I received and accepted an invitation to give a lecture in Saudi Arabia just this morning. Seems like a bright idea in retrospect...
To be honest, I'm pretty torn about it. My boss was invited to speak at this university, and I told him not to do it, one of the reasons being their abject antisemitism. They won't even let you into the country if you have a stamp from Israel on your passport. My boss being Jewish, it just didn't seem right to me. He decided not to go (for what reason finally, I'm not sure), and he asked my other boss to do it in his place. He also declined. So, they asked me if I'd be interested. I'm not at a point in my career where I can easily pass up opportunities to make connections, and attract outside funding. If there's one thing the royal family has it's cash, and these guys want to do some studies with us, which they would fund. My wife is both a Jew and a woman, so obviously, she's not going to be accompanying me on this excursion for obvious reasons. I'm not sure lecturing in Riyadh counts as tacitly supporting Wahhabism, but it's a little close for comfort. Plus I suppose this is going to be my first, and hopefully only, dry business trip.
I would think that the guys you would be speaking to would be a pretty progressive bunch. And the Saudi money well is going to dry up eventually, would it be the worst thing in the world if some of that crazy excess went towards helping people? That being said I totally understand your reservations. They lash bloggers and decapitate apostates and 'witches.'