Description
In 2020 the UAE and Bahrain agreed to normalise relations with Israel leading to the signing of the ‘Abraham Accords’. Whilst the immediate strategic motivations are clear in the face of a threatening Iran and a retrenching US, I address the question: what are the purposes and significance of the agreements’ ‘Abrahamic’ civilizational identity framing? This paper builds on the ‘Civilizational Politics’ research framework (Katzenstein 2010; Bettiza 2014), drawing on constructivist IR, to evaluate this as a case of elite-led civilizational identity construction. In contrast to the Huntingtonian assumption of an inevitable clash between Islam and the ‘Judeo-Christian’ West, the Abrahamic construction emphasises common ancestry between Jews and Arabs. Analysing documents, discourse and elite interviews in Israel, the US, and the UAE, the paper explores the motivations behind the use of this ‘Abrahamic’ construction. It also analyses the processes of its institutionalization, including through the text of the accords, follow up working groups, and the construction of Abu Dhabi’s ‘Abrahamic Family House’. The potential motivations include an agenda to shift wider Arab attitudes towards Israel, respond to the Islamist challenge, and improve perceptions of Islam and the Gulf States in the West. The paper reflects on whether this inclusive civilizational construction has the potential to impact relations more widely between Western and Islamic societies, or to change dynamics relating to the Palestinian arena. As a case study of civilizational identity politics, it sheds light on the processes whereby elites seek to redraw transnational identity boundaries to legitimise their international agendas, and the potential and pitfalls of doing so.
