This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Bachelors, Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom. The headlines tell

a story that needs explanation. Israel's tourism minister in highest level visit to Saudi

Arabia. That's Bloomberg within these last hours. At the same time, Saudi delegation

visits Palestinian territories as Israel and Saudi Arabia. I normalization therein lies

a mystery. I welcome Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

It was here to help me unwind some of these mysteries. Jonathan is Senior Vice President

of Research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Jonathan, I'll start with

the news of an Israeli minister visiting Saudi Arabia.

Is this supposed to be a crack open of normalization or is this because its sponsor organization

is this understood as just a gesture? How to regard this minister in Saudi Arabia? Good

evening to you. Good evening, John. I think that this is a sign that normalization is

well underway between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Of course, they've not yet signed an agreement,

but if one looks at recent speeches and interviews and now this visit, I think we start to piece

together that the relationship is already blossoming and that is, of course, very good news.

Just in the last week, we saw Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, give

an interview to Brett Baer of Fox News, where he talked about how he saw the relationship

develop between the Israelis and the Saudis and that he was very open to it. Within a day or

so, we saw Benjamin Netanyahu get up in front of the UN General Assembly at Turtle Bay,

where he openly discussed the benefits of what he said was an expected deal between Saudi

Arabia and Israel. He was not shy about sharing that with the world and now we see

cats, the minister for tourism, make his way to Saudi Arabia. This is for a UN world tourism

organization. So, officially, he's part of just a delegation of many countries, but in the past,

...