Not enough attention had been given to the passing last week of Dr. Dore Gold, who served as a strategic adviser to Israeli prime ministers and as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Dore's contribution to Israel's diplomacy was outsized and his oeuvre is instructive. He uniquely knew to zero in on the most important issues of the day.

Earlier in his career as an American academic, he focused on radical Islam and the terrorism it spawned, which was then flowing freely out of Saudi Arabia. His doctoral dissertation on this formed the basis for a book, "Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism." (In more recent years, he acknowledged the deep and positive changes in Riyadh under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.)

In the 1980s at Tel Aviv University (which is when I met him and learned to rely on him as a wise observer of emerging trends), he focused on US defense policy relating to the Middle East. Gold developed the discourse that eventually was broadly adopted by Jerusalem and its advocates abroad regarding Israel's strategic value to the United States and the importance of anchoring US-Israel relations in close security and intelligence coordination.

Twenty-five years ago, he became an early proponent of Israel's formal designation as an American non-NATO ally, and of the association of Israel to CENTCOM, the US military's Central Command structure covering the Middle East, something that finally happened in 2021.

After the Oslo Accords were signed, Gold was dragged unenthusiastically by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into talks with the Palestinians in the UK and Jordan (even before Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996), meeting with PLO leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, as well as Jordanian and American leaders.

Dr. Gold was always skeptical of Palestinian intentions and the Palestinian Authority's capacity to pursue true peace. Thus, he sought to ensure that security parameters for Judea and Samaria (and the Golan Heights too) were adhered to, as set out by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before his assassination.

When Dore assumed the presidency of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in 2000, he parlayed this security focus into one of the most important and influential think tank ventures in Israel's history, the Defensible Borders for Israel project.

Leading a broad range of military generals and defense experts, he sketched out the rationale for Israeli security control of West Bank mountain ridges and the Jordan Valley plus a broad east-west Jerusalem corridor – with detailed maps – and he outlined the key elements of the necessary "demilitarization" of any Palestinian government.

This was a revival of General Yigal Alon's defensible border paradigms from the 1970s, which were the mainstay of Rabin's security worldview, even as he signed the iffy Oslo Accords.

For over a decade, Dore Gold presented the study at every think tank and parliament around the world, with the study and its video versions translated into six languages. To a certain extent, this document is still the basis for Israel's security-based diplomacy, more salient than ever following the failure of the Oslo peace process and the annihilationist toward Israel turn of the Palestinian national movement.

In the late nineties (during Netanyahu's first term as prime minister), Gold served for two years as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, and this exposed him to a different, troubling facet of the Arab-Israeli conflict: denialism of the Jewish people's historic and fundamental rights in Jerusalem and Israel altogether.

Gold was shocked by Arab (and European!) denial of Israel's profound, centuries-old, national connections to the Land of Israel. He witnessed Palestinian rhetorical violence against Israeli/Jewish indigenousness in the Land of Israel, something meant to savage the core identity of Jews and Israelis.

He understood, long before the globally woke assault on Israel post-October 7, that the Jewish state's enemies sought to strip justice and authenticity from Israel's very existence, and to upend Israel's alliance with the human rights supporting, democratic world. He understood that "They want Jerusalem and want us out of Israel, period," as he told colleagues back then.

He feared, alas correctly, that the denialism juggernaut one day could lead to violent antisemitic battering of Jews and Jewish institutions around the world – as we indeed have seen over the past 18 months.

Consequently, Gold became convinced that in addition to a security-based discourse Israel must augment its diplomacy with a rights-based discourse. He decided that it was essential to reengage in the fight for Israel with historical truths and convictions rooted in faith, not only with security arguments.

He wrote a book called "The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City," which took up the fight against Arab denialism. He turned this into a series of graphic presentations about the Jewish People's indigenous rights in Israel – videos and presentations that have been broadcast around the world.

Gold even hosted an event at the UN that showed Israel's millennia of archaeological history with artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods, proving the Jewish People's overwhelming connection to the Land of Israel since antiquity.

In his short stint as director general of Israel's foreign ministry (2015-2016), he sought to make pushback against Arab denialism a central focus of Israeli diplomacy. At the time, Mahmoud Abbas of the PA in particular had taken to denying the historical existence of the Temples in Jerusalem, driving a series of UN resolutions that declared Jerusalem an exclusively Moslem heritage city and criminalizing Israel's custodianship of holy sites.

20 years ago, Gold also started an international effort to criminalize the genocidal-against-Israel threats of Iranian leaders, especially then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He authored a best-selling book entitled, "The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West." Western leaders may again want to look this book up as Israel today readies to finally destroy Iran's nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs.

Ambassador Gold played a behind-the-scenes role in developing the Trump administration's Mideast peace plan in 2020 – "Peace to Prosperity," dubbed by President Donald Trump as the "deal of the century." Not surprisingly and very appropriately, this plan combined the security-based and rights-based principles that marked Dr. Gold's career, thus ensuring Israeli military and civilian control of critical areas and its sovereign rights over unified Jerusalem.

All the while, Jews and friends of Israel around the world came to know and appreciate Ambassador Gold through his bold interviews on every global media platform no matter how unfriendly to Israel, as well as his fearless debates in public forums with foes of Israel. I recall with appreciation his decisive takedown at Brandeis University of Richard Goldstone (of the infamous eponymously named 2009 UN report on Israeli human rights "crimes" in Gaza).

In many ways, the American-born and American-accented Dore Gold paved the way for other American olim in Israeli diplomacy, including my late father Prof. Henry (Zvi) Weinberg (a member of Knesset for the Yisrael B'Aliyah Party), and ambassadors Michael Oren and Ron Dermer. (I hold a wonderful photo of my father in discussion at Blair House in Washington in 1998 with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Ambassadors Dore Gold and Eliyahu Ben-Elissar, former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Bar-Illan, who was then the prime minister's Director of Communications and Policy Planning, and others.)

Securing Israel's borders while battling delegitimization of Israel – this is Dore Gold's vital and admirable legacy. He deserves a collective memorial salute from Israel and the wider Jewish world.

The post In memoriam of Dore Gold appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

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Friedman made those comments during a briefing last week at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs under the headline: The Trump Plan: The New American Approach

In his speech, the US envoy shed light on how the Trump plan came about, what principles and considerations guided its architects, and what the lessons of past plans taught them 

Even though some like to dismiss Friedman as "the settlers' ambassador," it is clear from his comments that the Trump administration was keen on not being beholden to any particular party. Yes, Trump may be the most pro-Israel US president Israel has ever had, but he was not going to accept dictates. 

Friedman, who as a private individual is indeed very supportive of the settlement enterprise, knew from the get-go that he would not let his personal views play a role in doing his job in the administration. "Regardless of whether the settlements are just or not, they are a fact that exists," he has often said. He has never seen his role as ambassador as a means to promote the settlements.

The Trump plan is based on realism, Friedman insisted throughout his speech.

 "We start, we look at this issue with a great deal of humility, based upon the fact that we are not smart enough to know what's going to happen in this region tomorrow, a year from now, or 10 years from now," Friedman said. "In 2005, eight thousand Israelis who are living in the Gaza Strip, about as remote from central Israel as you can get, I've been to Israel at that point, I think, I don't know, maybe fifty times. I think I've been to Gush Katif once and those fifty times you would think if there's any place where you could easily evacuate eight thousand people it would be in Gaza. And it wasn't easy. It was the farthest thing from easy. I watched those videos of soldiers crying with the residents and the enormous strain it took upon the Israeli people. Why would we ever want to put Israel through that again? Especially on a level of a dimension far greater than ever happened in Gaza?"

Regarding the borders, the US team wanted to be realistic, and unlike what many have suggested, their point of reference was identical to that of previous administrations: that Israel should in principle withdraw from the territories it had captured. 

At the briefing last week, Friedman made it clear that the peace team understood that Israel had to make major concessions. 

"What we do accept is that there are several million people living in Judea and Samaria, who do not accept Israeli rule or claim not to accept Israeli rule, whose life is suboptimal given the challenges of security that exists and they deserve better ... But I would not underestimate the amount of courage it takes to put out a map of a Palestinian state. You know to those people who say well, you know, it's not big enough – it,s double the footprint, it,s double Gaza, it connects the two, and I can tell you plenty of people that saw this map on the Israeli side and when they first saw it, they gasped and asked what is that that you put there in the middle of Israel," Friedman said. 

"We've also said that there needs to be a system of laws in place that protects human rights, freedom of religion, freedom of the press – to create a real democratic society. Why? Because at the end of the day, those are the only societies that last," he continued. 

But the US peace team did not come to those conclusions on their own. Despite the many Jewish members on the team, most of them live in New York, and they don't live and breathe the complex reality of the Middle East. 

That is why right at the start of the process, the peace team realized it had to use local experts.

One of them, as Friedman revealed, was Gold, who served as Israel's UN ambassador, Foreign Ministry director general and as a close adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for many years, and today he is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  

Unlike the prevailing approach in the defense establishment and academia, in the JCPA, scholars have for years placed their focus on making sure that any peace deal would result in defensible borders for Israel.

Another focus, which has made Gold a world-renowned expert in his field, is Jerusalem. Gold's book, The Fight for Jerusalem discusses the effort undertaken by the Arab world to deny the ties of the Jewish people to their capital.

It has been translated into many languages, including Chinese. It became a bestseller in the United States, and every member of Congress received a copy. 

Gold turned the battle over Jerusalem to the battle of his life. He has crisscrossed the world to explain what the consequences of dividing Jerusalem would be, not just on Israel but also for Christian holy sites. Several years ago he added a PowerPoint presentation to the book tour, and this is how the ties to the peace team were forged.

Even before Trump was elected, Gold, as the director general of the Foreign Ministry, made initial contact with Friedman, who was advising the future president on Israel during the campaign. He secretly met with Friedman and showed him the two flagship documents : Defensible Borders for Israel and the Fight for Jerusalem. 

After Trump was elected and the peace team started working on the plan, the ties between the two became stronger. Only a handful of people close to Gold knew about the advice that he was dispensing to the administration. "He played a very important and significant role in this process and in one that I would say was irreplaceable. So Dore, you have mine and the United States' gratitude for all the work that you did," Friedman said at the briefing last week. 

In March 2018, Gold appeared before lawmakers in the US Capitol and displayed his presentation on Jerusalem. The event generated interest in the capital and ultimately resulted in Gold being invited to the White House.

At the request of two of the architects of the peace plan, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, he arrived at their offices the very same day to give the same presentation. The meeting lasted 90 minutes and spawned a long and secret relationship between the two sides until the peace plan was finally revealed.

Gold would occasionally brief Netanyahu on the content of the talks he was holding with the administration and got a green light from the prime minister to continue. 

"Most of the meetings were held in Israel, but quite a few were held at the White House," he said. 

Gold even introduced the peace team to a former senior Israeli official who helped them on various matters. Gold won't give away the name of the officer, and even today he says he will not divulge more than a small fraction of what unfolded in his talks with the US officials over the past three years. 

But even the little information he has provided Israel Hayom reveals a lot. As an expert on Wahhabism, the radical Islamic school of thought that has become dominant in Saudi Arabia, Gold told US officials that the focus on Jerusalem by Muslims is a consequence of "imitating Judaism."

Since the US peace team considers Saudi Arabia as one of the main players in implementing the peace plan, this was probably information that made their work easier

Gold further reveals that throughout the talks over the plan, there was the suggestion of placing the Mount of Olives under Palestinian sovereignty. "I told them that the Mount of Olives is not just an old Jewish cemetery but also a vibrant Christian site with great historical significance. Relinquishing that site could trigger widespread discontent among evangelical Christians, who are among Trump's most important voters," Gold said. 

When you pore over the details of the plan, it,s clear that the key themes articulated by Gold and his team at the JCPA were incorporated into the tenets of the Vision for Peace. 

The Trump plan focuses on an almost-forgotten paper called The Map of Israel's Interests. 

In a departure from former Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, who both offered an almost total withdrawal to the Green Line, the map of interests that was devised by the IDF in the 1990s offers the Palestinians much less territory. This is very much what Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had in mind: the Jordan Valley and its surrounding area are to be annexed to Israel, as well as critical points in Judea and Samaria. 

"It was important for me to show them my approach, that security-critical areas had to be with Israeli sovereignty," Gold said. Judging from what emerged, Kushner and the others on the peace team accepted Gold's position in full.

Unlike other proposals, all the communities and security-critical zones are designated in the Trump plan as areas that are to come under full Israeli sovereignty. 

"We presented the Americans with what most Israelis believe in," Gold said. "For example, they read the book  Jerusalem: Delusions of Division by Israel Hayom columnist Nadav Shragai, which detailed the many dangers that the partition of the city would entail. It's not that they actually wanted to divide the city, but the book gave them the ammunition they needed and the rationale for why it would be problematic." 

"I felt like the librarian who had to find the Americans the relevant material so that they could make decisions. But I also felt that I was carrying out an important job and fulfilling my duty to my country and people." 

Even though he had the ability to influence the provisions of the plan, and even though its basic tenets match his worldview to a large degree, Gold makes it clear that not all of Israel's requests have been met.

He would have preferred that the plan gave the Palestinians less territory and he is less than thrilled about the prospect of establishing a Palestinians capital in the eastern part of Jerusalem. 

"This plan comes with costs, but we look at the cost-benefit analysis. Would anyone have imagined such a plan being rolled out by an American administration several years ago? And a plan that endorses Israeli sovereignty on the Jordan Valley? I would have preferred if we got this for free, but we have to be realistic." 

All other US peace plans were left on paper. Are you sure this plan will actually be implemented? 

"I am 100% certain that the plan will be implemented because the overarching principle of this administration is to deliver on promises, and Trump has done so time and again. Israelis will have a hard time getting over the legacy left behind by the posture of other administrations, from [from former secretaries of states] James Baker to John Kerry. But I believe that we can trust the people in the administration. I don't think the implementation will be different than what has been laid out in the Vision for Peace. 

Israel will extend sovereignty but a new US administration, in a year or in five years, may not recognize this. The what? 

"That's a possibility that always exists, but I hope this is irreversible. In practice, a new reality will have been formed, one that will not be easily undone. President Dwight Eisenhower didn't undo President Harry Truman's recognition of Israel."

Ambassador Friedman said that Israel would not take steps to extend its sovereignty before the March 2 election, and so has Jared Kushner. Do you think that Israel might still do something before then? 

"I think it is possible to take partial steps to apply sovereignty. The Americans will not go out against that if we do something in the near future."

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When eight Arab countries gathered in 1967 in Khartoum, Sudan, to condemn Israel just months after the Six-Day War and announce what became known as the "Three No's" – no peace, no recognition, no negotiations –none of them could have imagined that 53 years later, Sudan's leader would go out of his way to meet an Israeli leader to say "yes" to establishing diplomatic relations.

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And that is exactly what happened this week when Sudanese Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan's transitional government, flew to Uganda to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was there for a meeting with its leader, Yoweri Museveni.

Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told Jewish News Syndicate that the meeting between Netanyahu and al-Burhan was the "crowning achievement" of the prime minister's visit.

"This week is a week in which the Arab world is being mobilized by the PLO to oppose the Trump plan," he said. "And if you are going to expect anything this week, it would be Arab states pulling back from Israel. What is so ironic with the Sudanese move is that Israel is being embraced by Sudan precisely at a time when the Arab League is pulling back."

"That also makes this into a very big deal," he added.

For Israel, the meeting marks a major step towards improving ties with both African and Arab countries.

Gold, previously director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had a hand in furthering Israel's diplomatic ties in Africa.

Israel renewed diplomatic ties with Guinea in 2016. After Netanyahu visited Chad for a renewal of ties in 2019, it was reported that Israel was working to formalize ties with Sudan.

According to Gold, Sudan is a huge country with a contemporary history, "which made it one of the centers of jihadi Islam for many years."

Gold referred back to the 1990s, when Hassan Turabi, Sudan's leader at the time, hosted a dozen or more terror organizations for their annual meeting, and which included the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the PLO and Hezbollah.

"The most infamous guest of the Sudanese government in the '90s was a Saudi dissident named Osama bin Laden," he said. "So that makes Sudan a very significant place."

Sudan, which is an Arab-Muslim-majority country that borders Egypt to the south, has long been viewed as a hostile nation towards the Jewish state.

Sudan is desperate to have sanctions lifted and be removed from the list as a state sponsor of terror. It wants to end its isolation and rebuild its economy after a popular uprising last year that toppled the country's leader, Omar al-Bashir – considered a war criminal by the international community for his role in the Darfur genocide – and installed the joint civilian-military sovereign council headed by al-Burhan. The country is scheduled to hold elections in 2022 as part of its transition to democracy under the interim government.

'Turning away from bad actors'

Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, agreed with Gold in the significance of the meeting, telling JNS that the departure of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir clears the way for broader recognition of Sudan in the United States and around the world.

"Sudan was long-sanctioned for its support of terror organizations," he said. "Now, Sudan has a clean slate."

Schanzer said looking at Sudan's track record the last few years, it has been "demonstrably turning away from the bad actors it has past supported."

The meeting between Netanyahu and al-Burhan was purportedly orchestrated by the United Arab Emirates, and that only a "small circle" of top officials in Sudan, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, knew about it ahead of time, reported the Associated Press.

Sudan is hoping that by forging warm ties with Israel, it would increase its chances for the United States to remove its status as a state-sponsor of terrorism, which it was designated as in 1993. Under al-Bashir, Sudan also forged close ties with Iran and served as a pipeline to supply weapons to Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas. Israel is believed to have been behind airstrikes in Sudan that destroyed a weapons convoy in 2009 and a weapons factory in 2012.

"Sudan has turned away from the Iran axis in a very clear way," said Schanzer. "You cannot engage with Israel while simultaneously supporting Hamas and Iran."

"Sudan has taken a very important step," he added. It has "clearly broken with the Arab League."

Notably, Egypt and Jordan broke with the Arab League years ago, entering into peace treaties with Israel.

"More importantly," Schanzer emphasized, "several years ago, Sudan was actually wooed out of the Iranian orbit by Saudi Arabia, which sees it as a sort of client state."

As such, he believes that Sudan's outreach to Israel "came with the blessing of Saudi Arabia."

Now, the Saudis are "waiting to see the reactions from the Sudanese people and the Arab world before they begin to think about their next moves. Bahrain perhaps comes next and perhaps after that, the United Arab Emirates," he predicted.

The apparent Saudi-led alliance in the Middle East is slowly breaking away from past demagoguery and moving slowly toward the West.

According to Schanzer, the Trump administration has a broader idea of its "deal of the century" than what was written in the plan. "There are other inducements the US can offer to some of the other countries still on the fence about recognizing Israel," he said.

It was reported this week that the United States may move to recognize Moroccan sovereignty in Western Sahara in exchange for Rabat taking steps to normalize ties with Israel.

Schanzer explained that many Arab and African countries are "coming to grips with the realization that the Palestinian issue, while near and dear to the hearts of many, is not in their national interest."

Indeed, in the case of Sudan, which has been wracked by tribal infighting, civil war and genocide almost continuously since its independence from Great Britain in 1956, many in the country hope to move from an isolated military dictatorship to a fledgling democracy with the help and investment of Western countries like the United States.

They will not set aside their own security or economic concerns "because of how they feel about the Palestinians' unfulfilled national aspirations," he said. The question right now is "how quickly these countries can move given the conservative nature of their people."

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The event was hosted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which presented its recent study delving into the legal, security and cultural implications of the crisis, titled "The Migration Wave into Europe: An Existential Dilemma."

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Session chairwoman Fiamma Nirenstein, who edited the study, told Jewish News Syndicate that "the crisis is indeed existential for Europe, and this is precisely why ambassadors are searching for answers." The Jewish state, she said, "deals with many of the same challenges, yet has prevailed in maintaining a clear national identity," while at the same time securing its own security interests.

Nirenstein, a former Italian parliamentarian who immigrated to Israel in 2013 and is now a senior fellow at the JCPA, said that "Israel has proven that it can export its knowledge on how to deal with difficult problems such as terrorism. Europeans recognize this and are now inclined to hear whether Israel can provide useful insights into this new problem, which threatens the very nature of Europe as a continent with Western ideals."

Discussion at the event was comprehensive, but calm – unusually so for a topic that has become hyper-charged across the European Union. Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, director of JCPA's Project on Regional Middle East Developments and former head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate's Research Division, addressed the security implications of the immigration wave.

Kuperwasser called out European governments for not properly dealing with the extremist organizations already operating in their countries, noting that indoctrination toward violent extremism is rampant in Islamic education in Europe, in the European prison system and among converts to Islam.

"We must improve intelligence and counterterrorism practices," he said, though noted that "much has been accomplished here already."

Kuperwasser also warned against turning a blind eye to what he called "soft" radicalism. Issues that might not seem problematic now, he said, could become much more so in the future.

"Europe must say that it rejects all forms of radicalism, whether terrorism or softer forms of radicalism," said the Mideast expert. As an example, Kuperwasser noted that many Muslims adhere to an Islamic doctrine that calls for them to be less aggressive while living under the sovereignty of non-Muslims, with the belief that they will later become rulers themselves.

"Just because they currently live as a minority in Europe," he said, "does not mean that Muslims have given up the idea that Islam should one day be in the majority."

Ethical principles at stake

Dr. Lars-Uwe Kettner, the legal counselor to the German Embassy to Israel, said that Germany's open policy on immigration is based on humanitarian considerations. "We took a strong stand towards human dignity," he said. He noted, however, that the challenges Germany's approach involves make it "very important that we stay in discussion with each other on these issues."

Germany has been among the most liberal European countries in its approach to immigration and has encouraged other European countries to share the immigration burden. This policy has angered many nations, particularly those in Eastern Europe who have been less eager to open their borders, and has led to political backlash.

Hungarian Ambassador to Israel Levente Benkő noted that this phenomenon can be seen all over Europe.

While it is difficult to maintain "politically correct discourse on this issue," he said, the inability of European governments to come up with suitable answers is giving rise to political extremism in Europe. This, he said, has been one of the unexpected byproducts of the immigration issue.

"There are parties coming out of nowhere with controversial answers that do not contribute positively to this problem. If the mainstream is unable to deal with this issue, that will give rise to parties on the extreme Left and the extreme Right," said Benkő.

Ambassador Martin Stropnicky of the Czech Republic said the problem is arising in large part not only because of the sheer number of migrants, but because "most of the people that are immigrating [to Europe] now do not want to accept our cultural milieu, but want us to accept theirs," he said. "And that is not acceptable."

According to Israel Prize laureate Professor Asa Kasher, co-author of the IDF Code of Ethics and a JCPA fellow, there is an ethical principle at stake when it comes to the preservation of national identity.

Kasher addressed the need to maintain "proportionality" when deciding how many migrants to accept. He insisted that nobody should be "indifferent to human suffering," including the suffering of migrants, yet at the same time, he said states have a national, cultural and sometimes religious identity that should be preserved.

"States have a right to maintain their identity," said Kasher. "That means they have a right to stop others from taking steps that jeopardize that identity."

Given that European countries cannot absorb unlimited numbers of refugees without jeopardizing their own identities, Kasher suggested that a more appropriate humanitarian approach might be to invest effort and money in the countries migrants are fleeing.

"We can spend a lot of money on naval forces stopping them from coming" to Europe, he said, "but maybe it is more effective to spend the money building a hospital or a school that will help encourage those who are suffering to stay and not to immigrate."

Sharing security concerns

From ethical and moral considerations, the discussion turned to the legal aspects of the crisis.

According to former legal adviser and director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry Alan Baker, while there may be moral and ethical reasons to accept migrants, there is "zero legal obligation" to do so under international law.

"There is a dichotomy between the legal obligations of sovereignty and the moral issue of permitting freedom of movement between one country and another," said Baker.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations and current JCPA president Dore Gold praised the working session, noting that issues such as terrorism and migration are "changing the way people look at the relations between the Middle East and Europe."

In particular, Gold noted that "Israel and Europe are now sharing the same set of security concerns they did not have before."

Superior Israeli intelligence on Islamic State, he added, as well as the natural-gas resources discovered off Israel's coast in recent years, are positively impacting the way European nations look to and rely on Israel.

"Israel must be prepared for a new paradigm of relations with Europe," said Gold.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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