Today at WPR, we’re covering Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s plan to tackle cocaine production and why the “Global South” is a valid concept.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

Israel-Saudi Arabia: Israel’s tourism minister attended a multilateral tourism conference in Riyadh this week, the first-ever public visit by an Israeli minister to Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously, the Saudi ambassador to the Palestinians traveled through an Israeli border checkpoint to visit the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (New York Times)

Our Take: In many ways, this level of public diplomatic engagement between Israel and Saudi Arabia is already mind-boggling and would have been inconceivable as recently as even five years ago. The fact that this shift appears to be a preface to their normalization of relations is even more astounding.

And yet, as it stands, the terms being discussed as part of the three-way negotiations for a normalization deal—which include Washington—make sense for Israel and Saudi Arabia, but not for the United States.

In return for normalization, the U.S. is reportedly offering Saudi Arabia a security guarantee as well as support in developing a civil nuclear energy program, which would include technology that could facilitate a nuclear weapons program.

Similarly, Israel would benefit from the public relations coup that normalization with the Saudis would represent, paving the way for the rest of the region to follow suit.