Abraham Accords
Floor Speech
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Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, 2 years ago, almost to the exact moment, I was sitting on the south lawn of the White House in the blazing Sun, where a redhead should never sit, getting a sunburn, on a hot September day in DC, watching leadership of the UAE, Bahrain, Israel, and the United States all shake hands and sign an agreement called the Abraham Accords. It was a remarkable moment in American history.
We have become so accustomed in the last 2 years to this conversation about the Abraham Accords, we lose track that it was just 2 years ago that we had one of the greatest breakthroughs in Middle East peace that we have had in decades.
In 1979, Egypt and Israel came together for a peace agreement under President Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords. In 1994, Jordan and Israel normalized relationships under President Clinton. But for 26 years, there were no additional peace agreements and, quite frankly, very few conversations even. It stopped. All the conversation among foreign affairs was that you had to resolve the Palestinian conflict before anything else could be resolved in the Middle East, and for 26 years, all the focus was on that.
The Trump administration came in and put the whole thing on its head and said: What if? What if we work towards peace agreements outside of the Palestinian conversation? If we set that aside, could we still normalize agreements?
Again, most people said: No, that is not possible--until 2 years ago today. Two years ago today, when the leaders of UAE, Bahrain, Israel, and the United States met together and signed an agreement, they started not just a process, they started a conversation and a dialogue. They shook hands and signed an agreement that had remarkable statements in it about religious liberty that we look at and think: The Arab world would not sign that, but they did, quite frankly, because people hadn't asked them to.
There were conversations and agreements made about energy policy, about economic development in a region of the world that many would say that no one will ever meet and this will never get better.
President Reagan once said:
Our involvement in the search for Middle East peace is not a matter of preference; it is a moral imperative.
We are a people of peace. We are a people, as a nation, passionate about religious liberty. We are a people who want to see a nation joining other nations in economic development. It is who we are. It is who we have been from the beginning, and we are at our best when we are expanding that.
Since the signing of that document, several things have happened in that 2-year time period.
The first thing that happened, really, was that in October of 2020, Sudan raised their hand and said: I want to join that agreement. Then, in December of 2020, Morocco raised their hand and said: I want to be in that agreement. It quickly went from four nations to five, to six, all in this ongoing dialogue about peace in the region.
The countries have exchanged Ambassadors since then. Again, that may not sound revolutionary, but it is in that region. The UAE, Morocco, and Bahrain all opened up Embassies in Israel--again, revolutionary. Israel opened up its Embassy--the first ever in the Gulf nations--in Abu Dhabi in January of 2021. It opens up its next Embassy in Bahrain in September of 2021.
The UAE and Israel have signed comprehensive free-trade agreements. There is now $10 billion worth of trade in the next 5 years that has been set up between those nations. Trade has begun between Israel and Morocco. In fact, it has increased 94 percent in a year. Trade between the UAE and Israel has increased 88 percent in 1 year. Trade between Israel and Egypt, even, has increased 41 percent in the last year and between Israel and Jordan, with a longstanding agreement, has increased 55 percent.
The UAE and Morocco now have university students who are studying in Israeli universities--something we thought we would never see. The UAE has overhauled its school curriculum to increase tolerance and understanding of other faiths and other religious groups.
Dozens of daily flights are now moving in those Abraham Accord countries, bringing business and tourism. There are even real conversations about water, about energy sharing and development and large economic infrastructure projects.
There are other countries, even, in the region that have started to take notice of this. Countries like Saudi Arabia are now allowing Israeli-bound flights to fly through Saudi airspace. Now, again, that may not seem revolutionary to some, that planes get to fly over them, but, you understand, 2 years ago, that didn't happen. The Saudis made every Israeli-bound flight go around their airspace. Israel and Saudi Arabia have also participated in multilateral naval and air drills, alongside UAE, Bahrain, and other countries. It is an enormous shift.
If I can even say this in the region, Israel and Lebanon are very close right now to forming an agreement on what they call the Blue Line, the border between Israel and Lebanon, including the maritime areas. What does that matter? It is a tremendous development for Lebanon, for their economic development, because there is a large natural gas field just off of Lebanon's coast, but the border has been unresolved for years.
In the conflict between nations and the trust that has collapsed, the Abraham Accords have provided an opportunity and a moment for the nations in the region to say: If peace can begin with UAE and Bahrain and Sudan and Morocco and Israel and recognition and economic development and Ambassadors can be exchanged, who else can engage in economic development?
Let's start with their neighbor Lebanon. To build trust is to also build clear borders. This is real progress in 2 years.
My challenge to the administration and to our State Department is, fan the flame. Keep going on this. We have seen nations begin to do economic development, families meeting other families, school curriculum changing to taking out anti-Semitic tropes, basically, out of their curriculum. We have seen real progress in this area. Keep going. Other nations should be welcomed to be able to join in the Abraham Accords. It is not closed. Other nations can join in that economic development.
There are four of us who began the Abraham Accords Caucus: myself, Senator Rosen, Senator Ernst, and Senator Booker. We launched out the four of us and invited all of our colleagues to be able to join into it. Our focus is to be able to work with the Ambassadors of those nations to say: How can we partner together to bless what has already occurred, and how can we expand into other nations? How can we encourage increased economic development?
Now, there are still very real challenges. The work is not done by any means, but it has at least begun, and progress is taking off--this simple principle of economic engagement, going past all of the government noise and saying: What if we allowed infrastructure to be able to work together? What if we allowed tourism to be able to happen? What if we allowed businesses to work with other businesses in other nations that used to be hostile? How can we engage in such a way that would help?
The four of us in the Abraham Accords Caucus brought to the floor today a resolution to recognize this 2-year anniversary. It sat before all 100 Senators, and I don't know a single Senator who is opposed to that because we all want to see peace in the Middle East. We all want to see that kind of progress, and we all want to see this increase.
So, to our State Department, keep the work going. Keep the conversation going. To nations around the world that used to be hostile to Israel and the region, why don't we set down the past and prepare our families for the future?
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