Free Republic

Editors note: We at the USA Transnational Report has been covering the thawing of relations between Israel and the Arab countries for some months. The geopolitical map in the Middle East has changed totally. In a true sign of change in the Arab world, Kuwaiti media personality Yousuf ‘Abd Al-Karim Al-Zinkawi called on all Arab and Muslim states to recognize Israel, openly and without delay, and stop calling it “the Zionist Entity” or “the Israeli occupation,” terms which undermine Israel’s legitimacy. In an article published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa on Saturday, he argued that by sitting alongside Israel at...

As intense discussions regarding the Iran nuclear agreement continue, President Barack Obama will address the North American Jewish community next Friday, August 28, at 2:10 p.m. Eastern Time. Obama will participate in a live webcast to deliver remarks to and take questions from participants across the United States and Canada in an event co-sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and The Jewish Federations of North America, according to a statement released on Thursday. Previously, the two groups have hosted webcasts and forums on the Iran nuclear agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary...

The director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, called the Middle East’s Sunni Arab nations “Israel’s allies.” Gold used the term twice in a presentation Wednesday in New York focused on the shortcomings of the Iran nuclear deal. “What we have is a regime on a roll that is trying to conquer the Middle East,” Gold said of Iran, “and it’s not Israel talking, that is our Sunni Arab neighbors — and you know what? I’ll use another expression – that is our Sunni Arab allies talking.” Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and a longtime...

JERUSALEM, Israel -- Against the backdrop of a pending deal over Iran's nuclear program, an unprecedented meeting took place in Washington, D.C., last week. The meeting between Israel and Saudi Arabia sent one more signal of an historic geopolitical change taking place in the Middle East. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Israel's incoming director general of the Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, met with Anwar Majed Eshki, his Saudi counterpart. These historic enemies shared an identical message: Iran is trying to take over the Middle East and it must be stopped. The meeting took place in public, but Israel and...

In a lengthy May 26 article, Jodi Rudoren, the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, goes apoplectic over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s selection of Dore Gold to run Israel’s foreign ministry. The headline and the lead paragraph immediately signal to readers that Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, is disastrous for Israel’s diplomacy –“Netanyahu Appoints Hawkish Ally to Run foreign policy” – buttressed by Rudoren’s own depiction of Gold as a Bibi confidant who is “hawkish on Iran and the Palestinian issue.”

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — May 25, 2015 … Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the appointment foreign policy expert and former UN Ambassador Dore Gold as director-general of the Israel Foreign Ministry. Dr. Gold, who currently serves as the Director of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will replace Nissim Ben-Sheetrit. Ben Sheetrit is a veteran ministry employee who started out in the minsitry’s administrative track and then moved over to its diplomatic side. Ben-Sheetrit, a former ambassador to Japan, was appointed by former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman in November 2013. Dr. Gold is considered...

Well, only if one counts rockets fired into Israel as “celebration.” The IDF struck targets in Gaza this week as Hamas continued firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel, which happened to coincide with the announcement of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah. CNN’s Jim Clancy spends four minutes discussing the agreement with PLO official Hanan Ashrawi without once mentioning the years-long rocket attacks from Gaza by Hamas, or even whether the PLO will push Hamas to stop the attacks now that it’s back in the Palestinian Authority government. However, as soon as former ambassador Dore Gold appears...

Israel’s security agencies are stepping up targeted attacks throughout the world on Hamas‘ leadership in what one Israeli official called “intelligence-based prevention.” In the past two months, Israeli operatives have intercepted a German ship in international waters, fired a missile at a suspected Hamas leader in Sudan, and captured a Hamas engineer in the Ukraine, according to Israeli and Western officials and press reports from the region. “Israel defeated the wave of suicide bombing attacks against it in 2002 by identifying the leadership that was behind it and making it clear to them that they would pay a price,” said...

The problem with Iran’s enrichment facilities has become more acute in recent years. When the West refused to supply 20%-enriched uranium for the small Tehran Research Reactor, where the Iranians produce medical isotopes, Iranian nuclear experts went ahead in June 2010 and fed their 5%-enriched uranium into the centrifuges to produce 20%-enriched uranium, by themselves. With a stockpile of 20%-enriched uranium, the Iranians would cut by more than half the time they needed to take the next enrichment step to weapons-grade uranium.

Will the UN Back a Palestinian State on the '67 Lines? Israel needs to prepare for the possibility that the UN Security Council will be asked to decide on the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines, warns Dr. Dore Gold, who served as Israel's Ambassador to the UN at the end of the ‘90s. These preparations, according to Gold, have to include a specific clarification on Israel's part that if the Palestinians do this in a one-sided manner, Israel will act to impose Israeli law on areas of the West Bank that are essential to it. In...

Will the Obama administration's policy toward Egypt be based on a perception that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood would be extremely dangerous? Or have they taken the position - voiced in parts of the U.S. foreign policy establishment - that the Brotherhood has become moderate and can be talked to? Initial administration reactions indicate that it does not rule out Muslim Brotherhood participation in a future Egyptian coalition government. Since January 28, the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement has become more prominent, with its support of Mohamed ElBaradei to lead the opposition forces against the government. In the streets of Cairo,...

Ambassador Dore Gold refutes the widespread accusations that Israeli response to Hamas rocket fire is disproportionate.

Dr. Dore Gold, Israel's former ambassador to the UN, says that if Israel does not get the message out about Hamas' connections and identification with world jihad, no one will. Dr. Gold, the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, appeared on Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine this afternoon. Host Amatzia HaEitan asked him whether the expected ascent of Hamas following the Palestinian Authority elections will hurt the PA in the international arena. Gold responded: "There will be a great struggle of media spins and public relations in the coming days. Hamas and its parent organization, the Islamic Brotherhood, are viewed...

How the U.N. abets Syria's role in terrorism Thursday, January 6, 2005 By DORE GOLD THE UNITED NATIONS' oil-for-food scandal was placed center stage this past year, but with the Iraqi elections fast-approaching, there is another scandalous development at the United Nations that is beginning to receive national attention: how Syria, which served as a member of the U.N. Security Council from early 2002 through the end of 2003, has been continuing to back international terrorism and even turning itself into the main line of supply for the current insurgency in Western Iraq. The ongoing developments in the oil-for-food scandal...

An insidious but steady drumbeat can be discerned over the last several weeks that seeks to link Israel with the United States' decision to launch the Iraq war. Back in 2003, it was Palestinian President Yasser Arafat who charged that the Israeli government was "the first inciter for the war against Iraq." About the same time, American journalist Patrick Buchanan alleged in his American Conservative magazine that "a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests." He went on to blame them for "colluding with Israel...

Israel's "Operation Enchanted Day" Closes Terror Tunnels in Gaza By INA and AP Jerusalem---October 10......The Israel Defense Forces sent tanks and elite ground units into a Gaza refugee camp early Friday to destroy tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to smuggle weapons. Military officials said they acted on warnings that terrorists were trying to acquire anti-aircraft missiles. Israel's raid of the Rafah refugee camp — code-named "Operation Enchanted Day" - began around midnight Thursday and could last several days, military sources said. It was part of stepped-up military activity in response to last weekend's suicide bombing that murdered 20 Israelis in...

Al-Jama'a al-Salafiya al-Mujahida Takes Credit for Attacking US Forces in Iraq ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY----Jerusalem......September 24..... By Joel Leyden A new Iraqi Sunni resistance organization, al-Jama'a al-Salafiya al-Mujahida, is the leading terror organization in Iraq which is targeting American troops, said Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Halevi in a private research study just released by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. "Al-Salafiya al-Mujahida is seen to be offering a radical Islamic platform that contains many points in common with al-Qaeda," says Halevi. "It views Americans not just as modern crusaders waging a religious war in the name of Christianity against Islam, but...

Our Newspapers Fail Us Editorial - Israel News Agency There is no public relations or public affairs without a carrier. The most established carrier is called a newspaper. And in Israel the only newspapers which enjoy abundant readership and wealth are the Hebrew dailies – Yediot, Maariv and Haaertz. As for the English newspapers here in Israel – one is a mere translation of the Hebrew edition and the other is fifty percent wire service copy. Yes – there are some brilliant writers on these papers but their voices become deluded when you have a lack of proper leadership integrated...

Al-Qaeda : The 39 principles of Holy War By Joel Leyden - Israel News Agency 4 September 2003 No media vehicle has proven more potent for the spread of radical teachings of "Islamic Holy War" than the Internet. And Al-Qaeda knows it. In fact, one of the 39 principles of Al-Qaeda's Jihad, which has recently been exposed in a private study by Israeli researcher Col. Jonathan D. Halevi, explicitly illustrates a how-to chapter on Performing Electronic Jihad . These people are not riding donkeys, rather these 21st century Jihadists have their fingers dancing on computer keyboards across the globe. From...

Gold blames Lebanon, Syria, Iran for Hizbullah's offensive By JOEL LEYDEN Israel holds Lebanon, Syria, and Iran directly responsible for Hizbullah's new wave of terror, Dore Gold, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Sunday in response to Hizbullah's fourth cross-border attack in three days, which killed Haviv Dadon, 16, and wounded four others. "Both Lebanon and Syria are acting in defiance of United Nations resolutions," the former ambassador to the UN, told The Jerusalem Post. "In May 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Resolution 425 to a physical line that was recognized by UN...