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What are the Abraham Accords? There was a lot of hyperbole going around when they were signed in Washington DC in September 2020, and the dust hasn’t really settled since. What’s clear is that the promise of regional peace that the Accords were supposed to bring has not - to put it mildly - come to pass.

Rather the opposite, in fact. Everyone from Yahya Sinwar to Jordan Peterson seem to agree that it was the Abraham Accords, and particularly the threat that they would be extended to Saudi Arabia, that set off the Hamas attack of October 7th 2023. That attack led to Israel’s brutal destruction of Gaza, and though at this moment there’s a ceasefire - we pray it holds - the Middle East is very far from peace indeed, Donald Trump’s comments notwithstanding.

In this episode, Ben and Matan talk to political scientist Dana El-Kurd about what the Abraham Accords actually are, and why they are such a disaster for the Palestinians and ordinary people throughout the Arab world. She makes the point that the Abraham Accords formalize shared interests across the region, interests which oppose the Palestinians’ demand for national independence and the desire of people throughout the region for democratic self-rule.

Dana El Kurd is an assistant professor at the University of Richmond in the Department of Political Science, and a senior nonresident fellow at the Arab Center Washington. She specializes in Palestinian and Arab politics, particularly on topics related to mobilization, public opinion, and international intervention.

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