Trump Wants Arab States to Recognize Israel. The War Has Made That Harder.
The president has linked normalization of ties to an Iran deal, but conditions aren’t ripe for that to happen
By Stephen Kalin / May 31, 2026
As President Trump worked in recent days toward a deal to end his war with Iran, he threw a curveball: Arab states as well as Pakistan and Turkey should consider it mandatory to welcome the agreement by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel under the president’s Abraham Accords.
For much of the Gulf, the proposal only added insult to injury. U.S. relations with the region have been shaken by the war, which created major costs and inflamed U.S. allies’ security concerns. Analysts said Arab leaders are increasingly distrustful of both the U.S. and Israel and fear that normalization would further antagonize Iran, which has shown its capability and willingness to attack Gulf states with thousands of drone and missile strikes.
Arab populations, meanwhile, are even less disposed than they were a few years ago to accept deeper ties with Israel after its campaign in Gaza. Many consider it a rogue state destabilizing the region at least as much as Iran.
“The feeling in the Gulf is not how much they owe the United States but rather how much they feel disappointed,” said Jon Alterman, the chair in global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. “While they’re careful not to say it explicitly, they feel the United States was very motivated to protect Israel and not very motivated to protect them.”
Trump told the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey in a May 23 phone call that as part of the Iran deal currently under negotiation it “should be mandatory” for them to join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 deal negotiated during his first term that saw the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain establish formal diplomatic and economic relations with Israel. The agreement is widely seen as one of Trump’s landmark foreign-policy achievements.
The U.A.E. has already reaffirmed its security ties with the U.S. and Israel as a result of the war, during which Iran targeted it with more than 2,800 drones and missiles, far more than any other target, including Israel. Trump pressed the other countries to follow suit, saying that those that didn’t would be guilty of having bad intentions.
“It should start with the immediate signing by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and everybody else should follow suit,” Trump later wrote on social media.
Trump’s insistence that several Gulf states must sign on to the Abraham Accords was expected to complicate negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war. While Trump declared a ceasefire on April 7, Iran has yet to agree to U.S. demands, including that Tehran must never obtain a nuclear weapon and must hand over its existing stockpile of enriched uranium.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries in the region are unlikely to heed Trump’s call. Some have already pushed back privately. Riyadh has long said openly that it would only agree to the pact if there were a clear pathway toward a Palestinian state. Doha, which mediated between Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war, has no plans to join the Abraham Accords. Any engagement with Israel at this point would focus on the resolution of the Palestinian issue, a Qatari official has said.
Many Arab countries once saw Israel as a potential partner making common cause against Iran, and some have quietly coordinated on security matters for years. Saudi Arabia came close to normalizing relations with Israel in 2023 before the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that year left 1,200 dead and set off a war in which Israel devastated the Gaza Strip.
Riyadh and other Arab governments have cooperated with Israel and the U.S. on the security front since 2024 to shoot down Iranian drones and missiles, sharing intelligence and radar-tracking information, opening their airspace to warplanes, and in some cases supplying forces to help.
But political relations with Israel have worsened across the region since the country flattened Gaza and launched two wars against Iran, threatening the stability of the prosperous and economically sensitive Gulf. Now much of the region views Israel as a disruptive force that is occupying multiple Arab countries and actively frustrating efforts to establish a Palestinian state.
Michael Ratney, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Riyadh and consul general in Jerusalem, said the Gulf states and Pakistan were unlikely to normalize with Israel under pressure and have become accustomed to Trump saying things that don’t make sense or sound insulting.