Israel-Gulf Defense Cooperation in the Post-CEPA Era

Twelve percent of Israeli defense contracts in 2024 went to Abraham Accords countries — principally the UAE. The category did not exist before 2020. Its emergence as a commercially significant share in four years is one of the most-watched structural shifts in the Israeli defense export economy.

The Accords and the CEPA

The September 2020 Abraham Accords normalized Israeli relations with the UAE and Bahrain. The May 2022 Israel-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) created the bilateral commercial framework within which defense-industrial cooperation could develop. The combination of normalization and the formal commercial framework was the structural precondition for the defense category that has grown from zero to 12% of contract value.

The EDGE counterparty

The Emirati side of the bilateral relationship is anchored by EDGE Group, the consolidated UAE defense-industrial platform formed in 2019. EDGE consolidates more than two dozen previously separate state-affiliated defense and security entities and operates as the principal UAE counterparty in global defense procurement and as a competitive participant in the Middle East defense-export market.

The structural feature of EDGE-Israeli engagement is the combination of complementarity and competition. Complementary in domains where the two industrial bases produce different capabilities — Israeli capability in electronic warfare, air defense, and certain missile categories pairs with UAE platform-and-systems capability in some defense-procurement architectures. Competitive where both industries chase similar export markets and where the EDGE growth trajectory contemplates capturing demand currently served by Israeli industry in third-party markets.

What the public record shows

The disclosed scope and value of Israel-UAE defense agreements is limited by dual-use export-control requirements (BIS, DDTC), by classification at the program level, and by bilateral framework restraints. Publicly disclosed cooperation includes:

Multiple cooperation agreements between EDGE subsidiaries and Israeli defense industrial counterparties signed since 2021
Israeli industrial participation in UAE-hosted defense exhibitions (IDEX, ADIPEC adjacent)
Reported procurement by UAE defense entities of certain Israeli electronic warfare, air defense, and adjacent capabilities
Joint participation in certain third-party-market procurement competitions

The structural reality is that the disclosed cooperation is substantially smaller than the actual bilateral defense-industrial engagement, which operates at the working level across multiple programs with classification or commercial confidentiality.

The Saudi question

Saudi Arabia has not normalized with Israel. Defense-industrial cooperation between Israeli industry and Saudi defense procurement does not formally exist at this point. The structural question — whether a Saudi-Israeli normalization framework would extend the post-CEPA defense-industrial pattern to the much larger Saudi defense procurement market — is one of the most-watched questions in the global defense-industrial environment.

The 12% Abraham Accords category in the 2024 SIBAT data is principally UAE-driven. Bahrain's defense procurement scale is materially smaller. Morocco, which normalized in late 2020, has emerged as a meaningful additional defense customer with multiple programs across IAI, Elbit, and adjacent suppliers. The Sudan normalization has not produced material defense-industrial activity.

The structural constraint

Israel-Gulf defense cooperation operates under three structural constraints that have shaped the disclosed scope.

First, US export-control architecture treats Gulf-destination Israeli defense transfers with case-by-case authorization for US-integrated systems, with some specific case-level frictions reported in industry coverage. Israeli industry's ITAR-free configuration capability is structurally important for Gulf-market access.

Second, Iranian counter-pressure on Gulf governments has continued throughout the post-Accords period. The visible scope of UAE-Israeli defense cooperation is shaped by the political cost of high-profile engagement, even where commercial logic would support deeper transactions.

Third, the bilateral framework's structural restraints — the CEPA and adjacent agreements — themselves limit the scope of disclosed defense cooperation. The framework prioritizes commercial economy integration over defense-industrial integration at the headline level.

The trajectory

The Abraham Accords category grew from zero to 12% of Israeli defense contracts across four years. The trajectory has been steady rather than explosive, and the structural pattern has shifted toward operating-company-level partnership rather than discrete transaction architecture. Whether the category continues to grow toward 15-20% of contract value by 2026-2027, normalizes around the current 10-12% range, or expands sharply on a Saudi normalization framework, is the most-watched question in the post-CEPA defense-industrial environment.

Sources

SIBAT 2024 Defense Exports Report; EDGE Group corporate disclosures; UAE Ministry of Defence statements; The National (UAE); Bloomberg; The Jerusalem Post; Breaking Defense; published research on post-Accords defense industrial cooperation. Data current as of Q2 2026.

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