Last year, the Economist gave Israel’s second city the dubious distinction of being the most expensive on earth. Yes, admits Dror Marmor, property values are very high, and everyday items tend to cost more—but such figures don’t tell the whole story:

Tel Avivians love to talk about the “vibe” that keeps them in the city, but it’s important to talk about cold economic considerations as well, about the fact that they receive from wealthy, self-satisfied Tel Aviv more than they could receive from any other city in the country. Were they to move to a place like [the remote towns of] Harish or Rosh Ha’ayin, they would certainly save thousands of shekels on rent, but the savings would very quickly be spent fuel and vehicle wear and tear (and that’s without pricing the time lost on the roads, which can never be retrieved).

And indeed, according to the dry data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Tel Aviv is one of the most worthwhile cities for residents, in cost versus return. Average arnona [a municipal property tax paid by renters and owners alike] per person in the city is NIS 1,951 [$594] a year, which compares with NIS 2,131 [$649] per person in neighboring Givatayim and an average of NIS 1,235 [$376] for all Israel’s cities. What tips the balance in Tel Aviv’s favor is undoubtedly municipal spending per person. In Tel Aviv it is NIS 11,981 [$3,650] annually, the highest in the country. The national average is NIS 7,647 [$2,330], and the figure for Givatayim is NIS 7,061 [$2,151]. In other words, every person in Tel Aviv receives almost NIS 10,000 net a year from the municipality.

On March 5, Riyadh appointed Salman al-Dosari—a prominent journalist and vocal supporter of the Abraham Accords—as its new minister of information. Hussain Abdul-Hussain takes this choice as one of several signals that Saudi Arabia is inching closer to normalization with Israel:

Saudi Arabia has been the biggest supporter of Palestinians since before the establishment of Israel in 1948. When the kingdom’s founder Abdulaziz Ibn Saud met with the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in the Red Sea in 1945, the Saudi king demanded that Jews in Palestine be settled elsewhere. But unlimited Saudi support has only bought Palestinian ungratefulness and at times, downright hate. After the Abraham Accords were announced in August 2020, Palestinians in Gaza and Ramallah burned pictures not only of the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain but also of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).

Since then, many Palestinian pundits and activists have been accusing Saudi Arabia of betraying the cause, even though the Saudis have said repeatedly, and as late as January, that their peace with Israel is incumbent on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While the Saudi Arabian government has practiced self-restraint by not reciprocating Palestinian hate, Saudi Arabian columnists, cartoonists, and social-media activists have been punching back. After the burning of the pictures of Saudi Arabian leaders, al-Dosari wrote that with their aggression against Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians “have liberated the kingdom from any ethical or political commitment to these parties in the future.”