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Source: https://jcpa.org/video/today-saudi-arabia-is-part-of-the-solution/
Video: Today, Saudi Arabia Is Part of the Solution
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Amb. Dore Gold - We are now commemorating 20 years since the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. The vast majority of the terrorists who flew hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were from Saudi Arabia. At the time, Wahhabi charities, representing an extreme form of Islam, were moving enormous sums of funding from Saudi Arabia to organizations around the world. I wrote a New York Times bestseller, Hatred's Kingdom, which presented evidence from captured documents on how Hamas was one of the recipients of this funding, as it conducted suicide bombings in major Israeli cities. Fast forward to 2021. How much Saudi money is now going to Hamas? Zero. In fact, Saudi Arabia is not giving a dime to any of the terrorist organizations. Today, the main countries funding Hamas are the Islamic Republic of Iran and Qatar. Back in 2001, the Muslim World League, headquartered in the Saudi Kingdom, was spreading the ideology that supported a new wave of global terror. Yet today, the same Muslim World League has issued the Charter of Mecca in 2019 based on interreligious tolerance rather than jihad. A year later its secretary-general took a delegation to Auschwitz. Since Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) became crown prince in 2017, important reforms have reshaped key elements of Saudi Arabia. In 2020, he curbed the powers of the religious police who were harassing Saudi citizens and foreigners. The way forward is for like-minded Saudis and Israelis to draw together. We need to create a consensus for the security of our nations to meet the challenge from Iran and its proxies, which seek to re-establish Persian power in the framework of a renewed Safavid Empire. The writer, former Director-General of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israeli Ambassador to the UN, is President of the Jerusalem Center.