Free Republic

“When the Israeli prime minister argues that his speech will stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, he is not only misleading Israel, he is strengthening Iran,” Amnon Reshef, former head of the army’s armored corps, said at a news conference Sunday. -- -- -- TEL AVIV — Hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set off Sunday for Washington, a group of 180 retired Israeli generals and former top security officials warned that his upcoming address to a joint meeting of Congress on Iran’s nuclear program will cause more harm than good. It will not only damage Israel’s special relationship with...

In June 2008, candidate Barack Obama spoke before thousands of delegates to the pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to assuage concerns that he harbored animosity toward the Jewish state. In a paragraph of his speech that began with the phrase "Let me be clear," Obama declared that under his vision for peace, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." The next day, after the statement triggered fierce criticism from Palestinian leaders, Obama backtracked. The reversal was an early signal of what has become a pattern during his presidency — professing profound...

Another anti-Semitic cab driver has been unearthed in the Big Apple, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday, after one cabbie told a 51 year-old Jewish woman that "all Jews must die." On Sunday morning, Jewish news columnist Baila Sebrow hailed a cab from Manhattan's Carlton Hotel - but when she entered the cab, she was instantly asked whether she was Jewish. After answering in the affirmative, Sebrow was told that "all Jews must die," and the driver then began driving "really fast" - so much so that she was afraid he would total the car, she stated. Sebrow, terrified,...

There’s an old political saying that if your opponent is committing suicide, get out of the way. Yet professor Sean Elias requires a response, so hateful was his odious retort in The Aspen Times to my column, “Why coexist with a mortal Iranian threat?” Evidence that society’s oldest prejudice endures after a post-Nazi dormancy, Elias’ letter to the editor reflects the bigotry that’s inciting lethal anti-Jewishness in Europe and existential threats to Israel, the only nation-state of the Jewish people and the sole democracy in the Middle East’s radicalized swamp. No other nation is surrounded by as much hostility or...

Anti-Semitism is on the rise not only in Europe, but in the US as well, a recent study has shown. More than 50% of American college students have been victims of anti-Semitism, according to the 2014 National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students, which was published by Trinity College on Tuesday. 1,157 Jewish college students over 55 campuses across the US were surveyed for the Trinity College study over the 2013-2014 academic year over a variety of topics. However, despite the control variables of topics other than anti-Semitism, a surprisingly high number of students reported being a victim of...

The proportion of Democrats who sympathize more with Israel than with Palestinians in the Mideast conflict dropped ten points this year to 48 percent, according to a new poll by Gallup. The polling company suggested a link to tensions between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over the Iran nuclear threat. In addition, the percentage of Democrats viewing Israel favorably also dropped—by 14 points—over the past year, from 74 percent to 60, the poll found. By contrast Republican sympathy for Israel over the Palestinians rose to 83 percent, continuing a trend that has risen from the low 50s...

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...