Sudan, one of the original signatories of the Abraham Accords alongside the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, is no longer active in the agreement. The trajectory of its civil war will determine whether the country can restore normalization with Israel, regress into Islamist authoritarian rule or even become an Iranian-aligned proxy on the Red Sea.
Sudan’s relationship with Israel shifted after the collapse of Islamist authoritarian rule. A brief moment of hope emerged under a transitional government led by a civilian leader supportive of the Abraham Accords, but normalization quickly stalled amid civil war. The future of Sudan’s normalization with Israel now depends on whether the country can resist an Islamist resurgence and avoid becoming part of Iran’s expanding regional axis.
For decades, Sudan positioned itself as a frontline rejectionist state against Israel and aligned itself with Iran’s regional agenda. The 1967 Khartoum “Three No’s”—no peace, no recognition, no negotiations—defined Arab policy for a generation. In the 1990s, authoritarian Islamist rule turned Sudan into a safe haven for extremist networks: The regime hosted Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Abu Nidal, and even sheltered terrorist head Osama bin Laden.
The fall of Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist dictatorship in 2019 created a brief opening. A fragile civilian-led transitional government, confronting economic collapse and years of international isolation, viewed normalization with Israel as a pathway to sanctions relief, debt forgiveness and renewed diplomatic legitimacy. In October 2020, Sudan agreed in principle to join the Abraham Accords alongside the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco—one of the signature foreign-policy achievements of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term and a major regional breakthrough for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Momentum for normalization accelerated quickly. Sudan repealed its anti-Israel boycott laws, and in January 2021, Eli Cohen—then Israel’s intelligence minister—made the first official ministerial visits to Khartoum in decades. A formal declaration outlined cooperation in agriculture, technology, aviation and security.
However, just 10 months later, the transition unraveled. In October 2021, military leaders Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeti) staged a coup, detained Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and dissolved the government. By April 2023, the two generals had turned on each other, plunging Sudan into full-scale war and chaos. Hamdok now leads a civilian political coalition from exile, while Sudan’s participation in the Abraham Accords remains effectively suspended.
Sudan’s conflict is often reduced to a power struggle between two rival generals, but that framing obscures the war’s true nature. At its core, Sudan is fighting over its national identity. The mass uprising of 2019 ended decades of Islamist authoritarian rule and opened a brief transition toward civilian governance. That transition collapsed, and today’s war is the continuation of that unresolved struggle—over whether Sudan will return to Islamist rule or emerge as a civic, inclusive state.
Now, Islamists removed from power with the fall of al-Bashir are leveraging their deep influence within the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to reassert power—seeking to restore the political order that prevailed under Bashir and to reimpose an Arabized and Islamized vision of the state. Opposing them are forces resisting a return to Islamist authoritarianism, advocating instead for a civic, inclusive national identity. The RSF has served primarily as an instrument of the Islamists and continues to play that role.
While Sudan’s internal dynamics set the stage, external powers now decisively shape the conflict’s trajectory and its impact on the Abraham Accords. Islamists exploit their influence in the SAF with backing from regional and international allies. Qatar and Turkey—key Muslim Brotherhood sponsors—back the Islamists, while Turkey seeks control of Suakin port. Iran and the Eritrean dictator, meanwhile, regard the Islamists as longstanding ideological and strategic allies, united in their anti-Israel, anti-U.S. and anti-Western worldview.
By contrast, countries supporting normalization are divided. The UAE sees a potential Islamist comeback as a strategic security threat, while Saudi Arabia, in rivalry with the UAE, supports the Islamists. While the UAE remains committed to the Abraham Accords, Saudi Arabia’s indifference toward the Houthis and Sudanese Islamists, combined with its insistence on a path to Palestinian statehood, casts serious doubt on its willingness to normalize with Israel.
With Islamist forces reinforced by external backers, the strategic imperative for Israel, the UAE and the United States becomes urgent: countering the resurgence and protecting the Abraham Accords. Israel’s limited involvement reflects both strategic caution and the complexities of the UAE-Saudi divide, forcing it to navigate a conflict shaped by overlapping local and regional rivalries. Nevertheless, Israel must actively back the UAE and assert its position in Sudan to confront the Islamist and Iran.
Sudan’s war is not merely an internal struggle; it is the meeting point of competing ideological projects and strategic ambitions. Sudan’s history as a hub for global Islamist networks, coupled with the presence of Hamas, Houthis and Iran, directly threatens the accords. History shows that Iran and the Eritrean dictator succeeded in turning Yemen into a Houthi Islamist proxy. A united Saudi-UAE coalition failed to stop them, and their current rivalry only serves their interests in Sudan.
Washington and Jerusalem share a strategic imperative: to prevent Sudan from falling under Islamist authoritarian control or aligning with Iran. Failure could not only keep the Abraham Accords frozen but also reverse them, directly threatening Israel, U.S. interests in the Horn of Africa and security in the Red Sea.
Restoring Sudan’s normalization with Israel depends on three conditions: preventing an Islamist return to power, dismantling Iran’s growing influence and stabilizing Eastern Sudan.
The course of Sudan’s conflict will determine whether the country can rejoin the path of normalization with Israel—or descend once again into Islamist authoritarianism, or transform into an Iranian-aligned proxy threatening stability along the Red Sea.
