By Chaimae Bouazzaoui and Evangelia Akritidou 

Subtitles

1. Isaac: Symbolism and Strategic Alignment 

2. The Strategic Rationale: A Region in Transition

3. Security Through Multilateralism 

4. A Multilateral Comprehensive Framework: the Isaac Forum

5. From Peace Agreements to a Global Peace System

Isaac: Symbolism and Strategic Alignment 

The Abraham Accords are widely celebrated as a sudden, paradigm-shifting breakthrough in Middle Eastern diplomacy. Yet, from an operational and strategic perspective, such geopolitical catalytic earthquakes do not occur in a vacuum. They are the culmination of years of meticulous, often unseen groundwork. This piece argues that the foundation for the Abraham Accords was laid not in the sands of the Arabian Peninsula but across the Atlantic, in South America. Through a series of strategic, security, and intelligence-based engagements with Latin American nations, most notably Argentina, Israel has developed an operational blueprint for normalization.

Beyond the tragic character of the 1992 and 1994 Buenos Aires bombings, these terror attacks marked an alarming inflection point that exposed the limits of sovereign intelligence capacity and demonstrated the value of Israeli operational expertise. Combined with Israel's technological and agricultural capabilities, and reinforced by the deep religious bond among Latin American Jewry, Evangelical Christianity, and Jerusalem, these engagements created a compelling "proof of concept” that would later resonate in the Gulf. This analysis explores how quiet diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere served as a silent bridge to the historic agreements in the Middle East, and what this reveals about the future of normalization in the post-October 7 environment. This underlying pattern of pre-formal cooperation can be understood as the "Isaac Accords”, the operational foundation upon which later normalization was built. The Abraham Accords ushered in a new era of multifaceted cooperation and diplomatic normalization across the Middle East. By contrast, South America had experienced periods of strengthened regional collaboration especially with Washington and Jerusalem before it crystallized into the Isaac Accords. While the Abraham Accords are widely associated with a historic rapprochement between Israel and Arab states with which it had no formal relations, the Isaac Accords were built upon the renewal and institutionalization of longstanding partnerships. In this sense, the Abraham Accords opened doors that had long been closed, whereas the Isaac Accords reopened doors that had once stood open.

In September 2020, the Abraham Accords, launched by President Donald J. Trump and signed on the White House lawn, were hailed as a diplomatic miracle:for decades, the conventional mantra in international relations held that Arab-Israeli normalization was impossible without a comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian issue. The "sudden” public embrace between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain changed this paradigm. However, viewing the Abraham Accords as a spontaneous event misunderstands the mechanics of strategic diplomacy. In the operational world, breakthroughs are the result of long-term shaping efforts.

If the Abraham Accords in the Middle East and Africa were grounded in an interfaith dialogue between Islam and Judaism, earlier engagements in South America reflected a different dynamic, shaped this time by the interaction between Judaism and Christianity. This religious angle is significant because the Abraham Accords themselves rest on an interfaith foundation that includes all religious currents, and their origins become clearer when viewed through this broader religious and societal lens which avoids the limited and narrow view of a so-called Muslim-Jewish conflict, and instead develops the concept of interfaith relations from an extensive coexistence foundation. 

The name "Isaac” carries both analytical value and symbolic weight. It holds prophetic significance for Judaism and Islam, resonating deeply within the monotheistic tradition. In regional narratives, Isaac evokes continuity and the possibility of coexistence. As a conceptual framework, the Isaac Accords illuminate a pattern first visible in Israel's South American engagements: normalization emerging not from political declarations but from sustained operational cooperation, intelligence coordination, and trust-building long before formal diplomacy becomes possible. The Latin American experience demonstrated this dynamic with unusual clarity. In Argentina and across the region, Israel's partnerships in security, technology, and crisis response created durable channels of cooperation that preceded and ultimately enabled political alignment. These interactions revealed a model in which operational cooperation generates regional strategic alliances and stability, in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which were publicly formalized with the Gulf. In policy terms, the Isaac Accords would mark a second phase of normalization that moves beyond discrete bilateral arrangements and toward a multilateral architecture comparable in function to established regional frameworks such as the OSCE or ASEAN, but with a more interfaith approach in which Israel is the core player. They would also signal a shift from political normalization toward deeper societal, technological, and economic integration, reflecting the layered nature of cooperation that took shape in the Western Hemisphere. This framing is not merely symbolic. As the Abraham Accords demonstrated, narrative architecture can shape diplomatic momentum, align stakeholders, and foster new forms of cooperation, such as the Negev Forum and I2U2. Recognizing the Western Hemisphere as an early laboratory for operational collaboration offers insight into how normalization may evolve in the post-October 7 environment. The Isaac Accords, therefore, provide a conceptual framework for understanding how incremental, often invisible engagement first tested in South America, can set the conditions for breakthroughs that appear sudden but are in fact the product of long-term strategic design.

The Strategic Rationale: a Region in Transition

Israel has demonstrated its value as an indispensable partner, not merely as a regional military power but as a provider of solutions to existential challenges that few other nations could address. This has attracted the Gulf region and sparked a strong appetite for publicly highlighted, multifaceted cooperation, most notably in intelligence, leading to the formalization of diplomatic relations and a new people-to-people cooperation. However, the testing ground for this "solutions-based diplomacy” was not the Middle East, but South America. Argentina occupies a central place in this analysis for reasons that go beyond geography or trade. It was in Argentina that the strategic value of Israeli intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities was most starkly demonstrated, not by success, but by the devastating consequences of their absence.

On March 17, 1992, the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires was destroyed by a car bomb, killing thirty people. Two years later, on July 18, 1994, the AMIA Jewish community center was bombed, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds more. Both attacks were orchestrated by Hezbollah under the direct guidance and financing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Argentine judicial response to these attacks was, to put it mildly, inadequate. Investigations stalled, key suspects were never prosecuted, and political interference repeatedly derailed accountability. The reason was not a lack of will alone but a profound lack of capability. Argentina, at that time, lacked the intelligence architecture, regional expertise, and operational experience to effectively investigate, attribute, and counter Iranian-sponsored terrorism. Fortunately, the current strong leadership in Argentina has reversed the dynamics and brought a breakthrough to the country and the immediate region, which have suffered due to a severe lack of operational intelligence. In his address, Prime Minister Netanyahu described Argentina during the signing of the Isaac Accords as a country undergoing “enormous change,” returning to an “alliance of freedom,” and sharing “common goals and common values” with Israel and the United States. This success story has been similarly observed in El Salvador under the strong leadership of its current President, Nayib Bukele.

Panama and Costa Rica are another strategic bloc in the region with which Israel has intensified its cooperation in the last decade. Following the Isaac Accords with Argentina, President Isaac Herzog’s inaugural visit to this regional bloc, the first by any Israeli President, carries significant diplomatic symbolism and reflects expanding hemispheric partnerships. Costa Rica, Antigua and Barbuda, Peru, and many others have emerged as a center of international attention, following their electoral process, where the new leadership is expected more than ever to advance shared priorities across the western hemisphere in the wake of rising challenges, continuing to shape diplomacies across the globe.

The Buenos Aires attacks had indeed crystallized a reality that would  reconfigure Israeli diplomacy for the following three decades. Israel has long been the first enemy of the Iranian regime, a position that has only sharpened as Israel has simultaneously remained the world’s most successful StartUp Nation, with outstanding technological capabilities. Israel possesses a unique set of capabilities in the context of Iranian and Hezbollah counter-intelligence operations. It served as a premier, unmatched intelligence source for several Western allies thanks to deep, decades-long intelligence penetration of Hezbollah's global networks, operational experience tracking, disrupting, and neutralizing Iranian proxy cells, and the institutional knowledge accumulated through direct confrontation with the actors responsible for the Buenos Aires attacks. When Argentina and other Latin American nations sought to understand what had happened and how to prevent it from happening again, the answer pointed in the Israeli direction.

Security Through Multilateralism

This dynamic, in which Israeli intelligence and security expertise became an indispensable currency of partnership, is the operational core of what we term the "Isaac Accords.” It is a pattern of engagement built not on ideology, but on the imperative of national immunization against a growing disruptive transnational terror proxy phenomenon. The threats described were not confined to a single national context. They operated across borders, gradually expanding cooperation beyond bilateral exchanges toward more networked forms of coordination. Simultaneously, Israeli cybersecurity firms, border control technologies, and counter-narcotics expertise addressed the security challenges posed by drug cartels and organized crime, threats that, in their operational structure and corrosive effect on state institutions, bear a striking resemblance to those posed by Iranian proxy networks.

A parallel dynamic has emerged in Lebanon, which has long suffered from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. After President Trump secured a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon for three weeks and held a historic meeting with Israeli and Lebanese officials on April 23, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut stressed that “direct engagement between Lebanon and Israel, two neighboring countries that should have never been at war, can mark the beginning of a national revival” or a cold calculus of national survival in another context like Haiti. The terror proxy threat has reached not only Central-South America but also the Sahel in Africa. It has become the epicenter of proxy-terrorism in the continent, where policymakers and analysts from diverse backgrounds, especially from neighboring Europe, have increasingly highlighted the destabilizing role of Polisario's alignment with Iranian-backed terror networks, including Hezbollah, and broader ties to Iranian-funded militias such as the Houthis, which significantly harms peace in the region. According to multiple assessments, these relationships have introduced new layers of terror risks for the Sahel, and for U.S. partners in the region seeking to contain the spread of proxy‑enabled regional instability. This only underscores the need for even deeper U.S.-Morocco-Israel cooperation on counter‑proxy strategy, intelligence fusion, and diplomatic coordination. Several members of the U.S. Congress, including Representative Joe Wilson and Jimmy Panetta, joined later by numerous members from both parties, introduced a major, decisive resolution to consider designating the Polisario as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) as part of a broader effort to deter Iranian influence operations. Tim Moore was the thirteenth Congressman to sign the resolution on April 27^th, 2026. Moreover, the timing of recent Iranian ambassadorial meetings in Algeria and Polisario’s May 5^th, 2026 terror attacks on the Moroccan city of Smara are not insignificant. The United States was the first country to condemn Polisario’s attacks as “violent”, a “threat to regional stability and the progress made towards peace”, and “inconsistent with the spirit of recent talks”. The current international focus on Iran and the clear nexus with Iran has triggered a strong reaction among the P5 condemning Polisario’s attacks as a clear “threat to regional stability” (France) and a “risk” that “undermines efforts toward peace” (UK). Frameworks like the Abraham Accords and the Isaac Accords can contribute to the strengthening of international peace and security at the UN, which has been requested on several occasions to condemn the Iranian-proxy nexus activity expanding from Hormuz (as part of an assault on the world’s economy) to the security of Smara in Morocco, the western part of North Africa and, even farther, to the western hemisphere, particularly in South America.

Within this emerging framework, the logic of the Isaac Accords extends beyond the Middle East to Africa, illustrating how shared exposure to proxy threats can drive new alignments and reinforce the case for a more integrated security architecture as a bulwark against terror proxies, criminal networks, and gangs at large. This could also support the case for Haiti where, following the September 2025 UN Security Council resolution, the U.N.-sponsored, Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission has shifted to a complete "Gang Suppression Force" to continue combatting gang violence and supporting the Haitian National Police, in perfect harmony with the U.S.'s decisive actions against these criminal networks in neighboring Western Hemisphere countries and the Trump administration's new cooperation guidance to bolster the national security of America and its allies. Thanks to a steadfast triangular cooperation among the United States, Africa -particularly Morocco- and the Middle East, with Israel at the core; the global South, including Central and South America has shifted towards greater awareness of the terror-Iranian-backed proxies nexus, especially after the Abraham Accords. Dozens of capitals who had already spoken in favor of the Moroccan autonomy plan before the Abraham Accords, including the United States and France, have been joined later by numerous countries which have significantly contributed to  broader counterterrorism cooperation. In 2025, the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) officially endorsed Morocco's Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara. The vote took place during the General Assembly in San Salvador. In May 2023, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira described Morocco's Autonomy Plan as a "serious and credible” effort. In February 2024, Brazil reiterated its support for Morocco. In 2021, Colombia expressed support for Morocco's Autonomy Plan as a realistic basis for a solution, before the new President shifted the country's position, while the parliament continued to press for maintaining the previous position.

In 2021, Peru also suspended recognition of Polisario, implicitly favoring Morocco before leaning towards more explicit diplomatic language in 2023-2024. Paraguay also expressed strong support for Morocco's Autonomy Plan in joint communiqués in 2020 and 2023. The historic decisions made by President Trump in 2020 and Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2023, recognizing the Moroccan Sahara, along with the French announcement in 2024, have added greater impetus to the dynamics. In May 2026, Japan voiced its definitive support for the Moroccan initiative, after it used to expel Polisario from TICAD summits every year, a “space reserved exclusively for sovereign states”. During the single month of April 2026, fifteen countries (re-)affirmed their strong support of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan, including the United States, which has reaffirmed its support on numerous occasions and played a decisive role at the UN to advance genuine peace in the region.

The newest countries to express support for the Moroccan initiative include Canada, which firmly rejected Polisario‑aligned propagandist narratives; Switzerland, affirming that diplomatic neutrality must remain aligned with historical reality; Austria,  and Germany. They are joined by the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Egypt, Gabon, Honduras, Kenya, Mali, the Netherlands, São Tomé‑and‑Príncipe, and Zambia, all of which reinforce the growing international consensus surrounding the Moroccan autonomy plan.

The world is witnessing the rise of global awareness oriented towards establishing a credible deterrence alliance from both the ground and beyond the skies, with enhanced space cooperation as the “ultimate frontier for diplomacy”. Morocco, which hosts both the oldest and the newest U.S. Consulate in the world, has become the 64^th country to sign the Artemis Accords, joined later by Paraguay, Malta, and Ireland.

The significance of Morocco’s role was particularly notable, as the agreement was secured during African Lion 2026, a moment marked by the visit of U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and the inauguration of the newest U.S. Consulate in Casablanca, an event highlighted by the presence of Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau. This occurred in the sixth year of the Abraham Accords and in the broader context of America’s 250th Anniversary. In this context, Secretary of War Peter Hegseth underscored Morocco’s importance by praising it as one of the United States’ oldest and most treasured relationships, reaffirming the depth and history of the bilateral partnership within this multilateral framework.

With steadfast Royal Leadership, and an innovative diplomacy strengthened by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita and national intelligence and security agencies, DGED and DGSN, Morocco has become a premier actor in counterterrorism, sharing good practices with broader regions following the Abraham Accords and shedding light on the terror threat to Africa, where Iran has established its networks. The Middle East chaos caused by Iranian destabilizing actions should not be replicated in Africa, Europe, and America. While Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion contained the danger, international relations wisdom required a formal collective statement in the U.N., the Negev Forum, the Board of Peace, and the potential future Isaac Accords' institutional structure, designating a detailed list of proxies as FTOs. The world should fight against proxies that have become the new face of terror, and their propaganda both on the ground and online, following the tragedies of the holocaust, the October 7^th and September 11th terror attacks. The international community should not only remember but also act with clear morality and resolve, in a unified fashion.The United States' establishment of the Shield of the Americas Summit is highly symbolic. It links the prosperity of National Securities to that of regional Securities. This Summit, which "cemented the commitment of 13 like-minded countries in the Western Hemisphere”, could be another opportunity to build on the Isaac Accords, in addition to the Florida Proclamation.

A Multilateral Comprehensive Framework: the Isaac Forum

The need to establish a framework that unites the Abraham Accords' institutional faces - the Negev Forum and I2U2, which have not yet developed into permanent structures; the fresh but bold Board of Peace; and a possible Isaac Forum - into a single, rock-solid, established institution, similar to the U.N.'s initial foundation, has become crucial. Such frameworks would translate collective multilateralism into action rather than scattering efforts. Another option is to merge the Abraham Accords' and the Isaac Accords' structures into a comprehensive Isaac Forum. A bold multilateral effort could even redefine the UNSG's future mission in the decisive 2027 electoral year.

However, since Judaism, Christianity, and Islam symbolically regard Isaac as the son of the patriarch and prophet Abraham, it would be more fitting to add a potential Isaac Forum to the Negev Forum and I2U2 under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords and the broader Board of Peace as an ultimate multilateral structure. Would other countries initiate an Ismael Accords framework to address common issues from another geographic perspective, including, for example, broader Asian and Oceanic countries, in close cooperation with ASEAN? This would add value to the evolving interfaith dynamic and address the counterterrorism threat through soft power and cultural dimensions. The security dimension is not limited to culture; it also extends to the agricultural and technological aspects.

The security dimension of the Isaac Accords was reinforced by a parallel track of technological and agricultural engagement. South America, with its vast agricultural potential and challenges of water scarcity, food security, and rural development, was a natural proving ground for Israeli innovation. Israel's mastery of drip irrigation, desalination, and desert agriculture, born of necessity in the Negev, found fertile application across Latin America's diverse landscapes. Israeli agricultural missions transformed arid regions, increased crop yields, and addressed food security challenges that had persisted for generations. These were not abstract technology transfers; they were tangible improvements to the daily lives of local populations. This dual-track approach, offering both the "plowshares” of agricultural innovation and the "swords” of security expertise, established Israel as a holistic partner capable of addressing the full spectrum of national vulnerabilities. It is precisely this model that the Gulf States would later adopt as the foundation for the Abraham Accords.

Any analysis of Israeli-Latin American relations that ignores the religious dimension is fundamentally incomplete. Latin America is home to hundreds of millions of devout Christians, many of whom feel a deep connection to the Jewish people. This religious bond creates a powerful undercurrent in the political relationship between Israel and Latin American nations. It provides a reservoir of popular goodwill that deepens the human ties between these countries and Israel. It also creates a natural constituency for policies that support Israeli security and sovereignty, including in countries with significant Muslim minority populations. The Abraham Accords themselves were partly enabled by a similar dynamic in the Gulf, namely the recognition that the ideological framework of perpetual conflict was a barrier to prosperity, not a path to it. In Latin America, the religious dimension provided an even more direct emotional and spiritual bridge, one that predated any formal diplomatic engagement.

The Isaac Accords would position the Middle East as a bridge between East and West, a hub for energy transition technologies, and a stabilizing force in global supply chains, positioning the region as a strategic connector, not merely a conflict zone. This would create a durable institutional backbone, leading to issue‑based coalitions as engines of regional progress. In addition to the Abraham Accords, such frameworks would meaningfully deepen people‑to‑people relations, both culturally and within a broader global social‑safety framework, an especially timely objective in light of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States and the 2030 World Cup in Morocco. The Abraham Accords countries should seize this momentum by expanding their cooperation beyond football into additional spheres of soft power, including the martial arts. The International Martial Arts Hall of Fame World Summit offers a compelling example: a venue where high‑level officials, among them the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, himself an Oklahoma Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee, can contribute both personal credibility and professional strategic value.

The Abraham Accords countries can also request the integration of the American Pax Silica initiative, following Norway. To this date, only Israel and the UAE have joined this tech initiative. Last year, MENA2050 published the concept of AI-PAX, an innovative approach that would combine peace and technology-based strategies to transform the Middle East through such forums. The concept has been applied in 2026 through various initiatives.   

From Peace Agreements to a Global Peace System

The Gulf States, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, were not passive observers of Israel's engagement in South America. While public relations between Israel and the Gulf were officially nonexistent, intelligence and back-channel communications were robust and continuous. The leaderships in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh faced challenges remarkably similar to those that had driven Latin American nations toward Israel, including the existential threat of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, the urgent need to diversify their economies away from oil, and the necessity of acquiring cutting-edge security and technological capabilities. When Gulf leaders observed Israel's operational successes in South America, including intelligence partnerships, agricultural transformations, and counterterrorism frameworks, they saw a "proof of concept.” The Isaac Accords demonstrated that partnering with Israel delivered tangible, immediate benefits that directly addressed the most pressing national security and economic imperatives of any nation willing to engage.

The October 7, 2023, terror attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza have fundamentally altered the regional calculus in ways that are not yet fully appreciated. The conventional narrative suggests that the war has set back normalization, particularly with Saudi Arabia.., However, a deeper longer-term operational analysis might point to a different conclusion. The war has demonstrated, with brutal clarity, the consequences of allowing a terrorist organization to govern a territory. It has once again shown the need to fight terror groups, including those with a political basis, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, whose so-called "governing” models have led to destruction, international isolation, and the immiseration of the population they claim to represent. These groups were justifiably designated as FTOs by the United States. In the new reality unfolding in the region, the strategic logic of the Abraham Accords, and of the Isaac Accords before them, becomes increasingly compelling. Israel, for its part, must recognize that military capability alone is insufficient and that it needs to use its soft power and diplomatic tools with all its neighbors to fully secure its long-term strategic position.

Israel offers a unique and broad set of capabilities, including security, technology, intelligence, and the operational expertise to navigate an increasingly dangerous world. We can now build promising innovative bridges with all MENA countries, such as the Middle East Union, or the Middle East League, to which Isaac Accords countries could join as Observers.

The Abraham Accords opened the door to a new era. The Isaac Accords would build the house. They represent a shift from peace as an event to peace as an ecosystem, a system of institutions, partnerships, and shared interests capable of weathering political storms. In this sense, the Isaac Accords are not merely a diplomatic proposal. They are a strategic vision for a region ready to move from fragmentation to genuine integration.