Abraham Cyber Accords Opportunity for Digital Cooperation

President Joe Biden has been an unmitigated failure over his two  and a half years as president. His Afghanistan pullout was universally panned as a mess by every measure and placed the lives of tens of thousands of volunteers to the American cause in the Taliban’s direct line of fire.

Biden’s backwards energy policy, which put billions of dollars in new revenue into the hand of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was likely a driving force towards what has been a destructive and costly war, not only in terms of lives lost, but also at a direct cost to the American taxpayer.

Conversely, under President Trump, saber-rattlers like North Korea and Iran were largely quiet from 2017 to 2021, and he was the first republican president since Ronald Reagan to not bring the U.S. into a new war. Among the previous President’s diplomatic achievements were the Abraham Accords.

The Abraham Accords were brokered by the Trump administration in 2020, and aimed to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab nations. The principal participants in the accords were Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain.

The Abraham Accords established formal diplomatic ties, including the exchange of ambassadors, opening embassies, and fostering cooperation in various fields, among the participating nations. The agreements encompassed sectors including trade, tourism, investment, security, technology, as well as cultural exchanges.

Prior to the Accords, Israel only had formal diplomatic relations with two Arab nations, Jordan, and Egypt. From Israel's perspective, the Abraham Accords expanded its diplomatic reach and stability in a very volatile region.

The Abraham Accords are considered by many as the most notable achievement of the Trump administration's Middle East policy, as they expanded peace and stability in the region through diplomatic initiatives.

Now, years after the creation of the Abraham Accords, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators have unveiled a new bill known as the Abraham Accords Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2023.

The proposed legislation, which is co-sponsored by members of the Abraham Accords Committee in the Senate, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada; Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., comes after a Department of Homeland Security announcement from earlier this year that expanded cyber cooperation between the Abraham Accord countries was being negotiated.

The act enhances current partnerships between America and Abraham Accords countries as they look to strengthen defenses against cyber-attacks from countries like Iran, Indonesia, Sudan, and other countries that continually target infrastructure and wage cyber warfare.

"At a time when Iran and other hostile cyber actors are those targeting the United States and Abraham Accords countries with malicious cyberattacks, this bipartisan legislation will help strengthen our collective cybersecurity defenses against shared threats," according to Sen. Rosen.

The new bill comes as Israel has been repeatedly victimized by the growing Indonesian and Sudanese cyber threat. This earlier spring, a wave of attacks from the two countries hit Israel across multiple sectors.

In May, a cyber-attack against the Israeli mobile air defense, known as the Iron Dome, was carried out by an Indonesian hacking group claiming that the hack was "in support of the Palestinian resistance." April saw an Indonesian hacking group target Israeli gas stations, bus stations, and airports, and then publish the stolen data on their Telegram channel.

In April, a Sudanese hacking group known as "Anonymous Sudan" targeted websites belonging to Israeli banks, the postal service, electrical utilities companies, as well as the country's red alert warning app. Anonymous Sudan has also attacked a number of Israeli media sites that include the Jerusalem Post, i24 News, KAN, and N12.

These attacks complicate what was originally thought to be a great opportunity for both Sudan and Indonesia to grow diplomatic relations with Israel. In October of 2020, Sudan and Israel announced their intentions to establish diplomatic relations. That announcement seemed to be solidified in February of this year when they established diplomatic relations officially.

Sudan’s reentry into the global marketplace is now in jeopardy as a result of the ongoing intra-military war that led to the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy on April 23, and these cyber-attacks against Israel are only making matters worse.

Indonesia is one of six non-Arab Asian Muslim countries that currently do not have normalized ties with Israel. It’s strong economy, 16^th largest in the world, and annual growth rate of 5.7%, could see it quickly grow into one of the world’s largest. It has been identified as a country that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like to see included in an expansion of the Abraham Accords.

This ongoing cyber threat from Indonesia, especially if found to be state-sponsored, like attacks of the Advanced Persistent Threat variety, put the future of any diplomatic advancement in question for the nation.

The future of global diplomacy is tied to the future cyber-warfare. The bipartisan Abraham Accords Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2023 has the opportunity to be the standard bearer for diplomacy and enhanced cooperation in the digital age. It would be an interesting footnote in history if something as groundbreaking as this legislation can get done during a period of unprecedented divide on not only Capitol Hill, but America and the world.