In the summer of 2020, the Abraham Accords brought the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco into formal normalization with Israel. Five and a half years later, the architecture is not only still standing — it is expanding into regions that the original signatories never imagined. On April 18, 2026, The Times of Israel reported remarks from U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff identifying up to six additional countries as candidates for accession, including Libya, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Kazakhstan has already joined. Somaliland has already pledged to.

For pro-Israel Americans, the pattern matters more than any single accession. It matters because the conventional wisdom in every foreign policy think tank in 2023 and 2024 was that the Accords could not survive Gaza, could not survive Hezbollah, could not survive the Iranian nuclear program, and could not survive the domestic politics of a second Trump term. The conventional wisdom was wrong. The Accords did survive — and now, in the middle of a two-week Iran ceasefire and with the U.S. Navy blockading Iranian ports, the expansion list is growing.

What Witkoff Actually Said

According to The Times of Israel, Witkoff — a longtime Trump confidant and the principal U.S. interlocutor on the Iran ceasefire — told reporters that "countries not previously contemplated" would soon join the Accords. The list he gestured toward, as reconstructed by open-source reporting, includes:

  1. Kazakhstan — already a full signatory, having joined in early 2026. The Atlantic Council's analysis notes that while Kazakhstan has had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992, the Accords accession is meaningful in that it commits Astana to a framework that includes concrete economic, security, and cultural cooperation with Israel beyond bare diplomatic recognition.
  2. Somaliland — which, per reporting in December 2025, pledged to join in exchange for Israeli recognition of its independence from Somalia. This is captured in open-source accounts of the Accords timeline.
  3. Libya — Witkoff named Libya explicitly. A signing would be complicated by Libyan factional politics, but it would represent a major North African expansion of the architecture.
  4. Azerbaijan — a Shia-majority country with an enduring security partnership with Israel dating back decades. Azerbaijan has long been, in practice, one of Israel's closest Muslim-world partners. Formal Accords accession would move that partnership from informal to codified.
  5. Armenia — the most surprising name on the list, given Armenia's historic alignments. Reporting suggests the Trump team sees a window created by Armenia's post-2020 strategic realignment and its deteriorating relationship with Moscow.
  6. A sixth country — not yet publicly identified, with various outlets speculating among Indonesia, Comoros, and one of the remaining Central Asian republics.

That list is, taken on its face, an extraordinary expansion of the Accords geography. What was originally a Gulf-Arab normalization framework is on track to become a trans-regional framework spanning Central Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

Why This Is Happening Now

The strategic logic is not complicated, and it is worth naming directly. Iran is under a combined sanctions-and-blockade regime that has reduced its revenue base, cut its regional proxy funding, and produced a diplomatic isolation that the regime has no tool to break. The Atlantic Council's Abraham Accords anniversary report notes that in every case of accession or accession-candidacy since 2020, the calculation of the joining government has included a shared reading of the Iranian threat and the alliance response to it.

When Iran looked strong, normalization looked risky to neighboring states. When Iran looks weak — and the April 18 Strait of Hormuz debacle is the latest evidence of exactly how weak — normalization looks like the dominant strategy.

For Libya, accession would lock in U.S. support for a specific faction in the country's internal politics and provide access to Israeli counterterrorism and intelligence cooperation. For Azerbaijan, it would codify an alliance that has long been a quiet cornerstone of Israeli regional strategy. For Armenia, it would represent the most dramatic strategic reorientation in the post-Soviet space of the past decade, moving Yerevan out of Russia's orbit and into a Western-aligned framework that includes Israel as an explicit partner. For Kazakhstan, already in, the accession anchors Central Asia's largest economy in a framework that is both pro-American and pro-Israeli.

What Is Actually Not Happening

Pro-Israel Americans should be honest about the accession list that is not materializing. INSS research and the Chatham House analysis both make clear that Saudi Arabia has not joined and is unlikely to join in the immediate term. Riyadh continues to insist that normalization is conditional on concrete progress toward Palestinian statehood. A comprehensive survey published in August 2025 found that 99 percent of Saudi respondents viewed normalization as a negative step — which is a figure no Saudi government can ignore.

Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa stated explicitly in August 2025 that Syria would not join the Accords, as documented in the Middle East Institute's Abraham Accords backgrounder. Lebanon, under the current Hezbollah political balance, is not a realistic near-term candidate even with the 10-day ceasefire in place.

That is the honest map. Saudi Arabia is the big prize that has not yet been secured. Syria and Lebanon are not secured. But the framework is not stuck — it is expanding in directions that, at the 2020 signing, would have seemed impossible.

The Strategic Significance

For decades, American pro-Israel strategy had to operate against the assumption that Israel's regional isolation was structural and that diplomatic breakthroughs would happen only in exchange for major Israeli territorial concessions. The Abraham Accords broke that assumption. The accessions of the past five years — and the expansion list Witkoff is now naming — have proven that normalization can proceed on a logic of shared strategic interest rather than on a logic of land-for-peace.

That is a foundational shift in Middle East diplomacy. It is not a small thing. It is arguably the single most important strategic development in the U.S.-Israel alliance since the Camp David Accords of 1978. And it is happening under two consecutive administrations of different parties, which is the clearest possible evidence that the framework has structural, not partisan, foundations.

Pro-Israel Americans should take note of who in Washington built it, who in Congress has defended it, and who in the foreign policy establishment said it could not survive the past six years of regional shocks. The list of people who were right is shorter than the list of people who were wrong. That is the kind of data point that ought to be remembered.

What To Watch Next

  1. A formal Azerbaijan signing. The relationship is already deep. A formal accession would be the most immediately achievable next step.
  2. The Libya track. If Witkoff is hinting at Libya, it suggests the Trump team has identified a specific factional partner in Tripoli or Benghazi. Which one matters for everything that follows.
  3. Armenia's alignment. Any Armenian accession would have profound implications for Russian influence in the South Caucasus. Watch for how Moscow responds.
  4. The Saudi question. Not in the immediate term. But the incentive structure for Riyadh changes every time another Muslim-majority country signs. The math moves.
  5. The ceasefire outcome on April 22. If Iran is forced into concessions, the Accords expansion list will accelerate. If Iran walks, the list probably accelerates anyway — because the coalition around Iran containment becomes the Accords coalition in effect if not in name.

Five and a half years in, the Abraham Accords have proven to be the most durable pro-Israel diplomatic architecture in a generation. In the spring of 2026, they are expanding — into geographies, onto partners, and against a strategic backdrop nobody in 2020 could have fully predicted.

That is the kind of alliance the United States builds when it is serious. Pro-Israel Americans should understand what is being built, who is building it, and why.

Iron Dome Press tracks the U.S.-Israel alliance through its diplomatic architecture, legislative record, and institutional partners. See more at our Alliance vertical.