Free Republic

Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: Saudi Arabia and UAE announce they brokered Griner release in joint statement thepostmillennial.com 12:40 PM · Dec 8, 2022

Senior US officials say question of whether to speak with Smotrich, Ben-Gvir raised at White House meeting. A high-level meeting was held at the White House last week to discuss policy towards the new government in Israel, including the question of whether or not to hold talks with certain ministers from the "extreme right" Barak Ravid reported for "Walla". According to the report, this is the first meeting on the subject, which was held as part of a National Security Council forum, of which senior representatives from the State Department, the Defense Department and the American intelligence organizations are members....

The Biden administration just won one for the president and his new, fist-bumping pal, the leader of Saudi Arabia. The Washington Times reported on Wednesday that U.S. District Judge John Bates tossed a wrongful-death lawsuit filed against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Arabia, UAE announce successful mediation efforts in US-Russia prisoner swap According to a joint statement, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed led the efforts. Saudi Arabia and the UAE said their joint mediation efforts helped lead to a successful prisoner exchange between the US and Russia on Thursday. “The [two countries] said the success of the mediation efforts was a reflection of the mutual and solid friendship between their two countries and the United States of America and the Russian Federation,” a joint Saudi-UAE statement read. “They also highlighted the important role...

Private Japanese company iSpace is sending its M1 lander carrying Rashid, a new rover from the United Arab Emirates.While the Orion spacecraft, a key part of NASA's Artemis I mission, is on its way back to Earth after going far beyond the moon, a new lunar lander from Japan and a small rover from the United Arab Emirates are set to blast off from Florida early Wednesday.The Hakuto R mission is led by the private Japanese company iSpace and will send its M1 lander, which is about the size of a chest freezer, to the surface of the moon...Hakamada added...

The UN General Assembly this week passed a resolution to characterize the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as a “catastrophe,” in what has been heralded as a major victory for pro-Palestinian activists. The word “Nakba,” which means catastrophe or disaster in Arabic, was also a term coined by the Palestinians to commemorate the Jewish state’s founding. The UN resolution acknowledges the Palestinian version of the events that led to Israel’s creation, and calls for the “commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba,” with a “high-level event” at the global body on May 15th, 2023. May...

The monastery sits on Siniyah Island, which shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate some 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Dubai along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The island, whose name means “flashing lights” likely due to the effect of the white-hot sun overhead, has a series of sandbars coming off of it like crooked fingers. On one, to the island’s northeast, archaeologists discovered the monastery. Carbon dating of samples found in the monastery’s foundation date between 534 and 656. Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in...

Knesset member Ahmad Tibi is expected to fly to the United States to participate in a conference of a Palestinian-American organization under the title "End Apartheid". Tibi himself will speak on the panel about the issue of the Temple Mount.MK Ahmad Tibi, chairman of the Hadash-Ta'al faction, will participate next week in an anti-Israel conference to be held in the city of Chicago in the United States, under the title: "End (so-called) apartheid". The conference on behalf of the "Organization of Muslims in the United States for Palestine" on November 24-26, where MK Tibi is expected to speak alongside a...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire has been struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman amid heightened tensions with Iran, officials said Wednesday. The attack on the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Pacific Zircon happened Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, a Middle East-based defense official told the Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they did not have authorization to discuss the attack publicly. While no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, suspicion immediately fell on Iran. Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the head of the US...

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu said Wednesday that a normalization agreement between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is within reach and would effectively “end the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The latest statement from the Prime Minister comes as the new conservative coalition vows to confront terrorism in the Middle East and strengthen alliances with Arab allies. Speaking from Israel at an online event hosted by Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center, Netanyahu reminded an online audience of nearly 300 people that the Abraham Accords were negotiated by the former Trump administration when he was Israel’s prime minister. The Accords normalized...

Tom Barrack, Trump's longtime billionaire friend and 2016 fundraiser, has been acquitted on all charges related to accusations he lobbied Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates without registering as a foreign agent. He also stood accused of then lying to the FBI about those contacts. The jury deliberated for about two days at federal court in Brooklyn before finding Barrack not guilty. Prosecutors alleged Barrack had traded on his decades-long friendship with the then-president to give UAE officials access to and insider information on the Trump White House and 2016 campaign. Acting as a foreign agent without registering...

Historians say early churches and monasteries spread along the Persian Gulf to the coasts of present-day Oman and all the way to India. Archaeologists have found other similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations has decided that Israel needs to get rid of its nuclear weapons — if indeed it has any. But the organization has nothing to say about Iran.In a 152-5 vote on Friday, the UN’s General Assembly voted to have Israel dispose of its nuclear weapons and place any nuclear sites within its borders under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The dissenting votes were from the United States, Canada, Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Twenty-three nations and the European Union abstained.Fox News reports that it has never been confirmed that Israel has any nuclear weapons,...

The United Nations General Assembly's first committee, which deals with disarmament, global challenges, and threats to peace that affect the international community, voted 152-5, on Friday, on a resolution concerning "the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East". The resolution states that Israel must dispose of all its nuclear weapons and place its nuclear sites under the International Atomic Energy Agency's purview. The resolution, which is submitted every year to the UNGA in New York, was submitted by Egypt and sponsored by the Palestinian Authority and 19 counties including Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. Canada, Israel,...

Politics in the state of Israel has never been more complex. One coalition is held together by the slimmest of reeds: opposition to one man — Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a collection of liberal, conservative, and Arab parties that was formed primarily to defeat Netanyahu last year with Yair Lapid as its leader. Some oppose the two-time former prime minister for his alleged corruption. Others blanch at his policies in the Palestinian territories. But because the only real unifying factor for the opposition is hatred of Netanyahu, the governing coalition lasted only a few months. Netanyahu’s Likud coalition is a mish-mash...

After a decade, the E.U.-Israel Association Council met. Although ties are improving, the question of Palestinian statehood persists. Government ministers from Israel and the European Union met on Oct. 3 for the first “Association talks” since 2012. Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern headed the Israeli delegation at the E.U.-Israel Association Council session in Brussels. Established in 1995 and first operating in 2000, the group has not met since July 2012, in part due to differences in views over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank. Bouts of violence between Palestinians and Israel, along with the COVID-19...

Hundreds of CEOs and finance moguls are expected in Riyadh from Tuesday for a Davos-style investment conference that analysts say will highlight Saudi Arabia's geopolitical muscle despite strained ties with the US. The Future Investment Initiative (FII) was launched in 2017 as an economic coming-out party for the world's largest crude exporter, which is trying to diversify away from oil under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The following year's edition, however, was largely overshadowed by the killing several weeks prior of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and many would-be delegates from outside the region stayed away. Attendance picked up in 2019, even...

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has hailed his country’s ties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during a meeting with the Gulf state’s leader, and welcomed a recent decision by oil-producing nations to limit production as key to stabilising the global energy market. Speaking on Tuesday at the start of his talks in Saint Petersburg with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), Putin described relations between the two countries as “an important factor of stability” in the region and the world “despite all the difficulties that exist in the international relations today”

United Arab List RA'AM mourn [Mufti] supporter of suicide bombings The Islamic movement paid tribute to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the senior leaders of the "Muslim Brotherhood" and the head of the instigators against Israel. "Dedicated his life to the defense of Islam" Senior officials in the Ra'am party and the southern faction of the Islamic movement paid tribute to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the leaders of the "Muslim Brotherhood" and the greatest instigator against Israel, after he died during Rosh Hashanah. In the obituary issued by the southern faction of the Islamic movement affiliated with the Ra'am party, and...

Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has revised its code of conduct to require support for Israel’s right to exist, and employees who fail to do so may now be fired. The move announced Sept. 1 preceded a court order last week that DW reinstate a former employee fired who was fired after the company determined she had made comments about Israel that could be construed as antisemitic. In all, seven employees from the broadcaster’s Arabic service were let go last year on similar grounds, and so far two have successfully sued DW for reinstatement. The revised conduct code appears to...