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They were certainly more reasonable when they had a democracy. And then the CIA overthrew it.

Which isn't saying much since that democracy got into trouble in the first place because they stole a massive amount of oil infrastructure from the UK. That's not reasonable in the first place.

As for terrorism, I could point out that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Or that Saudi Arabia is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world.

You could also point out that it was done on US soil and therefore makes it somehow a US scheme, right? What you insinuate is irrelevant without evidence to back it up. The citizenship of some terrorists doesn't imply national involvement. And as far as "exporting" terrorism goes, I have to go with Iran as the bigger player due to their explicit support for Hezbollah and Hamas (particularly, the "military wing" which is classified widely as a terrorist organization).

Or the US's support for the authoritarian terrorist state of Saudi Arabia.

The other choice given here was Israel and Iran. Only one of these three states is a democracy. The other two are pretty ugly (though I grant the republic structure of Iran is relatively more appealing in the long run than the monarchy of Saudi Arabia). And only one, Saudi Arabia is willing to play ball with Israel.

Saudi Arabia is doing a genocide in Yemen.

I recall someone asking "When does someone have to be good for us to have relations with them?" There's two problems with statements like this. First, it cheapens the meaning of genocide. Yes, there are serious war crimes (particularly attacks on what appear to be civilian targets). No, the war crimes do not amount to a case of genocide.

Second, the choice we were alleged to be given was Saudi Arabia and Israel, or Iran. If you could make a case for Iran and Israel, then I would be interested since that would imply some serious progress towards peace in the Middle East.

My take is that any lasting peace will require the effort of all the major powers of the area: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel. And that may well require getting rid some of the more odious governments of the region, particularly Saudi Arabia's monarchy and Iran's theocracy. But right now the place is such a disaster that we're stuck working with who's there. Presently, for all their evil, Saudi Arabia has better connections, more interest in peace, and a better history than Iran does.