The Abraham Accords represented a bold recalibration of Middle East diplomacy — driven by American resolve, regional pragmatism, and the Trump administration’s unapologetic prioritization of national interests over ideological dogma. Nowhere was that shift more transformative than in Sudan, where decades of hostility toward Israel were giving way to cautious engagement, economic vision, and a growing appetite for regional integration.
That momentum has since faltered. Under the Biden administration, the strategic clarity that once defined U.S. Middle East policy dissipated. Sudan has been engulfed in civil war, and Washington’s response has been incoherent — marked by ambivalence, moral grandstanding, and a misguided faith in discredited secular elites now aligned with the very forces destabilizing the country.
Roughly one-third of the way through this descent, a critical voice has emerged. In a recent article published by The Times of Israel, journalist Gavin Serkin offers the clearest account yet of how the Sudan-Israel normalization track was derailed — not by popular rejection, but by geopolitical naiveté and diplomatic short-sightedness. Serkin laid bare the contradictions at the heart of Western policy: While Sudan’s army fights to preserve the nation’s territorial integrity, it is the Rapid Support Forces — implicated in mass atrocities — that have found indirect favor through silence and strategic neglect. Among the RSF’s reported backers is the UAE, a country whose strategic interests in Sudan reflect broader efforts to contain instability — though the outcomes of such alignments now warrant scrutiny, Serkin asserted. The UAE denies supporting the RSF militarily and financially.
Notably, the UAE has also been a pioneering leader in advancing regional peace through its role in the Abraham Accords, demonstrating its broader commitment to reshaping Middle East diplomacy through normalization and economic integration. This duality — of visionary regional leadership on one hand and complex entanglements on the other — sets the stage for a most symbolic and troubling episodes Serkin explored.
Though Sudan did not ink its name alongside the UAE, Bahrain, or Morocco, its alignment with the Abraham Accords was no less historic. In 2020, under intense diplomatic pressure and with the promise of removal from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, Sudan’s transitional leaders agreed in principle to normalize relations with Israel — a bold, if tenuous, leap forward. This decision was not merely transactional; it represented a flicker of geopolitical maturity amid a fragile nation’s search for identity and integration. In early 2023, that flicker was reignited as Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in Khartoum, signaling an intent to formalize ties. But weeks later, Sudan descended into civil war. The normalization process — never codified, never ratified — was suspended in midair. Sudan’s place in the Abraham Accords now hangs between vision and void, shaped not only by international will, but by whether the world chooses to engage with the Sudan of today.
Serkin highlighted a devastating symbolic moment: the Israeli foreign minister’s visit to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan just weeks before the war began, followed by near-total silence from Jerusalem as RSF militias ransacked communities and committed unspeakable crimes. That silence has not gone unnoticed. As former Sudanese diplomat Mekki Elmograbi notes in the piece, it felt like being “stabbed in the back.” Such optics have the power to destroy trust.
It appears that writer Serkin chose Mekki Elmograbi to express the sense of shock because Mekki was the first to openly lead a Sudanese-Israeli discussion at the Moshe Dayan Center, representing a reasonable and candid voice from Sudan.
A very important article was recently published in the Wall Street Journal by the French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, who is well known for his support of Israel — but this time, the article came from an unexpected location: Sudan itself, during a field tour with General Al-Burhan, including counterterrorism forces base where he witnessed preparation for operations against extremists.
In the article, the philosopher and author Bernard delivered an important message from Al-Burhan: that he is willing to continue with the Abraham Accords, but emphasized that a parliament must be in place to ratify the agreement. This can only happen through cooperation with the legitimate government currently under Burhan’s leadership, especially now after appointing a civilian prime minister, Professor Kamil El-Tayeb Idris.
Bernard’s article, titled “Sudan’s Brutal, Forgotten War,” was the result of an investigative trip, reminiscent of his earlier work, including the film “The Oath of Tobruk,” based on his field visits to the uprising in Libya against Moammar Gaddafi.
The miscalculation at the heart of current Western — and to some degree, Israeli — policy is the belief that normalization can be orchestrated behind closed doors, as if Sudan were frozen in time. But Sudan is not static. Its center of gravity has shifted. The army, led by Burhan, retains legitimacy and controls vast portions of the country. Intelligence chief General Ibrahim Mufaddal is now a key counterterrorism partner for Europe. He led successful intelligence diplomacy in Europe and across the region. The reality on the ground has moved on, even as policymakers remain stuck in outdated frameworks.
Worse still is the insistence on treating normalization as a reward for ideological conformity. The fiction that only secular elites are “safe” partners has collapsed. Many of these actors sided with the RSF and lost their mandate. Meanwhile, elements within Sudan’s Islamic and traditional sectors — including some previously opposed to normalization — have grown more pragmatic. They see engagement with Israel not as a betrayal, but as a path to sovereignty and survival.
Sudan is not merely a participant in the Abraham Accords framework — it is, in many ways, their crucible. Unlike the Gulf monarchies whose normalization with Israel was driven by economic pragmatism and shared security interests, Sudan’s engagement was forged in the fires of post-revolutionary flux, where legitimacy is fragile, institutions fractured, and sovereignty contested. If normalization can endure amid Sudan’s civil war, ideological fragmentation, and regional interference, it would affirm the Accords not as a transactional detente, but as a durable architecture for peace — capable of transcending regime type and surviving the volatility of the modern Middle East.
Sudan’s successful normalization with Israel could inspire hesitant African and Arab states, like Algeria or Tunisia, to reconsider their stance, amplifying the Accords’ regional ripple effect and demonstrating that peace can thrive even in complex, post-conflict environments. But if it collapses here, it signals something far more sobering: The promise of Arab-Israeli reconciliation may be confined to boardrooms and strongmen, unable to take root where democratic pluralism or popular agency remain in play. Sudan, therefore, is not the exception — it is the proving ground.
To frame this as “Islamist vs. secularist” is to fundamentally misunderstand the stakes. The normalization process must be decoupled from regime change agendas. Peace with Israel should be a national decision, not the prize of a narrow elite. It must reflect Sudanese realities — not Western preferences.
The danger now is clear: By sidelining real actors on the ground and clinging to failed proxies, the West risks pushing Sudan deeper into chaos and driving normalization into irrelevance. Worse, it risks allowing extremism to reassert itself under the banner of betrayed nationalism.
If the Abraham Accords are to mean anything in Sudan, they must be reclaimed. That means re-engaging with Burhan and national institutions — not because they are perfect, but because they are real. It means abandoning the fantasy that peace can be imposed from abroad and, instead, empowering Sudanese voices to shape their own future — through dialogue, inclusion, and respect for sovereignty.
It was bold leadership that launched the Abraham Accords. It will take bold leadership again to rescue them in Sudan.
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