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WASHINGTON — The State Department has named former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro as its point person for expanding the Abraham Accords between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Shapiro's appointment as the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs’ senior advisor for regional integration comes as the Biden administration seeks to build on the Abraham Accords, which under former President Donald Trump in 2020 established formal ties between Israel and Arab states including Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
“Dan will support U.S. efforts to advance a more peaceful and interconnected region, deepen and broaden the Abraham Accords, and build the Negev Forum,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet Thursday.
Blinken announced earlier this month that the State Department would be creating a new position aimed at further integrating Israel into the region, which he described as a “cornerstone” of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.
Pleased to announce former U.S. Amb. Daniel Shapiro is joining @StateDept_NEA as Senior Advisor for Regional Integration. Dan will support U.S. efforts to advance a more peaceful and interconnected region, deepen and broaden the Abraham Accords, and build the Negev Forum.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) June 29, 2023
Shapiro served as US ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017, and prior to that worked as a senior director for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council. Most recently, Shapiro led the N7 Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which seeks to broaden and deepen normalization between Israel and Arab and Muslim countries.
He tweeted Thursday that he was "deeply honored" to join the State Department and looked forward to "working with partners to help advance a more peaceful, prosperous, integrated region."
The Biden administration has intensified its push to bring Saudi Arabia into the regional accords, and the issue was high on Blinken’s agenda during his meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Saudi officials during a visit to the kingdom this month. But Riyadh and other regional holdouts have said they need to see progress on a two-state solution before establishing ties with Israel.
Complicating prospects for normalization are the policies of Israel’s government — the most right-wing in its history, which recently drew US criticism for its approval of more than 5,000 new housing units in settlements across the West Bank.
The Biden administration has also expressed concern over recent settler violence against Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank. After a pair of Palestinian gunmen fatally shot four Israelis last week, some 400 armed Jewish settlers torched cars, homes and orchards in the West Bank town of Turmus Aya in apparent retaliation.
Blinken said Wednesday the recent violence in the West Bank has jeopardized prospects for a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. He raised the issue during a Tuesday call with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Blinken said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“We told our friends and allies in Israel that if there's a fire burning in their backyard, it's going to be a lot tougher, if not impossible, to actually both deepen the existing agreements as well as to expand them to include potentially Saudi Arabia,” Blinken said.
“It’s also, at least in our judgment as Israel’s closest friend and ally, profoundly not in Israel’s interest for this to happen — both because of the added degree of difficulty that this presents for pursuing normalization agreements or deepening them, but also because of the practical consequences,” he added.
Current signatories to the Abraham Accords are also growing impatient with Israel. Last week, Morocco confirmed it was again postponing hosting a meeting of senior officials from Israel, the United States and several Arab countries until after the summer, citing increased settlement activity and turmoil in the West Bank.
On Thursday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called Israel’s regional integration a priority for the Biden administration but acknowledged “the difficult issues that are in play in making this happen with a number of countries.”
“If we were giving up on this, if it wasn't a priority for us, if it wasn't something that we thought was possible, we wouldn't be adding new staff to work on it,” Miller told reporters.
