Is Foreign Policy a Product of Interests or Identities? Analysis of the U.A.E-Israel-U.S. foreign Policymaking in the Abraham Accords

Is Foreign Policy a Product of Interests or Identities? Analysis of the U.A.E-Israel-U.S. foreign Policymaking in the Abraham Accords

The Abraham Accords will be used as a case study to exemplify the role of identities and interests in foreign policy. The Abraham Accords are joint normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), and Bahrain mediated by the United States. The name ‘Abraham accords’ is rooted in the U.A.E. and Israel sharing an Abrahamic religion identity, presenting the diplomatic normalization between these countries as bridging the divide of a historical sectarian conflict and creating a space for Arab Muslim and Jewish coexistence as neighbors in the Middle East. Important Abrahamic religious sites were historically located in the Holy Land of Palestine and the control over this land along lines of identity has been a major factor in the Arab-Israeli conflict that characterized the 20th-21st century (Walberg, 2013). The shared recognition of Israel’s sovereignty by the U.A.E. and Bahrain helped solidify Israel’s identity based goal of survival in the Middle East as an ethno-religious Jewish state (Triantama, 2023). These agreements were signed against long-standing regional Arab-Islamic socio-political loyalties to Palestine, indicating shifting identity alignments and changing national interests in the region. Therefore, examining only the U.A.E, Israel, and the U.S., this essay will argue that the U.A.E. and Israel were driven to normalize relations by their both identity and interests in order to solidify their relative power in the region.