March 2025: I am very sad to hear of Dore Gold’s passing and as tribute, here is a re-release of our discussion as way of remembering his sharp mind and sizeable place in Israel’s history.

Ambassador Dr. Dore Gold has spent his professional life as a diplomat and trusted senior prime ministerial advisor pursuing peace and security for Israel with willing Arab partners.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he lives in Jerusalem with his wife and family. Dore Gold was Israel’s ambassador’s to the UN in the late 90s.

He advised on the Madrid peace conference in 1991 before leading Likud’s dialogue with the Hashemite kingdom in Jordan which led to peace in 1994.

This was a direct response to the ruling Labour Party’s dialogue with the PLO. Ambassador Gold was also a key figure in the closure of the PLO’s office in East Jerusalem, a concession insisted upon as Israel opened talks with Yasser Arafat as part of the Oslo Accords.

Since the turn of the millennium, he’s been president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs with his deep experience of US–Israel policy.

A supporter of the Abraham Accords, he doesn’t believe the change of administration in Washington will undermine the extraordinary achievements of President Donald Trump‘s diplomats across the region - even if the foreign policy priorities of the Biden administration have veered away from the Middle East.

His articles and books cover a wide variety of Israeli diplomacy on Jerusalem and he’s dedicated to the Golden City replacing Tel Aviv as the ultimate diplomatic hub. He’s also concerned with the UN and its implications for Israel, nuclear Iran, the United States' relationship with Israel and the possibility that Saudi will complete its extraordinary change from sworn enemy to partner in normalization.

This is Ambassador Dr. Dore Gold.

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"There are two million Palestinians in Gaza!", they cry. All the time.

It's repeated as fact.

"Bringing Judea and Samaria into Israel would create an Arab majority".

Is that right?

Quite apart from being untrue, the problem with these statements is that Israel creates policy based on them. So is it time to establish real facts about population and childbirth?

Where is the population momentum? Does it lie with Jewish Israelis or their Arab neighbours?

Our guest today is Yoram Ettinger, who challenges conventional narratives about population trends in Israel and the Palestinian territories. 

His extensive experience diverges from most assumptions.

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The podcast which prides itself in introducing new voices to the world on the issues we all care about.

This is Shannon Seban, a young standout politician from Paris. She’s a conviction politician who believes if you behave otherwise, eventually you’ll lose trust and votes.

Shannon currently serves as a municipal councilor in Rosny-sous-Bois and president of Macron’s Renaissance party in Seine-Saint-Denis, it’s where she was born and raised, a diverse and socio-economically challenged area. 

Her upbringing there has significantly shaped her politics, she challenges stereotypes about youth from underprivileged neighborhoods.

But it comes at quite cost.

From Algerian Jewish background, She filed complaints about antisemitic abuse she received during her campaign in 2023 and 2024.

She refuses to kowtow to any party line, so where does she stand on President Macron since October 7th. Is Macron becoming a liability? Is she being courted by other parties? How far can she go in French politics?

This is Shannon Seban.

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There’s a higher consciousness and awareness about Tal Hartuv. 

She's grounded but spiritual, realistic but also optimistic. 

Because Tal’s very existence since 2010 is an improbable miracle.

She makes one imagine the dead returning to recount the experience of their murder. 

In December of that year, she was brutally attacked by Hamas terrorists while hiking the hills around Jerusalem alongside her friend, Kristine Luken, an American Christian. 

Kristine was murdered next to her, but Tal survived by playing dead despite severe injuries, including 18 machete wounds and numerous broken bones.

Tal describes in disturbing detail the attack itself (don’t look away) and then reflects on how its changed her, what she was like before and after it, what she thinks of the current 🎗️deal and being labelled a victim when she’s anything but.

The attackers who harmed her and killed Kristine are supposed to serve long sentences, but one of the murderers is released in a terrorist-for-hostage-swap agreement.

But how does she manage her survivor's guilt when her friend didn’t make it? 

Her multiple wounds cause pain when she moves and is a constant visceral reminder of what happened. 

How does that impact her life, physically and emotionally? 

And after October 7th, she unpacks what peace actually means!

This is a truly captivating interview and I hope you appreciate it listening to it as much I did making it.

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Dr. Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs spelt it out for me a couple of episodes back. You've got to address the neighbours in Arabic!

So I took his words to heart and did something about it.

And where better to start than with President Trump's astounding news conference alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu when he said, "we'll own Gaza".

The man to deliver truths to the Arab world is Dr. Edy Cohen, who drills down into the Arab world like no other Israeli. How? With an extraordinary X following of over 850,000.

Listen to Edy here, firstly in Arabic and if you want to hear it in English, scroll forward a couple of minutes to find it.

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I was in Brussels as the European Jewish Association gathered experts together from all backgrounds to discuss Middle East post October 7th.

In between sessions in the hotel conference centre, I found myself outside the entrance with Ghaith al-Omari, taking in the fresh air and we started talking. 

Sporting a blue pinstripe suit, Bohemian ponytail and smoking what looked like a Gitanes, Ghaith and I drummed up a chat that moved onto the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which he was involved in. 

As part of the Palestinian Authority, he advised the negotiating team during the permanent-status negotiations for two years from 1999, including the Camp David summit and the Taba talks.

It broke down, as we know, but then he helped draft the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial model aimed at a modified resolution.

He’s now a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute, where he continues to provide insights on Palestinian politics, Middle East diplomacy, and the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship.

With his easygoing manner, I felt I could ask Ghaith any question, which I did, as I wondered how big will the peace industry grow while we wait for the world’s most intractable war to finish?

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Is Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office a cause for celebration in Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh - and fear in Tehran? 

Is the multipolar world but a consequence of America’s loosened grip on the world by previous administrations? Will President Trump reassert his nation on the world stage? 

And the hostage deal: what should we make of its grievous cost in terms of future security with the release of hundreds of convicted murderers? Will we see a reprise of the terror which allowed Gilad Shalit to come home in exchange for a thousand killers, including Yahya Sinwar, architect of October 7th?

These are the vital questions I got to ask Dr. Dan Diker, who I caught up with on a flying visit to London. 

Dan, who’s based in Israel is President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. 

He's written six books exposing the “apartheid antisemitism” phenomenon in North America and authored studies on Iran’s race for regional supremacy and Israel’s need for defensible borders

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What happens in academia when the best minds are curbed by antisemitism and its modern day manifestation, antizionism? We all know the problems of campus antisemitism, more acute since October 7th.

It’s an honour to discuss and unpack this problem in academia with world-renowned scholar on antisemitism, Professor David Hirsh.

Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, David focuses on contemporary antisemitism, crimes against humanity and totalitarianism. 

He's also Academic Director and CEO of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and he founded "Engage," a campaign against the academic boycott of Israel. 

David has a BSc from City University, London, an MA in Philosophy and Social Theory from the University of Warwick, and a PhD from Warwick where he wrote his dissertation on "Crimes Against Humanity and International Law."

He authored "Contemporary Left Antisemitism" exploring the left-wing's problem and he edited "The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century: From the Academic Boycott Campaign into the Mainstream". 

Despite his considerable achievements, his progress has been hampered by hate. 

So how has he stuck at it? And what could he have been if he'd been allowed to use his intellect beyond the fight? 

I met David at Action Matters in Vienna in December 2024, organized by ELNET, the European Leadership Network in partnership with the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

This episode is presented with the cooperation and support of ELNET UK, a bipartisan, cross-party international organisation working to advance UK-Israel relations based on shared democratic values and strategic interests.

Considering the awful and disturbing content of our conversation, it’s good humoured, lucid and I hope as you listen, highly informative and educational.

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I’m releasing this key episode of the Benjamin Anthony Show on Jonny Gould's Jewish State, and you can follow the show here.

Benjamin is joined as always by MirYam Institute's in-house military analyst, Yaakov Lappin, as they discuss the hostage deal's implications for Israeli society, the IDF, Israel's security and the hostage families and whether it might collapse amid the murderous bad faith of Hamas.

They also analyze what might have been offered as a "sweetener" by incoming President Trump to Prime Minister Netanyahu and whether or not U.S. collaboration around the targeting of Iran's nuclear weapons program may be what pursuaded Israel's premiere to step back from several of his stated red-lines. 

While Benjamin and Yaakov celebrate the return of every hostage, they present notes of caution about the consequences the deal might bring about.

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Erin Molan’s moral clarity, critical thought and searing conviction has elevated her voice to a world stage.

Tasked with making testy opinion pieces straight down the barrel at Sky News Australia, Erin was removed rather abruptly from her starring role towards the end of 2024.

Aside from her forthright journalism, it's her background which also makes her so compelling. Moving around the world as a child, her father Jim Molan was a Major General in the Australian Army and later a liberal senator in Parliament. What he taught her and what it means to her looms large here. 

A fluent speaker of Indonesian, Erin grew up in the world's largest Muslim nation.

TV journalism has a new world star and you'll hear why when you listen to my interview with Erin Molan.

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