With AI, Saudi and Israel can defeat the death-cult business model
It's a showdown between regional builders vs. destroyers. This open letter urges MBS to lead an AI-powered alliance with Israel to swap despair for prosperity to weaken extremism's economic incentives
An Exclusive for The Economic Zionist
Executive Summary:
At a moment when Gaza’s future is at the center of global debate, this open letter from a veteran Israeli tech attorney, Naneen Baden, to the Saudi Crown Prince argues that the Middle East’s long-term security depends not on more diplomacy alone, but on a fundamental economic shift.
It’s a showdown between the builders and the destroyers, and this strongly-worded letter makes the case that AI-led youth initiatives, powered by Saudi vision and Israeli technology, can replace the economics of destruction with the economics of creation, dismantling extremism at its source by providing a more attractive pathway for the next generation.
Baden calls on MBS to lead a ‘Creators’ Initiative’ that channels the Kingdom’s AI roadmap into regional job creation, integrates Israel into a formal economic framework, and conditions aid on rejecting extremist ideology while embracing tech up-skilling. This strong economic lever can tip the region toward lasting prosperity and security.
An Open Letter to His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Crown Prince, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Your Royal Highness,
I write to you from a Middle East that is today locked in a lethal battle between two economic forces. One builds, the other destroys. On one side are the builders: nations like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel. Their vision, talent, and resources drive innovation, infrastructure, and prosperity. On the other are the destroyers: extremist movements whose survival depends on economic stagnation, perpetual conflict, and the exploitation of youth denied a dignified future.
Your leadership offers the best chance to tip the balance decisively toward creation of value throughout the region. The Kingdom’s vision for AI and economic transformation can be the catalyst for regional stability, prosperity, and security, and for ending the cycle of destruction in Gaza and other areas choked by extremists, cut off from innovation.
1. With AI, Saudi Arabia Can Redefine the Economic Model for Gaza and the Region
Before AI, developing a generation of innovators in extremist-controlled societies required decades of education and infrastructure. Now, AI-enabled tools make it possible to compress that timeline, equipping young people with marketable skills in a fraction of the time.
As you know, extremism thrives where opportunity is absent. Gaza’s youth need more than aid, they need industries, jobs, and training that offer a real path to self-reliance. AI-powered industries, backed by Gulf investment and regional collaboration, can create that future in Gaza and beyond.
By channeling the Kingdom’s AI roadmap into joint ventures in fields such as precision agriculture, renewable energy, and digital services, we can open career pathways for young people to choose innovation over destruction. AI makes this shift possible now, for the first time in history. Now is the moment!
2. Israel Is a Ready Partner in Building the Regional AI Economy
Israel brings the infrastructure, R&D capacity, and entrepreneurial talent to match the Kingdom’s scale and ambition. We are already training AI models in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and defense, capabilities that can be adapted to serve regional needs. Neither country yet has its own foundational model, which is another opportunity.
Our startup ecosystem is designed for rapid deployment. Combined with Saudi capital and strategic vision, we can seed industries that employ thousands, connect supply chains across the region, and expand export markets for both our nations.
3. Concrete steps for an AI-powered alliance
The framework to formalize cooperation already exists. Expanding the Abraham Accords to include the Kingdom would unlock unprecedented investment, bridge our economies, and solidify a regional alliance of builders.
This partnership could establish a new model for security, one based on economic interdependence, where prosperity itself and access to innovations becomes the strongest defense against instability.
Your Royal Highness, I respectfully urge you to:
Champion a “Creators’ Initiative” a Saudi-led program to develop AI-driven industries employing and up-skilling youth in Gaza, Yemen, and across the region.
Invite Israeli technical and financial participation within a formalized economic framework such as an expanded Abraham Accords. Share Israeli innovation expertise with regional entrepreneurs.
Rewrite the books - tie regional economic assistance to the rejection of extremist ideology and adoption of AI-based education and up-skilling programs, ensuring that prosperity and peace advance together.
This vision is not theoretical. The combined GDP of Saudi Arabia and Israel already exceeds $1.5 trillion. Informal business ties reveal a strong appetite for cooperation. With your leadership, we can formalize this alliance, create a shared economic destiny, and render the destroyers’ business model irrelevant.
Your decision now could define the next chapter of the Middle East: a region where creation eclipses destruction, where opportunity displaces extremism, and where our peoples thrive together in dignity and AI-powered prosperity.
Naneen Baden is an American-Israeli attorney, serving as General Counsel and Head of Compliance at a gaming company, as well as a senior advisor to a multi-agent system domain enhancement (AI) startup. She specializes in high tech, mergers and acquisitions, and international commercial law. She has held senior legal roles in the tech, entertainment, and gaming sectors, advising on complex contracts, IP, privacy, and corporate strategy. A U.S.-licensed attorney, she brings decades of cross-border legal expertise to Israeli innovation-driven industries.
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