Oh, and they both use the strength of their relationship with the US to make certain parts of the world unlivable for people they don't like.
Israel is pretty much the only Democratic, liberal country in the middle East, with Western level women's rights/empowerment, LGBTQ protections, legal protection for minorites, etc. And a land of massive innovation. US universities aren't partnering with Israel because it's politically convenient, but because Israeli universities breed world leading research in many areas. Which is why most high tech companies have an Israeli division, and which is also why Israel has one of the world's highest per capita entrepreneurship, patents and peer reviewed scientific publications.
Contrast that to Autocratic Saudi Arabia where women weren't allowed to drive, or move about in public without approved male company until a year or two, where the LGBTQ are punished by death, where every non Muslim is systemically discriminated with a religions tax [1], where critical Tweets about the establishment routinely land people in jail, where the actual law of the land [2] is a throwback to the middle ages, with almost no scientific or cultural output of significance!
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya
[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_system_of_Saudi_Arabia...
It's like Apartheid era South Africa arguments again. A shining beacon of civilization among the barbarians, yada yada.
first-world countries should be held to higher standards of jurisprudence (among all things) than rando third-world nations. if you can't deliver justice, then really are you first-world at all?
do you really think Israel delivers appropriate due process to its occupied territories? Let alone actual representation?
iirc Israel just rolled over and occupied Jerusalem within the last couple years. The US rubber-stamped it, not sure that changes anything.
I'm not defending Saudi Arabia, which is indeed as backward as it gets, but in the case of Israel, if you want to talk about discrimination and human rights abuse, you cannot ignore (like you did) the way the indigenous population is treated, in what is effectively an apartheid state.
The differences are more about superficial local colour than political dynamics, which are becoming depressingly consistent across the board.
It's becoming less and less surprising that there are high-level links between all of them which converge through the use of social media and other tools of influence.
If we cannot hold Saudi for human rights violations & let the enabler like Israel go scott free.