On May 23, President Trump announced that a peace deal with Iran was ”largely negotiated.” On May 24, United States officials confirmed that a deal had been agreed in principle but not yet signed. More than a week later, nothing has been signed.
On May 25, in a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump suddenly declared that it should be “mandatory” for Saudi Arabia and Qatar to immediately and “simultaneously sign onto the Abraham Accords” to be followed by Pakistan and Türkiye. He even mentioned Egypt and Jordan, both of which concluded full-fledged peace agreements with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively. Moreover, if and when the US and Iran sign their deal, Trump said he expected Iran to sign the Abraham Accords as well.
On the same night, the US resumed military strikes against Iran, and Israel escalated its military attacks in Palestine and Lebanon.
On May 27, Trump double-downed on his Kafkaesque demand, warning that he may not sign a deal with Iran if more Arab and Muslim countries do not sign the Abraham Accords; he even said that “those countries owe it to us.” It is not clear whether the “us” he referred to is the US or the US and Israel.
It is also unclear why Trump invoked the Abraham Accords at this critical juncture. Is he trying to deflect attention from his catastrophic war against Iran and its consequences? Is he hoping to improve the terms of a US peace deal with Iran by linking it to an Arab peace deal with Israel? Or, are he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to sabotage the deal with Iran as they did when they launched military attacks on Iran in June 2025 and again in February 2026?
In his Truth Social post, Trump based his new demand on one blatant lie and one inescapable truth.
The lie: The Abraham Accords have brought peace to the Middle East.
The truth: The handful of states that have signed the Abraham Accords with Israel have “never even suggested leaving” them, despite Israel’s mass atrocities and multiple aggressions in the region.
Crossing all the lines
Five Arab and Muslim states have thus far signed the Abraham Accords: Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, followed by Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Since Bahrain and the UAE first signed in 2020, Israel has grown increasingly expansionist and belligerent, crossing several lines.
The Green Line, originally established in the 1949 Armistice Agreements, is internationally accepted as the de facto border separating pre-1967 Israel from what remains of Palestine. Since 2020, the number of illegal Israeli settlements and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has increased drastically, while the number of illegal settlers has surged to nearly 750,000. The Israeli Knesset has passed controversial legislation, and the Israeli military has imposed measures that have not only entrenched Israeli control but have also laid the foundation for the purported annexation of large swaths of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The Yellow Line was created as a temporary security zone, pursuant to the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October 2025. In addition to killing and starving more than 120,000 Palestinians in its genocidal campaign after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has forcibly displaced the people of Gaza behind the Yellow Line and, more recently, an Orange Line. The latter was unilaterally imposed by Israel and consumes two-thirds of Gaza, leaving nearly two million Palestinians in the remaining one-third of the tiny, already densely populated Strip. On May 28, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli army “to seize control of 70% of the Gaza Strip” in violation of the cease-fire agreement as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025).
The Purple Line was established after the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the Golan Heights in Syria. Since the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel has expanded its occupation of Syrian territory beyond the Golan Heights, capturing and controlling approximately 350 square kilometers of territory in the southwest of the country.
The Blue Line was drawn by the UN in 2000 to verify Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Despite peaceful overtures by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam of Lebanon, a former permanent representative to the UN, who more recently served as a judge and president of the International Court of Justice, Israel has invaded Lebanon and is currently occupying nearly 100 square kilometers of the country’s territory and threatening to take more.
Thus, Israel’s adventurism in Lebanon and Syria continues without distinction that the former is governed by a former ICJ judge and the latter is ruled by a former Al-Qaeda terrorist.
Israel has not only crossed the Green, Yellow, Orange, Purple and Blue Lines, it is also crossing several red lines under customary international law, including genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; war crimes in Lebanon; and aggression against Iran.
Déjà vu all over again
As George Santayana famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Israel’s appetite for expansion and belligerence grew after it concluded its peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. In the three years that followed, Israel accelerated its settlement construction in the West Bank; annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights; launched military strikes against Iraq; and invaded and occupied Lebanon.
Similarly, after signing the Abraham Accords in 2020, Netanyahu and his criminal coalition have annexed more Palestinian territory; invaded and occupied Lebanese and Syrian territory; and publicly announced plans for a Greater Israel project, including Jordan as well as parts of Egypt, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia.
Far from bringing peace to the Middle East, as Trump pretends, the Abraham Accords have opened the door to greater Israeli expansionism and belligerence in the region. Trump is right about one thing, however. Despite all the lines that Israel has crossed and mass atrocities it is committing, neither Egypt nor Jordan has backed away from their peace treaties with Israel; nor have Bahrain, Morocco or the UAE retreated from the Abraham Accords.
Just say no
For a quarter of a century, Netanyahu has been boasting about killing the Oslo Accords and “thwarting” the prospects of a viable Palestinian State. He has also consistently ignored the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers Israel full normalization of diplomatic and economic relations in return for its withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The initiative was originally launched by Saudi Arabia, endorsed by the League of Arab States and the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers and welcomed by the UN Security Council in 2002.
Accordingly, the Arab and Muslim countries who have not yet done so should just say no to Trump’s demand for their immediate signature of the Abraham Accords. Legally speaking, they should continue to predicate normalization with Israel on its adherence to international law and successive UN Security Council resolutions that confirm that the two-state solution is the only path to a comprehensive, lasting peace in the Middle East.
Mona Ali Khalil is an internationally recognized public international lawyer with 30 years of UN and other experience, including as a former senior legal officer in the UN and the IAEA, with expertise in peacekeeping, peace enforcement, disarmament and counterterrorism. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in international relations from Harvard University and a master’s in foreign service and a J.D. from Georgetown University. She is the founder and director of MAK LAW INTERNATIONAL and an affiliate of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict. She has co-authored several publications, including Empowering the UN Security Council: Reforms to Address Modern Threats, the UN Security Council Conflict Management Handbook and Protection of Civilians.
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Thank you for the thought-provoking reflections. Having read the PassBlue article, “The Abraham Accords: Obstacles to Peace in the Middle East,” I am deeply reminded of how fragile peace can be and how interconnected our world has become.
Whether one agrees fully with the article’s conclusions or not, it raises important questions about the future of peace, security, and stability in the Middle East. The ongoing conflicts, humanitarian suffering, and growing tensions in the region should be a concern to all who value peace and human dignity.
Lasting peace requires more than agreements between governments. It requires justice, mutual respect, security, dialogue, and a sincere commitment to addressing the concerns and aspirations of all peoples. While diplomatic accords can open important doors, enduring peace ultimately depends on building trust, fostering reconciliation, and upholding the principles of international law.
At this critical moment, wisdom, restraint, and genuine diplomacy are needed more than ever. The world cannot afford further cycles of conflict and instability. We must continue to support efforts that promote peaceful engagement, understanding, and coexistence.
As people of faith, we pray that leaders will be guided by courage, compassion, and a genuine desire for peace, so that future generations may inherit a world marked not by division and war, but by justice, reconciliation, and hope.
Very balanced and clear sequence of events with your own touch of humour 🙂
I strongly endorse Mona Khalil’s article: “The Abraham Accords: Obstacles to Peace in the Middle East.” Her analysis is both courageous and essential, exposing how these agreements have served not as instruments of reconciliation but as cover for expansionism and impunity. By grounding her critique in international law and historical precedent, Khalil reminds us that genuine peace cannot be achieved through transactional diplomacy or coercive pressure.
True reconciliation demands justice, accountability, and respect for human rights. Her voice is a vital reminder that signatures alone do not build peace – only dignity and fairness can.
Mona thank you for this contribution. I would like again to reiterate the message of the greatest religious leader Pope Leo: the world should not be run by tyrants. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are tyrants who are destroying the world and the whole humanity because of their mental insanity and megalomania!