Article: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-it-hopes-ties-with-sarabia-indonesia-no-deals-imminent-2022-01-25/
Recently the Israeli government has stated that they are looking to increase diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. This comes after Israel established diplomatic relations with several Muslim countries in 2020 and 2021 including the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, and Jordan. Both Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are important for Israel to normalize relations with because Saudi Arabia has two of the largest Islamic holy sites and Indonesia is home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Both Indonesia and Saudi Arabia said that the normalization of ties would require Israel to form a solution to the Palestine situation using the territories that they gained in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In 2020, even without official diplomatic ties, Saudi Arabia agreed to allow flights between Israel and the UAE to cross over their country.
The is a very significant article because Saudi Arabia and Indonesia could be considered the two most important Muslim countries in the world and the fact that both they and Israel are willing to attempt to begin diplomatic relations in the next few years could be the beginning of them recognizing Israel and finding a solution to the Palestine conflict. This is also interesting because Israel and Saudi Arabia are two rival regional powers in the middle east. With the two countries possibly fostering diplomatic ties, it could be that they are willing to come together in order to contest Iran who is another regional power.
This article relates to International Relations class because Israel has always had tense relations with the Muslim world and has only recently begun to establish diplomatic relations with some countries. Most of these Muslim countries also do not recognize Israel as a legitimate state and Israel attempting to mend their relationship with these countries could help them to attain wider recognition among the Muslim world as a legitimate state.