Free Republic

What is Zionism? The ideological question, rooted in the 19th century, has gained surprising urgency in an Israeli election campaign that seems more open than had been expected. Seeking to take votes from the nationalistic right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the relatively liberal opposition has rebranded itself as the Zionist Union—sparking a debate about a concept that some considered resolved when the Jewish state was declared and widely recognized in 1948. […] On the left, politicians speak of true Zionism as requiring the establishment of peace and equality in the land, including by making peace with the Palestinians and...

With four weeks until elections for the 20th Knesset, Likud and Labor-Hatnua appear to be neck and neck. According to a survey conducted by the Midgam Institute for Channel Two, Labor, running under the moniker the "Zionist Camp" just barely inches by Likud with 25 seats. Likud is one behind with 24 mandates. It has been noted that even if Likud comes in behind, the party with the greatest chance of forming a coalition is given first crack, meaning the outcome of the close competition remains up in the air. The joint Arab list comes in as the third largest...

Sadly, she was allegedly killed by the Jordanian air raid attacks according to ISIS who held her hostage, although the United States says there is no evidence to that effect. The truth of how Kayla Mueller, 26, died may never be discerned. However, despite the sadness at her needless death, the myth that she was wonderful altruistic young woman should be exposed. This is another Rachel Corrie propaganda story in the making, and the western media is falling for it again, or embracing it on purpose. Kayla Mueller was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who spent at...

A vicar who promoted conspiracy theories that Israel was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks on the internet has been banned from speaking, writing, tweeting or blogging on the Middle East by the Church of England. The Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer has also agreed a complete prohibition on using any social media for at least six months. It is believed to be the first ban of its kind issued by the church. But Dr. Sizer will be able to remain as priest in charge of his Christ Church parish in affluent Virginia Water, Surrey, and there are no current plans...

In a morally coherent world, the chilling statement “Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis” would not have been spoken publicly, and certainly not by an elected student leader at an American public university. But in California, the veritable epicenter of academic anti-Israelism and its attendant stealth jihad, this statement, spoken last week by student leader Azka Fayyaz during a divestment resolution debate at the University of California, Davis, is par for the course, and indicative of how debased the conversation about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has actually become. Thus, while members of the UC Davis chapter of Students...

Despite living in the world's biggest residential palace that cost £384 million, Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists he is not seeking to be a sultan, but more like the British Queen. The Turkish president referred to the UK as an example for Turkey to follow as he explained that changes to the role of the president would not alter the Turkish republic's democracy... Mr Erdogan's comments, reported in Hurriyet Daily News, included an attack on those who said Turkey was becoming like a monarchy and that he aspired to be like an Ottoman sultan despite other countries also having presidents... Padishah...

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — The White House says House Speaker John Boehner's invitation for Israel's prime minister to come to Washington is a breach of normal diplomatic protocol. President Barack Obama's press secretary, Josh Earnest, says the White House has not heard from Israelis about whether Benjamin Netanyahu plans to speak to Congress Feb. 11. Earnest says they are reserving judgment about the invitation until they've had a chance to speak to the Israelis about what Netanyahu might say.

Following are excerpts from a program featuring former Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa, which aired on CBC TV and was posted on the Internet on December 23, 2014: Ali Gomaa: The hadith that relates how [the stones and the trees will say:] "There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him" is a 100% reliable hadith that appears in Muslim's compilation. But I must stress that we will not attack anyone. We are the ones under attack. The Prophet Muhammad was right when he foretold that before this, the Zionist entity would occupy our land, and would kill our...

The European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said Tuesday's vote at the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Palestinian statehood underlined the need for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to urgently resume peace negotiations. The Security Council failed to adopt an Arab-backed resolution that would have paved the way to a Palestinian state, setting a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the PA and calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria by the end of 2017. The vote "underlines once again the urgency of resuming meaningful negotiations between the...

In Ireland, taking the name of Israel means becoming a war criminal. A popular Dublin restaurant, The Exchequer, no longer stocks Israeli goods. In the Irish town of Kinvara, retailers, restaurants and pharmacies operate a boycott of Israeli goods. The leading Irish supermarket chain SuperValu removed the Israeli carrots from its shelves. And I have mentioned just a few examples of the new Irish anti-Semitism. It is the same everywhere in Europe: Israel is disappearing from European shelves. Practically and symbolically. The material cancellation of Israeli goods from Europe's shelves anticipates Israel's physical suppression. The French city of Lille suspended...

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is often touted by the West as a “peace partner” of Israel’s, recently declared that there are six million “Palestinian refugees”, and that he is one of them. Abbas’s comments were made in an interview with the Egyptian daily Akhbar Al-Yawm, published last week and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In the interview, Abbas reiterated that he did not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, because this contradicted the Palestinian interests by “harming Israeli Arabs and preventing the return of the Palestinian refugees.” He said that there were six...

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...