Normalisation, Palestine, stability: Saudi Arabia’s agenda

Every year since 2019, one of the world’s biggest music festivals has taken place in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. It hosts top international and local artists and attracts hundreds of thousands of people. When the festival first started, I knew that one day I, as an Israeli, would go there. I love music festivals, I love people dancing, but more than anything, I dream of visiting Saudi Arabia—a country I’ve researched for over two decades. It has fascinated me since the moment we first “met”. I didn’t plan to dedicate my academic (and maybe even personal) life to it, but I couldn’t help it. It’s more thrilling than any mystery novel. It keeps changing and evolving, with one drama after another.

Back in 2019, the idea of dancing to music in the Saudi capital seemed like a fantasy. But a year later, the “Abraham Accords” were signed between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—and the path forward looked promising. On September 20, 2023, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave an interview to American television and described the dramatic progress in Saudi-Israeli relations toward normalization: “Every day we get closer.”