Non-Resisdent Fellow, AGSIW; Fellow, Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation project
Aziz Alghashian is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and Saudi researcher and fellow with the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation project. His research focuses on Saudi-Israeli relations and Saudi foreign policy and aims to understand and explain Saudi implicit forms of communication and cooperation. After completing a year of officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Alghashian earned an undergraduate degree in international relations from Nottingham Trent University, an MA in diplomacy from the University of Nottingham, and a PhD focused on Saudi-Israeli relations from the University of Essex. He was then a lecturer of politics and international relations at the University of Essex, where he taught Middle East studies, international relations, and political theory. Alghashian’s analysis has been published by AGISW and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Gaza war has demonstrated the strategic utility and resilience of the detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, its longer-term sustainability may depend on unpredictable regional dynamics or other outside factors.
On August 30, AGSIW and ROPES co-hosted a discussion on the prospects for an agreement among the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
The collapse of the Abraham Accords is unlikely but so too is the prospect of other Gulf Cooperation Council states joining the accords.
The entrenchment of the Palestinian cause in Saudi identity continues to slow the Saudi-Israeli thawing process.
Regardless of the temptations to simplify or exaggerate, the GCC states’ relations with Israel require a discourse that is befitting their complexities and nuances.
