Free Republic

Iran’s Supreme Leader has found the reason for socio-economic problems in the United States. In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that the Americans’ problems are due to Israel’s “domination” of the United States’ government. “Brutal treatment of black ppl isn’t indeed the only anti-human rights act by US govt; look at US’s green light to #Israel’s crimes.#Ferguson,” read one tweet. “The day when American nation realize their socioeconomic problems stem from domination of #Israel over their govt, what’ll happen? #Ferguson,” Khamenei wrote in another one. …

Balfour Hakak, former chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association, told Arutz Sheva that Mifal Hapayis’ (Israel’s official state lottery) decision to award the Landau Prize for Arts and Sciences in the poetry category to radical leftist poet Yitzhak Laor is “surprising.” Laor, a controversial figure and writer, has expressed vitriolically anti-Zionist stances both in his poetry and prose work. In a 2011 essay for leftist newspaper Haaretz, Laor called to get rid of Zionism, writing, “Liberation from Zionism is not a dirty word. In any case, what lies behind Zionism nowadays are interests related to water, real estate, strategic relations...

German anti-Semitism and resentment towards Israel have risen sharply in recent months, a new survey has found. More than one in four respondents in the new poll equated the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs to Nazi persecution of Jews during World War Two, Reuters reported on Thursday. The bi-annual survey on xenophobia in Germany by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation showed broad measures of anti-Semitism on the decline over the past decade. However, it also showed a spike in negative views towards Israel and Jews in general between June and September, coinciding with the conflict between Israel and Hamas in...

From mistaking the Har Nof synagogue where Tuesday's terror attack took place for a mosque, to deleting references to Palestinian perpetrators, some of the international media continued to report on the events in Israel in an eyebrow-raising manner on Tuesday. The website of British newspaper The Guardian ran a story about the attack from Reuters. The wire dispatch the agency sent included the headline 'Palestinians kill four in Jerusalem synagogue attack' and led with the sentence: ''Two Palestinians armed with a meat cleaver and a gun killed four people in a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday before being shot dead by...

CNN has apologized for one of several errors in its reporting of Tuesday morning’s brutal terrorist attack in Jerusalem. In one particularly jarring error, the headline presented for the story broadcast live to tens of millions of viewers read: “Israeli… Police Shot, Killed 2 Palestinians.” The headline sparked outrage, with one prominent Israeli activist calling for the CNN reporter responsible to have his press credentials removed. Several hours and countless angry responses later, the international news corporation finally apologized. “As CNN updated its reporting on the terrorist attack on the synagogue in Jerusalem earlier today, our coverage did not immediately...

BRUSSELS - Europe’s new foreign relations chief has denied the EU is in talks on Israel sanctions, despite a leaked paper on the issue. Federica Mogherini, who chaired her first foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday (17 November), told press the leaked paper is a “technical working hypothesis” which “member states requested” when her predecessor was in office. She added: “It is not at the heart of today’s discussions on how to start a positive process with the Israelis and Palestinians. There’s currently no question of sanctioning anybody. The question is rather how to motivate people to … restart...

One day after the Swedish government officially recognized the state of Palestine, members of the Parliament, Riksdagen, disagreed on whether this decision was right or “immature”. The leftist government, which took office only a month ago after winning national elections in September, on Thursday (30 October) became the first European country to recognize the state of Palestine. This prompted Israel to recall its ambassador to Sweden to Jerusalem on the same day. The country also threatened that further cuts to the two countries’ diplomatic relations can be expected. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sweden “needs to understand that relations...

Irish senators have adopted a non-binding motion on Palestine recognition, as the EU prepares to set out new red lines on Israel relations. The motion, tabled by Averil Power from the opposition Fianna Fáil party, passed without a vote on Wednesday (22 October) after winning cross-party support. It urges the Irish government “to formally recognize the state of Palestine and do everything it can to help secure a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. Power told the Senate that in the past 20 years “while pretending to talk peace … [Israel’s] illegal settlements in the West Bank have trebled...

It’s happened again. For the second time, after I exposed that UNRWA’s Gaza school curricula include many examples of promoting hateful ideas that directly contradict those of the UN and UNRWA themselves, the organization has stealthily removed the evidence without any acknowledgment or apology. My 2012 exposé of how UNRWA schools were teaching hate, martyrdom and jihad to students, with many examples of essays and poems, resulted in UNRWA removing many individual school sites and specific pages and domains from the Internet without any public notice. Now, my latest exposés showing explicit antisemitism and hateful historical lies in the UNRWA...

The good news is that The New York Times has to dump another hundred reporters. The bad news is that Tom Friedman is still on the beat. But the paper, constantly eyeing Der Sturmer for inspiration, keeps losing readers in droves. People have begun to catch on. They’re catching on to what I’ve been saying for years, that The New York Times is the most anti-Semitic newspaper in the entire world. […] Today’s op-ed needle comes from yet another scoffer named Roger Cohen—or is this the same dunce who appears time and again? I don’t know. […] So what’s the...

A group of over 50 European Parliament members has nominated a controversial Egyptian activist for the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, despite his having advocated the assassination of Israelis and political leaders in Egypt and called for an end to the State of Israel. Alaa Abdel Fattah, 32, an Egyptian blogger and political activist, has been arrested numerous times by Egyptian authorities since the eruption of a popular revolution in the country in early 2011. Abdel Fattah, who boasts 626,000 followers on Twitter and 156,000 on Facebook, was released on bail September 15 after being charged with organizing...

Angela Merkel is the stand-up lady of Europe. The German chancellor is forthright in calling anti-Semites to account. She spoke this week to a rally of 6,000 Germans at the Brandenburg Gate, denouncing the documented increase of anti-Semitism in their country. The evil of the Nazi regime, which killed 6 million Jews in Europe 80 years ago, is marked everywhere, with bronze plaques on sidewalks where Jews were taken from their homes and dispatched to death camps, to the five acres dedicated to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in the very center of Berlin. And yet, as the chancellor...

Ted Cruz has made a serious mistake—one supported by sentiments of millions of American evangelicals—and it could cost the lives of many Christians. I suppose you’ve heard by now that Ted Cruz was recently “booed off stage” for a senseless, ill-placed “stand with Israel” gaffe at a banquet for persecuted Middle East Christians. The worst part of his comments is not that they were calculated for self-serving political purposes—as others have noted already. Although that is certainly bad enough, it is hardly as offensive as the main implication of what he said. Apparently, we must agree with him, or else...

In Defense of Christians President Toufic Baaklini issued the following statement in response to a disruption at the Inaugural Summit Gala Dinner: “As Cardinal Rai so eloquently put it to the attendees of the In Defense of Christians’ inaugural Summit gala dinner: ‘At every wedding, there are a few problems.’ In this case, a few politically motivated opportunists chose to divide a room that for more than 48 hours sought unity in opposing the shared threat of genocide, faced not only by our Christian brothers and sisters, but our Jewish brothers and sisters and people of all other faiths and...

George Galloway has been taken to hospital with a suspected broken jaw after he was attacked on a London street, his spokesman has said.

Muslim anti-Israel demonstrators attempted to force their way into a synagogue in Switzerland, the latest in a string of attacks on synagogues in Europe. The protest took place on Saturday, during the Jewish Sabbath, in front of the Beth Yaakov, or Grande, Synagogue in Geneva, according to JTA. The Intercommunity Coordination Against Anti-Semitism and Defamation watchdog organization (CICAD) reported that a Muslim woman wearing a niqab (veil) first attempted to enter the place of worship while waving a PLO flag and holding a placard saying "Every synagogue is an Israeli embassy" on Saturday morning but was prevented from doing so....

Respect MP George Galloway has declared Bradford to be an "Israel-free zone" as a result of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

With Europe’s Muslim 'immigrants' come ancient hatreds and a revival of anti-Semitism. The Bergische Synagogue in the German town of Wuppertal has a history with arson. The nearly 120-year-old synagogue was burned down during Kristallnacht in 1938. Rebuilt after World War II, it was targeted again about a week ago by arsonists who threw Molotov cocktails at the house of worship (although, thankfully, they failed to set it aflame). Welcome to the New Europe, where the street thugs have learned a lot from the Old Europe. Their protests of the Gaza War during the past few weeks haven’t been anti-Israel...

Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Sunday criticized the United Nations for failing to end “the Zionist regime’s” crimes, AFP reported. The comments came in a conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as Zarif conducted a hefty round of telephone diplomacy to rally support and humanitarian aid for Gazans. He also spoke with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and other regional leaders, stressing that the priority was to get food and medical aid into areas worst hit by Israel’s military offensive, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said. According to AFP, in his conversation with Ban Zarif said...

“Berlin police cower before Jew-haters,” proclaimed a headline in the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel—and this line has been posted numerous times on social networking sites. It was reported that a group of Arabs shouted “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone” at a recent demonstration and police officers did not interfere.In many European cities, what began as peaceful protests turned into outpourings of anti-Jewish sentiments and violence against counter-demonstrators. […] The Gaza conflict has stirred up public opinion in Europe, and it has brought Israel-hatred to Germany along with it, according to political scientist Stephan Grigat. […] Grigat has...