On December 26, the World Chess Championship—one of the game’s biggest tournaments—opened in Riyadh. The Saudi government, in what may be a sign of liberalization, announced in advance that female players would be allowed to play bareheaded, in Western dress. But allowing Israeli players was a bridge too far, as the editors of the Washington Post write:
Saudi Arabia refused to give visas to seven Israelis [who wished] to participate. The reason for excluding them, a Saudi spokeswoman said, is that the kingdom and Israel do not have diplomatic relations. This is a flimsy pretext; the two countries do in fact have informal contacts and increasingly share a hostility toward Iran. The kingdom evidently would rather have secret contacts with Israel than welcome seven chess players to an open tournament. Rubbing salt into the wound, the chess federation [that sponsors the tournament] and the kingdom issued an obsequious news release pledging to admit players from Qatar and Iran, both increasingly at odds with Saudi Arabia.
For seven decades, the Arab world has wished Israel would fall into the sea or be driven there. The Jewish state has not and will not. If Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is truly committed to rejuvenation of the kingdom, as he claims to be, then he might discard some of the calcified thinking of his forebears. His attempts to diversify Saudi Arabia away from dependence on oil, to permit women the right to drive, to allow public cinemas, to crack down on corruption, and to pursue other initiatives all point toward a young leader capable of jettisoning an outdated mindset at home. . . .
If a nation cannot welcome everyone, it should not be given the honor of hosting a world tournament.
Read more on Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/letting-saudi-arabia-host-a-chess-tournament-was-a-big-mistake/2017/12/28/57da3540-eb3d-11e7-9f92-10a2203f6c8d_story.html