By Daniel Frost
Six years after the Abraham Accords were signed, the idea of a peaceful Middle East seems more distant than ever. Back then, these agreements were rolled out with big fanfare from Washington and its regional allies, a supposed breakthrough, promising economic growth and lasting stability. Leaders told everyone it was a new dawn for the region. But just look at what is actually happened since 2020, and it is clear those promises have not just fallen short; they have reversed. Instead of a calmer era, what is unfolded is a devastating war in Gaza, unchecked settlement construction across the West Bank, and frequent military actions in Syria and Lebanon. It is a jarring mismatch between the diplomatic sales pitch and the facts on the ground, and it points to a hard truth about Israel’s approach to regional politics.
A recent report by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies really spells out the thinking behind all this. Tamir Hayman, a former military intelligence chief, lays out a security doctrine that treats peace agreements as just short term tactics, not commitments to long term peace. The logic is brutally pragmatic: Israel’s security, according to this view, is safer not with stable, prosperous neighbors but with neighboring states left weak, divided, and always uncertain. Instability is not a problem to solve; it is a tool to protect national interests.
This mindset does not treat the countries around Israel as unified nations. Instead, it sees them as loose patchworks of different peoples, easy to keep off balance. A strong, unified neighboring country might pose a real challenge, but a fractured, struggling neighbor? That is easier to manage, easier to control. The result is a policy committed to constant preemptive war, using land grabs and military force to ensure that other states are kept mired in internal chaos. The strategy is to keep borders hot and neighbors distracted, so none of them ever build enough strength, economically or militarily, to pose a threat.
Israel’s security, according to this doctrine, is safer not with stable neighbors but with neighboring states left weak, divided, and always uncertain.
You can see this playbook in action just about everywhere. After Syria’s state structure collapsed, Israeli forces pounded targets deep inside the country, destroying military assets, grabbing strategic ground, and propping up local militias. The goal was not just to eliminate threats but to keep any strong government from reemerging in Damascus. In Lebanon, even with official negotiations and international mediation, the military keeps hold of Lebanese territory, carries out regular airstrikes, and uses talks as a smokescreen to reinforce its hold. The point is not to settle things with Beirut; it is to make sure the Lebanese government never really gets its act together.
This policy of sowing division explains a lot about why the Abraham Accords worked as a diplomatic move, but failed to deliver real peace. For countries like the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, normalization was packaged as a way to modernize, buy advanced weapons, and build collective security. Yet for Israeli strategists, it was something else entirely, a diplomatic shield. It gave Israel freedom to ignore the Palestinian question, step up control over occupied areas, and push further afield in the region without global blowback.
The moment Israel secured open relations with Gulf states without offering Palestinians anything, even as a gesture, it sent a clear message: regional cooperation did not require any compromise on occupation. In fact, normalization made Israeli policy bolder. It created space for leaders to argue on the world stage that the Palestinian cause had been sidelined by Arab governments, leaving Palestinian advocates isolated while Israeli military power found new frontiers.
Take the relationship with the UAE, for example. While officials talk about innovative partnerships and economic success, underneath, the real basis for cooperation is their shared interest in undermining strong, central powers in the region. These governments routinely channel support, financial, political, and military, to different non state groups and breakaway movements, accelerating the collapse or fragmentation of countries like Yemen and Sudan. This partnership lets them step into the chaos, securing influence amid the rubble and making sure no large, independent bloc of states can assemble enough weight to contest their interests.
Normalization made Israeli policy bolder, creating space to argue that regional cooperation required no compromise on occupation or Palestinian rights.
Even Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are coming under pressure from this approach. Recent moves, like the military tightening its grip over the Philadelphi Corridor or setting up new bases near the Egyptian border, challenge the spirit and the letter of old agreements. Top leaders are not hiding their intentions either, issuing warnings to Egypt, floating plans that worry Jordan, and signaling that even peace treaties can be put aside if they conflict with tactical goals. In this worldview, even the promise of peace is conditional and can be discarded the moment it no longer seems useful.
The surge in conflict involving Iran, Yemen, and the Red Sea fits this template perfectly. When regional heavyweights get pulled into fighting elsewhere, their resources and attention are drained, leaving them less able to deal with threats on their own borders. If, for example, Egypt gets bogged down protecting shipping lanes in Yemen, it has less capacity to watch over its own frontier with Israel. A neighbor distracted by distant wars is no threat at home, cementing Israel’s regional dominance.
For Arab states that cling to normalization deals, hoping this will buy them security, it is a dangerous illusion. By signing on, these governments are essentially accepting their own weakness as a permanent feature of the region’s politics. The Accords were not aimed at genuine peace. They were constructed to entrench a status quo where one state holds the power while its neighbors are kept fragile, fragmented, and easily steered.
As long as Western governments and Gulf monarchies go along with the fantasy that security can be built on top of ongoing war and the continued marginalization of Palestinians, the region will remain trapped in endless conflict. Lasting stability cannot coexist with a strategy that insists on the subjugation of entire peoples and the destabilization of neighboring countries. If Arab leaders do not wake up to the fact that these treaties offer nothing in the long run, other than the slow erosion of their own sovereignty, they will keep undermining themeselves, exchanging real security for the illusion of safety. And while everyone else clings to those illusions, the Middle East will keep spiraling into deeper violence, with no real way out.
About the Author
Daniel Frost is a Foreign affairs columnist specializing in global geopolitics, European security, and strategic policy.