Jessica Genauer
The Conversation / April 5, 2026
The war in Iran has broken US President Donald Trump’s approach to reshaping Middle East geopolitics.
Since Trump’s first term in office, he has focused on driving Israeli integration into the region. In 2020, the US-led Abraham Accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan for the first time since the creation of the state of Israel.
The Abraham Accords aimed to redraw geopolitical alliances across the region by accelerating Israeli economic and security interdependence. At the same time, they bypassed the thorny political issue of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Following the accords, Israel established a free-trade agreement with the UAE, the first ever of its kind between Israel and an Arab nation. The agreement came into force in 2023.
Since then, trade between Israel and the UAE has continued to grow, despite Israel’s two-year military operation in Gaza that has left more than 70,000 Palestinians dead. The UAE is currently Israel’s largest trading partner across the Arab world.
In 2021, the UAE, Bahrain and Israel also conducted joint naval exercises for the first time. These economic and security ties were fragile, but were getting stronger.
The war in Iran has shattered this model of Israeli regional integration.
The rationale for the Gulf states of deterring Iranian direct aggression through increased security ties with Israel has proven futile in the face of recent Iranian attacks.
In addition, the war has activated domestic resistance in these countries to increased closeness with Israel. The citizenry in Gulf countries are increasingly concerned that the US prioritises Israel’s interests over their own.
Jessica Genauer – Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of New South Wales
