Lauren McMillen is a Masters candidate in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh and holds a Bachelors in Computer Science and Arabic from New York University Abu Dhabi. She speaks advanced Arabic, French, and Spanish and leads nonprofit ámaxa, which makes it easier for individuals who want to make a difference to actually take action through their unique nonprofit partnerships and fully remote, team-based program. | LinkedIn
Signed in September 2020, the UAE-Israel Abraham Accords commits to "continuing their efforts to achieve a just, comprehensive, realistic and enduring solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The four-page document contains the word "peace" 48 times. However, the fanfare hailing the Accords in this manner conceals the actual central component of the deal: accelerating the rate and ease at which the UAE may obtain Israeli defense tech—especially Israeli spyware and surveillance technology.
Far from a peace milestone, the Abraham Accords represent the public formalization of a long-standing covert partnership between two governments with interests in population control and surveillance. The UAE purchased and deployed Israeli surveillance technology well before the adoption of the Abraham Accords. Leaked emails in 2018 revealed that the UAE signed a contract with NSO, and Israeli cyber war company, to license surveillance software as early as August 2013—including its infamous Pegasus spyware.
At the same time, NSO facilitated the diplomatic build-up between Israel, the UAE and other Gulf states, which activists term "Pegasus diplomacy." As a result, Israeli representatives gradually joined meetings between Gulf officials and NSO executives. To avoid detection, the company created a special Gulf-facing division with agents holding foreign passports. The Gulf operation became NSO's most lucrative arm, reportedly generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
In addition to gaining access to Pegasus, collaboration with NSO enabled the UAE to enhance its in-house capabilities. Abu Dhabi-based cybersecurity firm DarkMatter recruited some NSO staff and former Israeli operatives from Unit 8200 of the Israel Defense Forces—its intelligence arm—offering $1 million salaries and luxury homes in Cyprus. DarkMatter was later exposed as the developer behind ToTok, a social media app launched in 2019 that functioned as a surveillance tool. The lure of greater access to Pegasus and other defense equipment was a key reason for the UAE and Bahrain signing the Accords, which "worked like a charm," according to Antony Loewenstein.
Israel reported $3 billion in defense sales to Bahrain and the UAE, accounting for almost a quarter of its defense exports in 2022. Though this total was removed from the online report, Israel's ambassador to the UAE released the trade figures with the caveat that the export data "do not include services, including cyber and software, which are Israel's primary export sector."
The relationship flourished during the 2011 Arab Spring, when the UAE intensified efforts to repress dissent. While public demonstrations were lacking in the UAE during this period, a petition signed by 132 Emiratis in March 2011 requested that all UAE citizens be given the right to vote and that the Federal National Council be vested with legislative powers. In response, authorities arrested and charged prominent Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor, economist and Sorbonne Abu Dhabi lecturer Nasser Bin Ghaith, and three others collectively known as the "UAE Five".
Their trial on charges of "publicly insulting" UAE officials concluded with guilty verdicts. Mansoor received a three-year sentence, with the others receiving two years each. While Sheikh Khalifa commuted their sentences the next day, he did not expunge the criminal convictions, leaving them unable to obtain the "certificate of good conduct" necessary for securing employment and obtaining a marriage license. Officials revoked Mansoor's passport, preventing him from traveling.
In 2012, the UAE continued its crackdown, arresting 54 political and human rights activists. Although mostly from the poorer Northern Emirates, the accused included public sector officials from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, representatives of some of the UAE's largest and most influential tribes, such as the al-Suweidi, the al-Nuaimi and the al-Shamsi, and Sheikh Sultan bin Kayed Al-Qassimi, a cousin of the ruler of Ras al-Khaimah.
The UAE's primary motivation for acquiring surveillance technology is to enhance its ability to suppress internal dissent.
- Lauren McMillen
The UAE has deployed Pegasus to continue combatting dissent from Emirati nationals, including journalists, activists and foreign officials. In 2016, CitizenLab reported that Pegasus was used to target Ahmed Mansoor, leading to his arrest and 10-year prison term—extended indefinitely in December 2023. In 2020, Saudi and Emirati operatives used Pegasus to hack 36 personal phones belonging to Al Jazeera staff. DAWN's founder, Jamal Khashoggi, was also surveilled, alongside his wife, later fiancé and other associates before and after his murder.
Thus, the UAE's primary motivation for acquiring surveillance technology is to enhance its ability to suppress internal dissent. However, this effort particularly focuses on its vast population of non-citizen residents from the Global South. Compared to Emirati citizens, these individuals pose a relatively higher threat to the country's stability and economy if mobilized in protest, given they constitute 88% of the population.
These migrant workers face systemic exploitation, delayed or withheld wages, substandard living conditions and other legal frameworks, leaving them virtually rightless amid rampant labor discrimination based on gender, race and religion. Yet, inversely, their labor forms the bedrock of the UAE's economy, including its cultural productions and business establishments. While rights abuse reports often rightly focus on low-wage migrant workers living in labor camps, many residents from these countries are also doctors, nurses, business owners, teachers and bankers. They live and work in city centers like Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, constituting core components of the cultural and social life of the places they call home.
While Emirati media suppresses coverage, unrest from the most exploited population—mainly in delivery and construction—is somewhat routine. Between May and December 2005, at least eight major strikes took place in Dubai. In 2011, 800 workers blocked Dubai's main highway to protest the systematic practice of withholding wages. In late 2007, approximately 30,000 went on strike for 10 days against the construction firm Arabtec. In 2020, 500 employees at a hotel company went on strike over unpaid wages. In these and other protests, the strike leaders and some participants were fired and deported.
Surveillance technology eases monitoring efforts, identifying and eliminating protest movements before they become threats. Officially, the UAE does not publish deportation figures. But the rapid 2021 mass deportation of nearly 400 African migrants offers a glimpse into the scale of seemingly quiet repression. Anonymous local sources claim residents within the UAE are aware that messaging services like WhatsApp are not secure, sharing in hushed voices and with phone microphones stories of those deported due to a message or social media post, sometimes leaving behind their families.
While the targeting of low-income residents through spyware is less documented in the UAE, one reported case in Qatar demonstrates the threats Gulf autocrats feel from powerless migrant workers. In 2021, Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan security guard in Doha, used an anonymous Twitter account with a few hundred followers to blog about the exploitation and abuse migrant workers face in Qatar. He later received a phishing link disguised as a Human Rights Watch report about migrant labor. Bidali was subsequently arrested at his labor camp, imprisoned in solitary confinement for a month before deportation to Kenya with a hefty fine for publishing "false news with the intent of endangering the public system of the state."
Such stories and countless others like them confirm that the Abraham Accords primarily focused on autocratic control—not peace. That, in no small part, is why Palestine and the Israel-Palestine conflict are an afterthought in the deals, ignoring details designed to secure peace and security for both parties.
While the UAE has faced internal dissent among Emirati nationals amid the Gaza genocide, the pushback could reinforce the government's resolve to uphold the Accords in a bid to protect itself, as Israeli spyware like Pegasus enables it to target perceived threats. That spells poorly for any sense of human rights or democracy in the Gulf country, worsening the lack of accountability to its citizens.
