I would use this expression as a synonym for "cover up", "minimize" or "divert attention from". For example, I might say, "He is always trying to gloss over (cover up) his mistakes. When people "glosses over" their mistakes, they try to make them seem minor and unimportant. In the example you gave, the positive changes made by the Prince are seen by the author as an attempt to "divert attention from" the harsh reality of rulership in Saudi Arabia. Hope this helps

Hey Hazem, how are you, my friend? The idiom ''gloss over'' means ''to minimize or omit something in an account in order to obscure or conceal it''. It can also be used to convey the idea that someone wants to ''cover something up, as if in an attempt to prevent people's discovering the truth about a serious mistake or crime''. Here are some examples: 1) ''When I told Mom and Dad about my night, I just glossed over the fact that I'd gotten a parking ticket.'' 2) ''I don't want to gloss this matter over, but it really isn't very important, is it?'' 3) ''She glossed over her true intention by helping the poor.'' So, in the context given, the idea that is being stated is that of a doubt whether Mohammed really cares about women's rights or not. The author is thinking: ''He might be either covering up his true Repressive Regime intentions or really fighting for women's rights. If anything, he is still widely admired by a great number of people in the West.'' Hope that helps!!!

It means to avoid, but in the context given it also has a strong implication of ignoring, all representations to make changes to its repressive regime.

To "gloss over" means a little more than "avoid or ignore." A glossy place is smooth. To "gloss over" means to use euphemistic language. It means to mention something very quickly, so that nobody can say you ignored it, but touch on it so lightly as to make it seem like nothing. It means to take something that is, figuratively, "rough" (unpleasant, negative, bad) and make it glossy, i.e. smooth and slick, so that you can get past it quickly. A typical use might be "He talked about how high the investment's return had been, but glossed over problems like high fees and lack of liquidity." I agree that in your passage the phrase isn't being used quite that way. I think here the idea is that the prince is doing something relatively small, a token effort. He is polishing, putting a gloss on, smoothing one small rough place in the regime's treatment of women, rather than making fundamental changes. It doesn't read like really good writing to me. I don't think the writer is really using the phrase correctly. I don't think he picked the best phrase. Another idiom that might have worked better is "put a thin veneer on." "But is it really about changes in the conservative kingdom, or simply an attempt to put a thin veneer of modernism on top of Saudi's repressive regime?