herbst, Luisa & Konrad, Kai A. & Morath, Florian, 2017. "Balance of power and the propensity of conflict," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 168-184.
    17. Stoop, Nik & Verpoorten, Marijke & van der Windt, Peter, 2019. "Artisanal or industrial conflict minerals? Evidence from Eastern Congo," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 660-674.
    18. Yuleng Zeng, 2020. "Bluff to peace: How economic dependence promotes peace despite increasing deception and uncertainty," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(6), pages 633-654, November.
    19. Jonathan M. DiCicco & Jack S. Levy, 1999. "Power Shifts and Problem Shifts," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 43(6), pages 675-704, December.
    20. Faisal Z. Ahmed, 2022. "From grievances to civil war: The impact of geopolitics," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 427-451, July.
    21. Azam, Jean-Paul, 2023. "Was Lucifer a Gambler? A Rational-Choice Hermeneutic of Peter Olivi’s Treatise on Demons," TSE Working Papers 23-1483, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Nov 2024.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:crmide:v:11:y:2024:i:1:p:23-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.