The Deception of the Abraham Accord

James F. Gauss, Ph.D.

July 3, 2025

The new billboard unveiled in Tel Aviv last month.

Part of this blog post is taken from the author’s book, Israel and the Middle East: Will there ever be peace? ©2023).

Ever since President Trump’s election to his second presidential term, there has been much ballyhoo about his Peace to Prosperity agreement for the Middle East nations that was first made public on January 28, 2020.  It was quickly dubbed the Abraham Accord and was first signed by Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on September 15, 2020. A few months later, Oman, Morocco and Sudan signed on to the Accord.

Since the birth of the Accord, the majority of evangelical Christian and Jewish leaders have extolled it as a major accomplishment and breakthrough for peace in the Middle East.  I, on the other hand, voiced strong opposition and wrote about it in blog postings, spoke about it at public presentations and in the book, Embracing the Anti-Christ . . ., released in July 2020.  I inquired of well-known evangelical leaders but found none that agreed with me.

From a biblical standpoint, I have several issues with the Accord that I expressed in detail in the two linked books in this post, but I will be briefer here.

First, the Accord is based on three major false premises about Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Four, if one is to assume that Islam is a “faith” like Christians and Jews profess and not an ideological belief system of world conquest.

As for the three glowing deceptions, they all violate biblical truths.  The Accord is based on three false assumptions, and therefore deceptions of the truth.  The foundation of the agreement is based on Christians, Jews and Muslims worshipping the same God; that they are all Abrahamic faiths and that all three desire peace.  All three of these beliefs are grossly in error and are not supported by the Old or New Testament of the Bible, the Torah or the Qur’an.

To link Islam with the seed of Abraham was an attempt by early Islamic leaders to gain favor with Jewish and Christian communities. In an effort to usurp the Abrahamic lineage for Islam, Muslim clerics and scholars have proclaimed for centuries that it was not Isaac—the Jewish patriarch that spawned the 12 tribes of Israel and that Abraham sought to sacrifice on Mount Moriah—but rather it was Ishmael that God called Abraham to sacrifice on Mount Mina outside Mecca in Saudi Arabia (Embracing the Anti-Christ: The Heresy of Interfaith Dialogue ©2020, p.29).

First, are all three beliefs sourced from Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism and do they worship the One and Only true God?  The direct answer is no, but here is why. 

The god of Islam is an anti-Christ, anti-Jew spirit and the antithesis of the God of the Bible— the God of the Jews and Christians. Although Muslim Arabs can justly lay claim to being descendants of Abraham through his illegitimate son, Ishmael, the vast majority (80%) of the followers of Islam are not. In Genesis 16:12, God proclaims that Ishmael “shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”

Who were Ishmael’s “brethren”? He was the product of a Hebrew father and a pagan Arab woman; and God said he and his descendants would dwell among the Israelites. However, the two would be forever in conflict.

The characteristics of the God of the Bible and the god of the Qur’an are diametrically opposite.  To be brief, the God that Christians and Jews worship commands His followers to seek peace and reconciliation.  The god that Muslims worship demands war and the annihilation of Christians and Jews and all those who do not adhere to Islamic beliefs.

Despite this stark difference, are Muslims, or the Islamic tenants of faith birthed through God’s covenant with Abraham? No! The God of the Bible made a covenant with Abraham that was to continue in perpetuity through Abraham’s son, Isaac.  

To be brief, God promised Abraham and Sarah a son from Sarah’s barren womb. Abraham became impatient and decided to help God out by impregnating his Arabian concubine, Hagar, and she gave birth to Ishmael (Genesis 16:11).  Ishmael was born to satisfy Abraham and Hagar’s longing for a child, not to fulfill God’s covenant with Abraham.

God even denied Abraham’s request that his son Ishmael could live under God’s banner.

 And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!”

Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.  And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.  But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” (Genesis 17:18-21).

In Genesis 22, God denies that Ishmael is Abraham’s son by referring to Isaac as Abraham’s “only son” three times (vss. 2, 12 and 16). It should also be noted, Judaism and Christianity are “covenant” faiths, but Islam is not. Nowhere in the Qur’an is it disclosed that Allah made a covenant with those who follow him.

Now, about the accord. President Trump had no right to appropriate the term “Abraham Accord” and certainly not on behalf of the United States and Israel. While he had a political right to negotiate such an agreement, biblically he was violating God’s covenant with Israel, where God promised Israel the undivided land of Canaan forever. Even the Qur’an acknowledges that in surah 5:21.

“And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the [Mediterranean] sea, Philistia, and from the desert to the [Euphrates] River. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you” (Exodus 23:31-33; author’s emphasis).

Through this accord, President Trump and the United States has encouraged Israel to make a covenant with their enemies, those who seek their ultimate destruction.

The Muslim leaders depicted on the billboard at the beginning of this post represent Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Syria and United Arab Emirates.  Collectively this group of Muslim leaders and nations are responsible for centuries of hatred toward the Jewish people and Christians. They are nations and leaders who tolerate and harbor Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood, all who have one goal: to destroy Israel and America. Members of these groups are in America preaching and teaching Islamic hatred and death of Jews and Christians, as well as all non-Muslims, in their American Mosques and schools. Saudia Arabia finances the teaching of radical Islam in America’s schools and universities and was home to the Islamic terrorists that attacked Americans at home on September 11, 2001.

The evil that is represented by Islamic doctrine has not been changed, nor does evil stop being evil just because one wants it to stop.  Islam has 14 centuries of causing death and mayhem and a false accord based on false assumptions offering a false peace will not change that history or ideology.

Jesus said that in the last days, “For false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).  Many of the “elect” among Christians and Jews have been deceived.