Who Owns American History?

 

Who Owns American History?

The battle over slavery intensifies

as we approach America’s 250th birthday.

John Fonte, The American Mind

Why did the National Park Service regularly denigrate the events of 1776 prior to the Trump Administration? In the Claremont Review of Books’ 25th anniversary issue, Jeffrey Anderson describes a visit to Independence National Historical Park, situated in the heart of old Philadelphia and run by the National Park Service. Congress created Independence Park for the purpose of “preserving” historic sites associated with “the American Revolution and the founding and growth of the United States,” as Anderson notes.

Anderson found an overwhelming emphasis on slavery and race—25 of 30 signs at the park’s President’s House, where George Washington and John Adams lived during part of their presidencies, “focus on slavery or race relations.” He writes that Washington and other founders “stand accused” of “‘injustice’” and “‘immorality.’” The first U.S. president’s “actions [are] characterized as ‘deplorable,’ ‘profoundly disturbing,’ and as having ‘mocked the nation’s pretense to be a beacon of liberty.’”

How did this situation come to pass?

We must go back 24 years to the formation of the Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC). A lawyer, community activist, and founding member of ATAC, Michael Coard, expressed the mindset of the group in a July 4, 2021, essay in the Philadelphia Tribune:

July Fourth is a celebration of kidnapping, transporting/buying/selling human beings, separating families, torture, whippings, rapes, castrations, lynchings and enslavement…. So why do many Black folks continue to do their flag-waving, fireworks-blasting, and swine-barbecuing thing on July Fourth? The answer is obvious. They’re ignorant or they’re traitors or they’re both.

Incidentally, ATAC sponsors “Anti-Fourth of July Day” events annually—and its mailing address happens to be Coard’s law office. To describe the group as anti-American and particularly hostile to patriotic African Americans is an understatement.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that beginning in 2002, ATAC “worked with local scholars, lobbied elected officials, and negotiated directly with Independence Park to ensure the history of slavery was centered at” the President’s House. The Inquirer noted that “It wasn’t until roughly six years after their advocacy began, when [ATAC] felt like focusing the site on slavery was a done deal.” Michael Coard stated, “We all agreed that slavery was going to be prominent.” “The question was how prominent?” Coard credited the late Mary A. Bomar, the former National Park Service director under President George W. Bush, as being cooperative with ATAC.

The President’s House, with an overwhelming emphasis on slavery, opened in December 2010. It was immediately attacked by cultural critic Edward Rothstein, then with the New York Times. Rothstein rejected the argument of the site’s adherents that the new interpretation was based on history previously not examined. In a rebuttal, the Times writer argued it was far more beholden to identity politics advocacy than nuanced historical analysis: “It is not really a reinterpretation of history; it overturns the idea of history, making it subservient to the claims of contemporary identity politics.”

He continued:

After $10.5 million and more than eight years; after tugs of war between the city and the National Park Service and black community organizations; after the establishment of a contentious oversight committee and street demonstrations, overturned concepts and racial debates, it bears all the scars of its creation, lacking both intellectual coherence and emotional power.

Most importantly, Rothstein contended in a follow-up piece that the new ideological interpretation ignored what was significant for American history in the President’s House: the fact that the Washington and Adams administrations were influential in creating a new nation, a constitutional republic. Rothstein writes, “In the upstairs world of Washington and Adams, so blatantly ignored in the Philadelphia site, was the beginning of a national experiment: the faltering and difficult task of shaping a new society in which equality and liberty would indeed be governing principles, ultimately weakening the institution of slavery.”

Criticism also came from Williams College Professor Michael J. Lewis in Commentary Magazine in April 2011. In an essay entitled “Trashing the President’s House,” Lewis writes that its exhibition is akin to “making a national monument to the sins and failings of the Founding Fathers.”

Restoring History

Fortunately, on March 27, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” declaring that there has been a “widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history” and to promote a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” This “revisionist movement” casts American “founding principles and historic milestones in a negative light.” The executive order called for “revitalizing key cultural institutions and reversing the spread of divisive ideology.”

In January 2026, in keeping with the implementation of Trump’s executive order, the National Park Service NPS began removing the current signage from the President’s House, replacing the ideologically driven interpretation with a more comprehensive and nuanced one for America’s 250th anniversary celebration. However, the City of Philadelphia, strongly allied with activist-advocacy groups, sued to block the removal of the signage. District Court Judge Cynthia Rufe agreed with the city and ordered the NPS to put the signs disparaging Washington and his presidency back up. She maintained that the NPS could not act unilaterally because it had entered into a series of cooperative agreements with the City of Philadelphia.

Judge Rufe declared that by removing signage developed by activists, including the anti-July 4th Avenging The Ancestors Coalition, revisionist historians, and the Democratic political leadership of the City of Philadelphia, the Trump Administration’s Department of the Interior (DOI) was involved in “dismantling objective historical truth.” Ruge continued, noting the “government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove, and hide historical accounts…. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984.” Rufe contended the removal of the signage “undermines public trust, and compromises the integrity of public memory.” Further, she maintained that it has harmed “the City’s tourism” and the “promotion of its history in advance of the founding of the United States of America.”

An appeals court temporarily stayed Judge Rufe’s order until further proceedings can determine the status of the President’s House. Meanwhile, Trump’s DOI posted on its website alternative signage to replace the City of Philadelphia’s activist narrative.

Patriotism Versus Anti-Americanism

The crucial question for any honest proponent of an objective, fact-based American history is which framework—the city’s or the Interior Department’s—best presents to millions of visitors (citizens and foreigners alike) a comprehensive overview of both freedom and slavery in America’s past?

As noted earlier, the Philadelphia-activist version overwhelmingly references slavery and race. George Washington is discussed mostly in negative terms. His actions are “deplorable” and “mocked the nation’s pretense to be a beacon of liberty.” Rather than seriously examining the administrations of the two men who lived in the President’s House, the activist signage dismisses their accomplishments, stating that as “Washington and Adams governed the new nation, slavery continued to grow.”

In contrast to the tendentious Philadelphia-activist interpretation of slavery, the proposed Trump DOI signage provides a complex discussion of the tension between slavery and freedom in the founding period in a section entitled “Presidents Washington and Adams on Slavery.”

It tells us that two years before the Declaration of Independence, “Washington helped draft the Fairfax Resolves at Mount Vernon. These condemned the slave trade as ‘wicked,’ cruel,’ and ‘unnatural’ and called for putting ‘an entire Stop’ to it.” The proposed signage also acknowledges that as president, Washington “signed legislation that both upheld and limited slavery.” He “approved the Fugitive Slave Act” but “also signed measures restricting slavery’s expansion, including the 1789 Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the Northwest Territory, and the 1794 Slave Trade Act, which barred the participation of American ships in the transatlantic slave trade.”

The Interior Department signage also notes that Washington freed his slaves in his will and “made provisions that the elderly and sick be supported by his estate for the rest of their lives.” The Trump DOI’s interpretation concludes: “Although Washington placed national unity above immediate abolition, he hoped for gradual legislation that would eventually bring slavery to an end.”

Since John Adams was a lifelong opponent of slavery and never owned any slaves, he could not serve as a useful foil to promote the Philadelphia activist’s claim that “the American founding is all about slavery.” Therefore, Adams is barely mentioned in their signage, although he, like Washington, lived in the President’s House throughout his administration. The Interior Department interpretation reminds us that “During the Adams administration the United States supported” Toussaint Louverture’s slave rebellion in Haiti “economically with trade and supplies and militarily with arms and U.S. Navy ships.”

Besides providing a much more thorough analysis of the slavery issue during the Washington and Adams administrations, the DOI’s signage includes a much richer presentation of the history of the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements. Unlike the Philadelphia activist interpretation, the Interior Department version examines the history of the Underground Railroad, the careers of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, and Lincoln’s role in achieving the final abolition of slavery.

The interpretation of the history of slavery and the founding offered by the Trump Administration’s DOI is not “erasing history” in “Orwellian” fashion as Judge Rufe and advocates for the Philadelphia activists’ signage contend. Instead, it is comprehensively expanding our historical understanding of the detailed and nuanced history of the tension between slavery and freedom in our constitutional republic. If anyone is substituting propaganda for history, it is the Philadelphia-activist narrative, as New York Times critic Edward Rothstein pointed out 16 years ago.

John Fonte is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Sovereignty or Submission?, winner of the ISI (Intercollegiate Studies Institute) book award for 2012.

THE STRAIT IS OPEN…

 

~ THE STRAIT IS OPEN ~

John Hinderacker, Powerline

…and President Trump says a deal with Iran is at hand:

Iran has opened the Strait of Hormuz to all commercial vessels, its foreign minister has announced.

Abbas Araghchi said that the key oil artery would be “completely open” for the remaining period of the ceasefire in Lebanon, which expires on April 26.

In response, Donald Trump thanked the Islamic Republic, but insisted the US navy blockade of ships entering or leaving Iranian ports would remain in place.

“The naval blockade will remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran only, until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete,” he said, referring to a likely peace deal.

“This process should go very quickly in that most of the points are already negotiated,” he added.

One report suggested that in-person talks could resume in Pakistan as soon as Sunday.

The price of crude oil plummeted immediately after Iran’s announcement, and stock markets soared. President Trump says that Iran has agreed to hand over its nuclear materials, although the details are apparently not yet decided.

Meanwhile, European leaders are looking rather silly. They have gathered in Paris for talks over the Strait:

Germany and France are at odds over whether to cut Donald Trump out of patrolling the Strait of Hormuz once the war in Iran ends.

Before a summit to draw up plans for a naval coalition to reopen the waterway, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, insisted he wanted to “discuss the participation of US armed forces” in the mission.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, however, wants to exclude “belligerent countries” – the United States, Israel and Iran – from any deployment.

Planning is under way to build a “coalition of the willing” to send warships and other mine-clearing vessels under British and French leadership to the Strait of Hormuz.

They are a little late, but if, going forward, they are able to muster a few ships in the Gulf, fine. I am not holding my breath in the meantime, and the idea of France “cutting us out” of anything is absurd.

What did the trick, evidently, was our naval blockade of Iran’s ports. The blockade quickly brought Iran to the brink of economic collapse. It appears that the IRGC is giving in, in hopes of being able to hang on to power.

What we really want is freedom for Iran’s 92 million people–an end to Islamic tyranny. The agreement now being negotiated presumably won’t include scheduling of elections by the regime. We can hope that the conflict that is now apparently ending has discredited Iran’s regime to the point that Iran’s people will be able to rebel successfully, but that isn’t likely as long as the IRGC has all the guns.

The Abraham Accords

 

The Abraham Accords

Middle East Institute, here

Introduction

The Abraham Accords are a series of bilateral agreements brokered by the United States whose core original intent has been to normalize relations between Israel and several Arab countries. The first agreements were signed on September 15, 2020, between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain. Israel and Sudan agreed to normalize relations in October 2020; however, the formal signing of the documents — originally expected to take place in Washington in 2023 — was delayed due to Sudan’s domestic turmoil and the ongoing war in Gaza. In December 2020, Israel and Morocco established official diplomatic ties. Kazakhstan formally joined the grouping on November 6, 2025, although it has had normalized relations with Israel since the 1990s. The Abraham Accords represented the first formal normalization of Arab-Israeli diplomatic relations since Israel’s 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and the 1979 Egypt-Israel agreement following negotiations at Camp David. The name “Abraham Accords” was chosen to emphasize the shared Abrahamic roots of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity — the majority faiths of the original participant countries and their diplomatic convener.

The Abraham Accords built on efforts by previous US administrations to promote closer ties between Israel and other Arab states, which had been developing under the radar since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. The accords process was part of an “outside-in” approach focused on fostering bilateral diplomatic, trade, and security relations with Arab states not directly party to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As such, the resulting agreements did not significantly address the Palestinian issue, the resolution of which had been considered a prerequisite to formal relations with Israel. This prompted criticism that the accords undermined the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which sought to advance a two-state solution and ensure a just resolution for the Palestinians in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel and normalization of relations.

Arab Motives for Normalization with Israel

In June 2020, following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledges to annex parts of the West Bank, Emirati Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba warned that annexation would jeopardize the prospects for diplomatic relations with Arab states, including the UAE. Amb. Otaiba communicated to the White House that the UAE would agree to normalization if Israel formally suspended its annexation plans. A deal based on this proposal was finalized during a three-way conference call between President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and then-Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Within hours of the announcement of this agreement on August 13, 2020, senior Bahraini officials informed the White House of their desire to become the next country to formalize ties with Israel. That agreement was concluded on September 11, 2020, during a call between President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and signed four days later.

Morocco subsequently agreed to normalize relations with Israel in return for US recognition of its disputed claims over Western Sahara. The Trump administration pledged to open a US consulate in the Western Saharan city of Dakhla, though that initiative stalled under President Joe Biden’s administration. After this agreement was signed on December 22, 2020, Israeli-Moroccan ties quickly developed. Direct flights between the two states began in July 2021, and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Rabat and Casablanca a month later. The two countries also signed a cybersecurity cooperation agreement.

Sudan: Partial Normalization

On October 23, 2020, Khartoum declared its intention to normalize relations with Israel after the US agreed to remove Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and Israel promised an aid and investment package. Sudan signed an Abraham Accords Declaration on January 6, 2021, during a visit by the US secretary of the treasury, accompanied by an additional promise of assistance with obtaining loans from the World Bank. The move was widely unpopular in Sudan, and the bilateral agreement with Israel was never signed. Following the overthrow of the Sudanese government in October 2021 and the country’s descent into civil war in April 2023, Sudan drew closer to Iran and progress on relations with Israel came to a halt.

Kazakhstan: Maintaining the Momentum

The second Trump administration has been pushing to expand the Abraham Accords beyond their initial signatories since coming to power. Progress on bringing in additional Arab states faltered while Israel maintained its military operations in Gaza and beyond. Meanwhile, US Special Envoy Steven Witkoff traveled to Baku in March 2025 to persuade Azerbaijan to join the accords as well as convince post-Soviet Central Asian governments to sign on. These accessions would be largely symbolic, as each of these former Soviet republics had recognized Israel soon after becoming independent. On November 6, during Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to the White House, President Trump announced that Astana was formally joining the Abraham Accords. As part of the visit, Astana and Washington signed 29 deals reportedly worth $17 billion. No details initially emerged of how Kazakhstan’s accession to the Abraham Accords may change the nature or intensity of its existing relationship with Israel.

The American Role

During the presidency of Barack Obama, Washington kept high-level channels open between Israelis, Palestinians, and Arab Gulf states. In 2015, the US hosted Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders at Camp David to deepen missile-defense and maritime security cooperation, aligning the Gulf states and Israel around shared threat perceptions, particularly regarding Iran, which made strategic cooperation more politically feasible. That same year, Israel quietly opened a mission to the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi, and in 2016, the US signed a record $38 billion security memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Israel, making normalization with regional neighbors less risky from the latter’s perspective.

Over the following three years, the Trump administration built on and transformed these conditions into public agreements. On his first trip abroad, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the West Bank, where he spoke about the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a prerequisite to broader Israeli-Arab normalization; and he pointedly referenced peace between Israel and its neighbors as necessary for creating a coordinated anti-Iran bloc. Trump charged top-level White House advisors with leading back-channel talks that culminated in the August 13, 2020, UAE-Israel Abraham Accords deal, followed by Bahrain’s entry and the White House signing ceremony. To help push through the Emirati-Israeli agreement, the US advanced a $23 billion F-35 and drone sale to the UAE. Trump’s approach effectively sidelined the Palestinian issue.

“On his first trip abroad, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the West Bank, where he spoke about the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a prerequisite to broader Israeli-Arab normalization; and he pointedly referenced peace between Israel and its neighbors as necessary for creating a coordinated anti-Iran bloc.”

The Biden administration built on the Abraham Accords with the inaugural Negev Forum conference, hosted by Israel in March 2022, which saw the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE, and the US travel to Israel — a first for the Emirati, Bahraini, and Moroccan foreign ministers — to discuss regional security and economic cooperation. The group reconvened in January 2023 in Abu Dhabi with an agenda that included “initiatives that could strengthen the Palestinian economy and improve the quality of life of the Palestinian people.” That working group meeting was the largest single gathering of Arab and Israeli officials since the 1991 Madrid peace conference. Morocco was slated to host the next high-level Negev Forum conference, but it was postponed and ultimately canceled in June 2023, amid strained diplomatic relations following Israel’s announcement of new settlement expansions in the West Bank.

The Biden administration also concentrated on bringing Saudi Arabia to the table by offering a comprehensive US-Saudi defense treaty, including security guarantees and assistance developing the kingdom’s civil nuclear program. This arrangement, which was reportedly nearing completion shortly before Hamas carried out its terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, included undefined assurances that steps would be taken to improve the lives of Palestinians — a noted departure from previous Saudi insistence on a two-state solution.

Hoping to expand the Abraham Accords with new regional members, second Trump administration officials and diplomats have repeatedly raised the prospect of normalization with Israel in various Arab capitals, including Beirut, Damascus, and Riyadh.

Congress has also taken steps to support the Abraham Accords. In January 2022, a bipartisan group of US representatives founded the House Abraham Accords Caucus to strengthen the existing agreements and lay the groundwork for further normalization deals. The caucus was relaunched in February 2025, and that June the same lawmakers formed the bipartisan Gaza Working Group to engage Abraham Accords countries on planning for the “day after” in the devastated coastal strip. The US Senate counterpart of the House caucus pushed for passage of the 2021 Israel Relations Normalization Act, charging the US State Department with developing a strategy for expanding and strengthening the Abraham Accords; the 2022 DEFEND Act, requiring the Defense Department to find new approaches for Arab partners and Israel to implement an integrated air-defense network; the 2023 MARITIME Act, tasking the Pentagon with developing a regional integrated maritime domain awareness and interdiction capability; and several National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions enhancing diplomatic, military, and intelligence cooperation with Middle Eastern partners.

“Washington advanced the Abraham Accords with the hope they would serve multiple core US interests in the Middle East.”

US Interests in Advancing Israeli-Arab Normalization

Washington advanced the Abraham Accords with the hope they would serve multiple core US interests in the Middle East, including support for partners, regional stability, freedom of navigation, counterterrorism, and the containment of Iran. By expanding a US-aligned security architecture that enhances intelligence sharing, integrated air and missile defense, and maritime coordination among regional partners, the accords were expected to strengthen deterrence against hostile actors and ensure the flow of energy resources through vital maritime chokepoints. They opened durable channels for government-to-government and private-sector collaboration in sectors such as energy, logistics, aviation, and technology, creating economic interdependence with the potential to reinforce political stability and reduce the likelihood of conflict. They also provided a scalable diplomatic framework, through mechanisms like the Negev Forum working group, that Washington could use to coordinate multilateral responses to security crises, advance counterterrorism cooperation, and promote non-proliferation goals, ultimately reinforcing a regional order favorable to US interests.

Beyond those goals, the Abraham Accords were envisioned as aiding the US in achieving its broader strategic objectives by limiting China’s growing economic and diplomatic inroads in the Middle East. By fostering multilateral economic ties, via trade, mutual investment, and people-to-people exchange, the accords offered a regional counterbalance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, reinforcing US influence and offering partners alternatives to Beijing-driven infrastructure and investment strategies.

Economic and Strategic Consequences

The Abraham Accords marked a strategic realignment in the Middle East between Israel and several Gulf states, driven in part by their shared perception of Iran as a regional threat. Following the signing of the accords, the UAE and Bahrain exchanged diplomatic representatives with Israel.

These diplomatic ties opened the door for new bilateral business partnerships, leading to increased investment and economic opportunity in the region. One of the most significant outcomes was the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between Israel and the UAE in 2023. This deal — the largest between Israel and any Arab country — sought to boost bilateral trade with the aim of reaching more than $10 billion over five years. However, the real rise in trade flows has been fairly modest, following a brief spike in 2022, and was adversely affected by the war in Gaza.

In the years following their signing, the Abraham Accords provided a foundation for broader regional integration efforts and the establishment of new transcontinental trade corridors. One mechanism for furthering such ties was the Negev Forum, which brought together Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE, the US, and Israel for a series of meetings on regional security and economic cooperation. At the group’s initial meeting, held in Israel in March 2022, the participants agreed to form six working groups on clean energy, education and coexistence, food and water security, health, regional security, and tourism. Yet subsequent tensions over the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and later the war in Gaza, interrupted additional progress under this format. In July 2022, Israel, India, the UAE, and the US created the I2U2 Group focusing on joint investments and new initiatives in water, food, transportation, energy, space, and health, and in September 2023, the Biden administration pushed for the development of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). However, the Gaza war likewise put most of those plans on hold.

Tourism also flourished following the signing of the accords, at least for a time and mostly in one direction: Israel and the UAE lifted visa requirements for each other’s citizens, and by 2023, more than 1 million Israelis had visited the UAE, supported by 106 weekly direct flights. By contrast, only about 1,600 Emiratis had traveled to Israel since normalization, and officials noted that this figure dropped even further after October 7, 2023. Bahrain opened its airspace to facilitate traffic between the two countries, though actual tourism exchanges were minimal, with only a few hundred Bahrainis visiting Israel in the early years of normalization.

In addition to trade and people-to-people ties, the accords spurred the development of strategic Israeli-Arab military cooperation and security agreements. In January 2021, the US Department of Defense transferred Israel from the US European Command area of responsibility to that of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), following the coordination of joint military exercises between Israel and the UAE in 2020. Taken together, these policies facilitated the creation of the US-led integrated regional air-defense shield to counter the missile threat from Iran — first prominently put to the test in April 2024, when Iran directly targeted Israel with mass missile and drone salvos. In addition to this operational coordination, Arab states accounted for 24% of Israel’s $12.5 billion in defense exports in 2022. Israel’s agreement to supply the SPYDER air-defense system to the UAE in September 2022 and to sell anti-drone systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Bahrain in July 2022 were key elements of this defense-industrial cooperation.

“In addition to trade and people-to-people ties, the accords spurred the development of strategic Israeli-Arab military cooperation and security agreements.”

Shared cybersecurity threats have been another important area for greater coordination. Cyber intelligence and diplomacy cooperation between the UAE and Israel rapidly accelerated following the accords, as seen with reports of intelligence sharing between Israel and the UAE to counter Hizballah cyberattacks in 2021 and Dubai’s role hosting the Israeli cyber conference “Cybertech Global” in April 2021. In February 2023, the US Department of Homeland Security convened the first dialogue between US, Israeli, Emirati, Bahraini, and Moroccan cybersecurity officials, with commitments to extend intelligence sharing through the Abraham Accords framework.

Current Status and Prospects for Further Enlargement

Unlike previous diplomatic agreements such as the 1978 Camp David Accords, the 2020 Abraham Accords centered primarily on the normalization of diplomatic relations with states that had not been in open conflict with each other. And while the accords were accompanied by beneficial trade and economic deals, the signatories were criticized for abandoning a long-standing Arab condition for normalization: the establishment of a Palestinian state. President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas condemned the agreements as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian people.”

Opposition to the accords became much more widespread, especially among Arab publics, after the onset of the war in Gaza. The resulting humanitarian crisis for the Palestinian population strained regional relationships involving Israel and chilled potential new agreements. President Trump’s stated “Gaza Riviera” proposal, which called for relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt or to South Sudan, alienated Arab states and effectively contradicted the Abraham Accords members’ understanding that normalization with Israel would be accompanied by a process toward eventual Palestinian statehood.

Despite the criticism and periods of ongoing or recurring conflict in the region — including in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, all of which have involved Israel to varying degrees and have deteriorated since the accords were signed — the Abraham Accords largely remained intact as they reached their fifth anniversary. No signatory country has formally severed diplomatic ties with Israel or withdrawn from its commitments, although the accords are outwardly in a state of suspended animation. In the UAE, most existing partnerships remain, but few new deals have been signed. Bahrain’s parliament suspended relations with Israel in November 2023 and recalled the Bahraini ambassador, but this move was largely symbolic as the executive branch retains control over the country’s foreign relations. In Morocco, air links with Israel were suspended and tourism dropped.

The prospects for further enlargement of the accords seem unclear, particularly among Israel’s Arab neighbors. On the one hand, the initiative remains a point of focus for the US president and his team. Trump explicitly referenced the Abraham Accords in his speech to the Israeli Knesset on October 13, pledging to add new countries soon and “have that whole thing filled out” — a sentiment he reiterated in a Fox Business News interview later that week. Other high-level administration officials routinely speak about expanding the accords too. Yet on the other hand, Kazakhstan is still an exception to the current lack of progress. Much recent speculation focused on Lebanon and Syria, thanks to the election of a government in Beirut dedicated to disarming Hizballah and the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus — though neither capital is ready to take that step as long as Israel continues to carry out military operations on their soil. Attention has also continued to focus on Saudi Arabia; however, Riyadh has repeatedly made clear that it refuses to normalize ties without concrete steps toward the realization of a Palestinian state. As a candidate, Trump mused that Iran could be incorporated into the Abraham Accords, though that remains highly unlikely. The Trump administration has also floated ideas about further expanding the accords to South and Southeast Asia; and it contends that other Muslim-majority former Soviet republics of the Caspian region, which already have normalized relations with Israel, will follow Kazakhstan in signing on.

Meanwhile, the shared Israeli-Gulf perception of the Iranian threat that, in part, undergirded the Abraham Accords has increasingly come under stress, particularly after Israel’s post-October 7, 2023, retaliatory campaigns against Hamas and Hizballah, and the subsequent Israeli-Iranian conflict in 2025. Israel and the Gulf states have pursued divergent paths, with Israel taking a maximalist military approach toward Iran and its allies, while the Gulf states have prioritized stability, seeking to normalize ties with Tehran and lower the temperature on regional tensions. The future of the accords, including whether states like Saudi Arabia might join them, may depend on whether this strategic divide widens or narrows.

This backgrounder was researched and written by MEI summer 2025 intern Hannah Marx, with additional work by Research Assistants Eryn Gold and Hamad Alshamlan, and input from Senior Fellow Brian Katulis.

Don't Bailout Chicago

 

Don't Bailout Chicago

Bailing Out Chicago Would Send a Dangerous Message

Taxpayers nationwide would pay the cost—and other mismanaged cities would get in line at the federal trough.

Thomas Savidge, City Journal

Chicago has seen better days. The city is losing residents and businesses and is digging itself deeper into debt just to maintain the status quo. Yet city officials show no intention of cutting back on spending.

This crisis, however, will have nationwide implications. An unconditional bailout will signal to other fiscally mismanaged cities that their irresponsibility can be rewarded.

At its core, Chicago’s fiscal problems are straightforward. For decades, the city has committed itself to unsustainable spending levels. While its ridership is declining, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is flush with funds thanks to sales tax and driver fees. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) expenditures keep growing despite declining student enrollment. In addition to structural budget deficits, Chicago has some of the nation’s largest unfunded pension liabilities.

Meantime, residents are fleeing both Chicago and the State of Illinois. In the year ending last July 1, Illinois lost over 40,000 residents, many from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. The Chicagoland area lost more than 35,000 residents either to other counties in Illinois or to other states. Despite an influx of 44,000 international migrants, blunting the effect of net domestic outmigration, government officials can’t conceal the city's fiscal irresponsibility.

Residents, bond investors, and credit rating agencies see the writing on the wall: the Windy City is headed over the fiscal cliff. Chicago’s credit ratings have been downgraded to BBB+, with rating agencies citing fiscal issues. While Illinois has enjoyed credit-rating upgrades in recent years (thanks to support from federal Covid-19 funds set to expire this year), Illinois still remains the worst-rated state.

It’s worth considering Illinois and Chicago’s financial predicament in a larger context. Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy is often compared with Chicago’s fiscal crisis since the Motor City suffered from similar problems: massive unfunded pension liabilities, budget shortfalls, and rampant corruption. But at the time of Detroit’s bankruptcy, Michigan was in far better fiscal shape than Illinois is now. Pension reforms in the late 1990s improved Michigan’s solvency, leaving it better positioned (both before and after the Great Recession) than if the reforms had not been made.

Overall, research consistently shows Michigan outperforming Illinois on fiscal strength, even in the period when Detroit was navigating bankruptcy. Illinois, by contrast, is in no position to help Chicago.

Chicago’s fiscal stress more closely resembles that of New York City in the 1970s and Puerto Rico in 2015. As with New York back then, if bond investors remain skeptical of Chicago bonds, it could lead to increased borrowing costs, impaired market access from a lack of willing underwriters, and even default. The scale of such a default could rival that of Puerto Rico’s, with consequences affecting both Chicago and Illinois.

When stimulus funds from the Biden administration’s 2021 American Rescue Plan expire on December 31, Illinois and Chicago will be stuck with billion-dollar deficits. The state and city may turn to Washington, D.C. for a bailout.

Six years ago, Illinois Senate President Don Harmon sent a letter to the Illinois Congressional Delegation detailing a federal bailout request. Most requests in this letter pertained to budgetary issues that long predated Covid-19, including a $15 billion “no-strings-attached block grant.”

While the feds rejected that specific item, Illinois and Chicago received billions of federal dollars through various stimulus programs. Illinois also received a first-of-its-kind loan from the Federal Reserve. Many proponents of the Covid-19 fiscal expansion still defend this massive spending, with former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stating last year that the stimulus was necessary.

The door is open, then, for Illinois and Chicago to return to D.C. and ask for federal assistance. If granted, taxpayers nationwide will pay for the Windy City’s fiscal recklessness. And the bailouts likely won’t stop there. Officials in other cities, such as Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York, will be watching closely. If Chicago can get a bailout, why not the Big Apple?

Rather than properly manage their budgets, city and state officials may scramble to secure the next spot in line at the federal trough. Fiscal responsibility will erode as state and local officials pay more heed to federal policymakers and the terms of federal funding than their obligations to their constituents.

The only constructive way forward is for federal officials to make an explicit warning against bailouts. When fiscally mismanaged states and cities see that Washington won’t enable their behavior, they may finally make the necessary and painful adjustments to restore fiscal solvency.

How Chicago manages its fiscal situation going forward will tell us a lot—both about the city’s financial future and about Washington’s response.

Thomas Savidge is a Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. Follow him on Twitter/X: @thomas_savidge.