Israel intends to include Lebanon and Syria in the Abraham Accords
Israel has announced its intention to include Lebanon and Syria in the Abraham Accords to establish diplomatic ties with these nations.
According to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, the intention is to expand the list of nations that have signed the Abraham Accords in order to continue promoting a more stable situation in the Middle East.
‘We are interested in adding countries such as Syria and Lebanon, our neighbours, to the circle of peace and normalisation while safeguarding Israel's essential and security interests,’ Saar said at a press conference at the Israeli Foreign Ministry headquarters alongside Austrian Minister for European and International Affairs Beate Meinl-Reisinger.
However, Gideon Saar did state that Israel will not relinquish its positions in the Golan Heights, an area located on the border between Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria that was occupied by Israel in 1967 and fully annexed in 1981: ‘In any peace agreement, the Golan Heights will remain part of the State of Israel.’ This is a point that could complicate any kind of dialogue.
This Israeli announcement is quite significant because the Abraham Accords are very important agreements whereby several Arab countries established diplomatic relations with Israel to normalise relations with a view to bringing peace to the Middle East and developing the region to its full potential in all aspects thanks to important agreements signed between the signatory nations.
The Abraham Accords were sponsored by Donald Trump's first US administration in September 2020 and brought together nations such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel, thus beginning a very positive dynamic for achieving stability in the Middle East, which led to the signing of political, economic, defence, trade and even new technology agreements between the participating countries.
These pacts also served to counter destabilising actors in the region, such as Iran, a country seen by various analysts as a belligerent element that interferes in the internal affairs of various states in the region through allied Shiite groups such as the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
There was even talk of including a regional giant such as Saudi Arabia, the main representative of the Sunni branch of Islam opposed to the Shiite tendency more closely identified with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the Abraham Accords.
Now it may be the turn of Syria and Lebanon, two countries going through a complicated situation and which could also benefit from the establishment of ties at all levels with Israel and, by extension, the United States.
Syria is currently ruled by a provisional government led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa after the most extremist groups led by Al-Sharaa himself, who has links to HTS, a group linked to al-Qaeda, overthrew Bashar Al-Assad. Syria is going through a very tense political and economic situation, and opening up to new international diplomatic options could be beneficial for achieving greater development and stability.
For its part, Lebanon is in armed conflict with Israel amid a spiral of Israeli army attacks on the Gaza Strip led by Hamas, which was triggered by the radical Palestinian group's brutal attacks on Israeli territory on 7 October 2023, to which the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded harshly. Entering into the peace-building dynamic of the Abraham Accords may also help Lebanon to finally achieve stability and peace in order to develop a country that has been mired in a deep political and economic crisis for decades and suffers from the negative influence of the extremist group Hezbollah, linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran.