Event of the Week (Friday – October 17, 2025): The Tyrant Provokes the Bahrainis… The New Zionist Ambassador at the “Al-Sakhir Palace”
On October 14, 2025, the tyrant Hamad, the so-called “King” of Bahrain, met with the new Zionist ambassador to Manama, Shmuel Revel, in a special ceremony at his private residence, Al-Sakhir Palace, to receive his credentials.
It was notable that Hamad was keen to personally accept the credentials of the Zionist ambassador only a few days after the “Sharm El-Sheikh” meeting and the signing of the agreement to end the war on Gaza. What drew the outrage of observers was that the Royal Court’s protocol officials ensured that the credentials ceremony for the new Zionist ambassador was held alongside other new envoys — among them the new Palestinian ambassador, Aref Hussein Saleh. This caused indignation in Palestinian circles, which saw it as further proof of the falsity of earlier statements made after “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” claiming that the Zionist ambassador had been withdrawn from Manama and that trade and flight exchanges between the two sides had been suspended.
While “Israeli” sources confirmed at the time that the withdrawal of the ambassadors in Manama and Tel Aviv had never been officially communicated to the relevant authorities — asserting that “relations between Israel and Bahrain remain stable” — circles close to the Bahraini government deliberately engaged in deception, fearing popular protests against normalization and growing calls to shut down the Zionist embassy in Manama.
Zionist ambassador Shmuel Revel announced on his account on the “X” platform that he had presented his credentials to Hamad, stating that this “marks the official start of my mission as Israel’s ambassador.” Foreign Minister Abdul Latif Al-Zayani had already received Revel’s credentials at the end of August, confirming reports circulated by media outlets that the Bahraini regime was about to appoint a new ambassador to Tel Aviv after the former envoy, Khaled Al-Jalahma, was reassigned as Political Affairs Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Revel is the second Zionist ambassador to Manama since the signing of the normalization agreement in September 2020. He holds a degree in history and sociology, and has long been familiar with the old secret relationship between the Zionist entity and Qatar, having helped shape several of its stages. His appointment, which came shortly before the aggression against Doha in September, sheds light on the deep historical mistrust characterizing the relationship between the Al-Khalifa rulers and the Qatari leadership.
