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.
Israel’s potential normalization with Saudi Arabia was high on Blinken’s agenda during his visit to the kingdom this month. The Biden administration has played down expectations of an imminent breakthrough and on Wednesday, Blinken said current tensions in the West Bank could jeopardize prospects for normalization.
“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 told the Council on Foreign Relations.
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.
“Amb. Shapiro has tirelessly worked to expand the Abraham Accords and is an excellent choice for this role,” the N7 Initiative tweeted Thursday.
