In February 2019, upon the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, released a comprehensive declaration to the nation titled: "The Second Phase of the Revolution". Listing the Islamic Republic's main achievements in the four decades since its inception and its future goals, Khamene'i drew a comparison between Iran's past and present challenges posed by the imperialists, arrogant powers and their allies, as he called them. Shortly after the revolution, he indicated, the challenges posed by Washington involved ending the intrusion by foreign (American) agents and closing down the embassy of the Zionist regime in Tehran. The challenges today, "concern Iran’s strong presence near the borders of the Zionist regime," putting an end to the American unlawful infiltration in West Asia, the Islamic Republic’s support for the Palestinian people’s resistance as well as defending Hezbollah and the resistance throughout this region. If the West’s concern in the past was to prevent Iran from buying basic armaments, Khamene'i continued, nowadays, their concern is to prevent the transfer of advanced Iranian weapons to the forces of resistance. If on those days, the U.S. presumed that the Islamic government could be vanquished with the help of a few Iranian sellouts and a small number of aircraft, he further emphasized, today they feel they need a coalition of hostile or "daunted states to counter Iran on the political and security fronts; and yet, they fail." The proposed paper aims at exploring Tehran's view on the normalization agreements between Israel and the Arab states in the Gulf, on the backdrop of Khamene'i's 2019 declaration, Iran's regional implications (in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, etc.), and the new administration in the White House under President Biden. By relying on official statements, public discourse, and caricatures from Iranian media outlets, the paper will demonstrate how the Abraham Accords summoned diverse reactions in Iran. While most reactions reflect the Islamic Republic's longstanding anti-Israeli ideology and the "low-intensity conflict" between the two countries, on the fringe of Iranian politics one can also find voices suggesting otherwise.

With the election of President Joe Biden, Israel and the Gulf countries will have to manage their relationship in a new context. Biden is less prepared than his predecessor to write the countries a blank check, although there is likely to be more continuity than disruption. As the US draws down in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be looking more towards Israel for support against Iran. The Biden administration is tempering its relations with Saudi Arabia, who will likely turn to Israel to run interference for it in Washington. Israel will have to calculate how much it is willing to do that, and what price it is willing to pay.

During the seventy years of its existence, Israel’s relations with the Arab world have experienced a radical turnabout. Recently a new stage evolved, with some Arab states willing to develop ties of cooperation that point in the direction of a strategic security alliance. The forming of strategic alliance based on full normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors reflects the changing face of the Middle East and the deep processes it is undergoing. At the head of these is the decline of Arabism and the decline of the Arab world, while on the other side, Iran and Turkey, and Israel too, are rising in influence and power. Indeed, it is these three countries that today dictate the path the Middle East will take. Nevertheless, the warming up of Arab-Israeli relations, alongside the American backing provides Israel with a clear advantage over it rivals and enemies in the Middle East. Will this tendency continue under the Biden Administration? What might be the implications of the American elections (November 2020) as well as the Israeli elections (March 2020) for the Middle East in large and for the Israeli and Arab relations with Iran. This could be easily seen through the prism of the development in Syria, a key state for a better understanding of the trends and the prospects for the future. Indeed, the war in Syria, at least the military aspect, seems to be coming to an end with Bashar al-Asad and his regime being victorious. However, Iran is still striving to gain a permanent foothold in Syria, with the aim turning making it an integral part of the Iranian axis, headed by Teheran, continuing on to Baghdad and Damascus, and ending on the shores of the Mediterranean, in Beirut. During the last several years a series of incidents took place between Israel, Iran and Hizballah on Syrian soil. True, none of the parties – Russia and Bashar in particular, but Israel and Iran as well – has any interest in the escalation of the conflict and its deterioration into an all-out Iranian-Israeli confrontation (The First War of the North). Thus, any exchange of blows, no matter how limited, could be quite dangerous. On the one hand, they could lead to red lines and ground rules as part of a mutual Iranian-Israeli balance of deterrence and terror, at least when it comes to Syria.

The Palestinian response to Israel's normalization agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco began with total rejection, across the Palestinian political spectrum. However, it is currently evolving, reflecting adaptation to the new regional reality of normalization. This Palestinian flexibility stems from recognition of international and regional political constraints, as well as from an intra-Palestinian clash between approaches. It also reflects growing acknowledgement of regional processes that in the past two decades pushed the Palestinian issue from the top of Arab priorities. The change in Palestinian policy reflects an approach that calls for working with the normalizing states to lead to a settlement between the Palestinians and Israel “from within,” through close engagement, as opposed to the traditional Arab pressure on Israel “from outside,” through boycotts, military measures, etc. This turnaround, which was received relatively quietly even in Hamas, aligns with the normalizing states’ claim that their access to Israel in fact protects Palestinian interests: An example would be the UAE’s claim that by normalizing relations with Israel it halted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to annex portions of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank. This raises the question of whether the Palestinians will build on the strategy of dealing with Israel “from within,” and whether by working more closely with the UAE and others it will produce the tangible results the Palestinians expect.

"On the Deck of the Titanic", thus sailed the recently founded Joint List of Arab parties on the eve of the 2015 parliamentary elections in Israel, according to a leading journalist from Northern Israel, belonging to a nearly two million strong minority of Palestinian Arabs who are also Israeli citizens. His concern was shared by many, but this prophecy was refuted, with the Joint List gaining 13 out of 120 seats in the Knesset (Israeli parliament). However, internal disputes led to the disintegration of the Joint List on the eve of the 2019 elections, leading in turn to a decline in Arab parliamentary representation. Luckily for the Arab parties, the recurring rounds of elections in the last two years enabled the re-unification of the Joint List, with its representation hitting a record of 15 seats, but only temporary. With the secession of the Islamic movement from the Joint List, and its separate campaign for the forthcoming March 2021 elections, Arab representation may be decimated from 15 seats to 9, or even 8. What may seem even more devastating for Arab politics in Israel, is the shattering of a dream to become a role model of unity and leadership to Palestinians elsewhere, perhaps even in the Middle East in general. Even more painful, for many Arab leaders and pundits, is that the schism in the Joint List was orchestrated by none other than Prime Minister Netanyahu, facing criminal indictments and struggling for survival, who was able through political cunning to drive a wedge between the Islamic Movement (southern branch) and the other parties comprising the Joint List. Unsatisfied with this political victory, assumingly making the Islamic Movement his ally, Netanyahu now runs his own campaign among Israel's Arab minority, hoping to gain 1-2 seats directly from Arab voters, who were considered until recently his sworn political rivals. These repercussions come amidst a wave of internal violence on criminal grounds in Arab localities, suffering from decades of neglect and discrimination in government funds, and now also alleged police neglect of anti-criminal activities, and the growing Covid-19 pandemic crisis. This leads to a growing concern among Arab politicians in Israel: Can the 2015 apocalyptic prophecy fulfill itself in 2021? This paper will analyze the recent repercussions and upheavals in the Arab political scene in Israel, in a historical context from 1948 to the present, in order to answer this question.