Abraham Accords Trade Surges to $3 Billion Media Shrugs, Citizens Should Celebrate

From $25 million in 2019 to $3 billion in 2023, the Abraham Accords have transformed Middle East trade. The media calls it “incremental.” In truth, it’s revolutionary.

Billions in trade, flights crisscrossing the region, new jobs and growth and yet the Western press yawns. Why? Because peace through strength doesn’t fit their script.

The Background

New figures reveal that trade between Israel and its Abraham Accords partners—UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—reached $3 billion in 2023, up from just $25 million in 2019. (No Labels “The Abraham Accords Are Working”)

The numbers speak louder than slogans: direct flights, joint ventures, technology partnerships, and agricultural cooperation are flowing. From Dubai to Tel Aviv, Casablanca to Haifa, the Accords are reshaping regional commerce.

But in Britain and America, the press bury the story. The BBC offered a tiny sidebar calling it “incremental.” The Guardian warned of “geopolitical risks.” CNN simply ignored it. What they won’t say is clear: this is the most successful peace initiative in the Middle East in half a century. And it wasn’t built on appeasement. It was built on strength.

The Guardian:
“The accords remain fraught with risk, as unresolved issues fester.”
Fraught with risk? Every trade deal in history was fraught. That’s called progress.
Source: The Guardian, June 2025

Facts Don’t Have Feelings

This month, new data confirmed what ordinary citizens already know: the Abraham Accords are working. Trade between Israel and its partners UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan hit $3 billion in 2023, compared to a mere $25 million in 2019. (No Labels)

That is not “incremental.” That is transformation. In under four years, the region has built an economic bridge where once there was only hostility. Planes now fly daily between Tel Aviv and Dubai. Tourists flow from Manama to Jerusalem. Israeli and Moroccan universities sign research pacts. Emirati and Israeli firms build tech corridors. Farmers trade knowledge, businesses swap capital, and young people see opportunity instead of war.

And how do the Western elites respond? The BBC reduced the story to a footnote, calling the progress “incremental.” The Guardian headlined it as “fraught with risks.” CNN ignored it entirely, preferring another panel on “settler violence.” The Telegraph downplayed it as “regional experimentation.”

BBC:
“The economic ties are incremental, not transformational.”
Incremental? From $25 million to $3 billion in four years is exponential.
Source: BBC World, June 2025

This is deliberate. Because the Abraham Accords were built on a principle the elites hate: peace through strength. Israel did not grovel or concede. It stood firm, proved its worth as a partner, and extended a hand once its neighbours recognised reality. The media cannot stomach that. They need peace to be the fruit of apology, not victory.

But look at the results. Billions in trade. Flights, jobs, investment. The Gulf states have benefited, Morocco has benefited, Sudan even in turmoil gained legitimacy. And Israel has secured partnerships that once seemed impossible.

Meanwhile, the West flounders. The UK government fumbles with collapsing services and open-border chaos. The EU drowns in bureaucracy. And yet, in the Middle East the supposed “powder keg” real peace is being built with spreadsheets, not slogans.

The lesson is obvious. Peace is not theory. It is transaction, partnership, prosperity. The Abraham Accords prove it. And the elites who ignore these results prove something else: they fear reality, because reality destroys their ideology.

The Merlow View

Two clear hopes rise from these numbers. First the unlikely but still possible outcome is that the Western elites swallow their pride, admit the Abraham Accords are working, and begin to replicate the model elsewhere. Imagine Asia, Africa, or even Europe learning that peace comes from partnership, not platitudes.

Second the more rational hope is that citizens themselves take the lesson to heart. If ordinary people push back against the narrative of “incrementalism,” if they share facts and demand leaders replicate success, then the Accords will continue to grow and reality will triumph over ideology.

But if we let the elites bury this story, if we accept their framing that billions in trade is “small change,” then truth itself is lost. The Abraham Accords are the most successful peace project of our time. Pretending otherwise is not just dishonest it is sabotage. And citizens must not stand for it.