Free Republic

For the first time ever, last week, Israel’s president made a visit to the United Arab Emirates. President Isaac Herzog traveled to the UAE and met with Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. This is the direct result of the U.S.-negotiated Abraham Accords, which have been paving the way for previously improbable Israeli-Arab cooperation as well as increased trade and investment with the United States. The Abraham Accords, which President Donald Trump institutionalized in September 2020, have normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as well as Israel and Bahrain. For instance, as Israel...

Saudi Arabia has started building its own ballistic missiles with China's help at a top secret base, US intelligence and satellite images have revealed. It is the first time the Gulf state has managed to manufacture its own weapons of the class, though it has purchased ballistic missiles from China in the past. The development is likely to threaten the balance of power in the Middle East cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and could derail negotiations to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with the US. New satellite images dated between October 26 and November 6, 2021 show a...

In a recent column in the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Nadim Koteich, a Shi'ite Lebanese journalist and media figure known for his opposition to Hezbollah, wrote that this organization is holding Lebanon hostage and is beggaring the country, for instance by preventing it from reaching an agreement with Israel that would enable it to exploit its natural gas resources. Referring to the deal that is currently under discussion, for alleviating Lebanon's energy crisis by importing gas from Egypt and electricity from Jordan, Koteich wondered why, as a country on the shores of the Mediterranean, Lebanon could drill for its own offshore...

Arab World Shocked by Israel-Morocco Defense Pact - EDY Cohen Dr. Edy Cohen 02:00 8 hours ago “This is beyond normalization! Even Egypt didn’t go this far at Camp David!!” Defense Minister Benny Gantz recently returned from Morocco where he met with his counterparts and signed an agreement for strengthening security ties between Israel and the North African country. The agreement allows Morocco to purchase Israeli air defense systems, military drones and other hi-tech equipment. Morocco also purchased machine guns, reconnaissance vehicles and observation systems from Israel. The backdrop to these purchases is the increasing tension between Algeria and Morocco...

His Majesty King Hamad will officially inaugurate the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in the Arabian Peninsula on December 9 at 11am. A notice posted on its website added that The Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia, in Awali, will be consecrated the following day, on December 10, at 10am by His Eminence Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of People. The Cathedral of the Kingdom of Bahrain is located in the municipality of Awali and is finally preparing to be consecrated and inaugurated in the coming weeks, immediately after the liturgical Solemnity of the Immaculate...

The Tripoli Court of Appeal on Monday overturned an earlier verdict to exclude Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar from this month’s presidential elections, according to local media.The private Libya Al-Ahrar TV said the court ruled to allow Haftar to run in the Dec. 24 polls.Last week, a court in the western city of al-Zawiya issued a ruling to exclude Haftar from the vote.Last month, a Libyan court had disqualified Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of former strongman Muammar Gaddafi, from the polls, before he appealed the verdict.On Wednesday, Libya’s elections commission is expected to announce a final list of candidates for...

JERUSALEM—When Donald J. Trump became president of the United States in January of 2017, it was not obvious to almost anyone that he would become the first American leader in history to broker four Arab-Israeli peace agreements. Nor was it obvious that he would be helped in this ground-breaking effort by a team of four modern Orthodox Jews that included Jared Kushner, David Friedman, Jason Greenblatt and Avi Berkowitz. It certainly wasn’t obvious that David Friedman – whom Trump appointed as his ambassador to Israel – would then turn to the world’s largest Christian television network to tell the story...

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is a man in a hurry. His president expects him to produce foreign policy success stories. Success stories are desperately needed as post-Afghanistan, the superpower has become a laughing stock universally. The trans-Atlantic alliance is seriously disoriented and Russia is on the prowl in the heart of Europe with natural gas to sell. The Iranians are yet to give a date for the resumption of talks on the US return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear accord. As for China, the less said the better. The chairman of the US Joint...

At the beginning of October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 to two journalists — Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov — for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” The committee noted that “they are representatives of all journalists … in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.” Fair enough. It is also fair to point out that it’s possible that part of the reason why the committee gave the award to a couple of reporters was to avoid...

________Mar 2020:N. BENNET ACCUSED AIDA-TOUMA SULEIMAN OF BEING A LIAR AND A RACIST Naftali Bennett to MK Touma Suleiman: "You are a liar, antisemitic and...", Channel 7, Mar 13, 2020. The defense minister attacked MK Thomas Suleiman, who claimed that the IDF was spraying Palestinians with unidentified material. "It is unbelievable that Boogie and Gantz are ready to form a government with you." Defense Minister Naftali Bennett today (Friday) sharply attacked MK Aida Toma Suleiman from the joint list, who defamed the IDF and claimed that he was spraying "unidentified material" on Palestinians in the Qalandiya crossing. ''You're a liar,...

Israeli lawmakers flanked by former president Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law launched an initiative in Jerusalem on Monday to advance the Abraham Accords that saw Arab states normalise ties with Israel. Jared Kushner, a former White House adviser married to Ivanka Trump, was a major architect of the deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. At the launch of the Abraham Accords Caucus in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, Kushner said the agreements created a "new paradigm" in the region, which could have "very different outcomes" depending on the actions of current leaders. Critics of the...

A Sudanese delegation made up of senior security and military officials visited Israel earlier this week to discuss relations between the two countries, the Al-Arabiya network reported on Friday. No details were provided about the meetings. Sudan became the third Arab country to normalize ties with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump Administration in October, 2020, following the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The agreement between Israel and Sudan was announced days after then-US President Donald Trump officially removed Sudan from the list of nations that sponsor and finance terrorism. However, despite the agreement, no...

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden hosted Jordan's King Abdullah II, Queen Rania and their son Prince Hussein at the White House Monday. Biden praised King Abdullah II of Jordan as a stalwart ally in a 'tough neighborhood' as the two leaders huddled in the Oval Office, a meeting that came at a pivotal moment ... Dr. Jill Biden hosted Queen Rania for tea in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House's residence. ... Meanwhile, Biden, who has put much of his foreign policy focus on China and Russia in the early going, faces some difficult issues...

State Department pushes back on signature Trump admin foreign policy decision The Biden administration is walking back the United States' historic recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the contested Golan Heights region along Israel's northern border, a significant blow to the Jewish state and one of the Trump administration's signature foreign policy decisions. The Trump administration declared the territory—seized by Israel from Syria in 1967 and later annexed by the country—to be wholly part of the Jewish state in 2019. Then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo took a trip to the area in 2020 and reaffirmed that America formally abandoned a decades-long...

Team Obama-Biden's decision to brand its 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the so-called "Iran nuclear deal," as comprehensive was White House disinformation of the vilest sort: a blatant lie told to deceive the American people. President Barack Obama's JCPOA was anything but comprehensive. It had weak nuclear inspection requirements and enforcement mechanisms, which Iran easily skirted. Documents that Israeli intelligence acquired in 2018 confirmed Tehran routinely violated the JCPOA. The plan of action? Inaction in the face of Tehran's calculated violence is more apt. Team Obama-Biden failed to penalize the Iranian regime's covert and overt violent troublemaking, a grievous...

Emails reveal employees should refer to historic Israel peace deals as 'normalization agreements' The Biden State Department discourages employees from referring to the historic peace agreements signed by Israel and its Arab neighbors by its official name, the Abraham Accords, according to one source with direct knowledge of the Biden administration’s internal decision-making process and emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The name has also been erased from a wide array of official State Department communications as the new administration presses officials to refer to the Trump-era deals as "normalization agreements." The Abraham Accords were brokered last year by...

Just before the Memorial Day weekend, Senate Democrats quietly confirmed a longtime anti-Israel activist to serve on the United States Postal Service's Board of Governors, raising further questions about the Biden administration's embrace of those who serve on the front lines in the fight to delegitimize the Jewish state. Democrats confirmed by voice vote Friday evening Anton Hajjar, a longtime member of and legal adviser to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a notoriously anti-Israel organization that promotes anti-Semitic canards. The group routinely and inaccurately refers to Israel as an "apartheid state," a term meant to stoke anger at Israel, and...

Honduras joins United States, Guatemala, Kosovo in establishing Jerusalem embassy.. Honduras will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem by the end of June, joining the United States in the historic decision to open a diplomatic post in Israel’s capital. Senior adviser to the Israeli minister of regional cooperation David Aaronson tweeted Tuesday celebrating Honduras's decision to move its mission to Jerusalem. Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado will arrive in Israel on June 23, According to Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. Hernández announced in 2019 that the Latin American country would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but...

While many in the West denounced Israel for its military strikes in the Gaza Strip over the past week, prominent Arab writers and political analysts held the Iranian-backed Hamas responsible for the violence and bloodshed.These Arabs evidently understand what the anti-Israel activists around the world fail to see — that Hamas has brought nothing but disaster and despair to the two million Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip.These Arabs also seem to understand that Israel is not waging war on the Palestinians, but against an Islamist terrorist group whose charter openly calls for jihad (holy war) and...

It has taken the Democrats all of four months in power to screw up the Middle East, the good guys in the region are not pleased or inclined to play along. The biggest Trump breakthrough came with the Abraham Accords, which achieved a historic breakthrough between Israelis and Arabs, with the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. Unfortunately, the new Biden administration refused simply to accept this new and beneficial status quo upon entering office. Biden officials set about immediately to let Iran out of the doghouse. The administration is...