Free Republic

Francaviglia does not dispute that Muslims could have beaten Columbus to the New World. They certainly possessed the technological expertise to have done so; but, so far, there is no reliable evidence that they did. There are, however, very good reasons for thinking that they didn't. Arab maps were the best in the world, but none of the existing early maps demonstrates any knowledge of the Americas. Arabs also were prolific writers. Francaviglia thinks it’s virtually impossible that Arab explorers discovered the Americas and made no mention of the fact. Why then is the supposed pre-Columbian Muslim discovery of America...

Yemen: Another Failure The Obama Administration Touted As a Success Katie Pavlich | Jan 09, 2015 As law enforcement officials hone in on two Islamic terrorists who carried out an attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this week, we're learning more about where the terrorists came from, what their backgrounds are and where they received their training. There are three suspects total. Two brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, are still on the run but officials know where they are and have been in contact with them throughout the morning. The youngest of the terror suspects turned himself in earlier...

Daily Caller France’s Multiculturalist Agenda Makes Jews Pack Their Bags 4:50 PM 01/06/2015 Ryan Girdusky Political Consultant As more French Jews face anti-Semitic attacks, many are leaving for Israel. Most of the attacks have come from Muslims, whether immigrants or French-born, many of whom have not assimilated into French society – if not rejecting French society entirely. Compounding the dangerous situation, France’s left-wing government refuses to acknowledge the scope of this crisis, apparently more afraid of losing Muslim votes they depend on than in defending France’s half-million Jews. Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption is expecting “Little Paris” neighborhoods to pop...

-excerpt- In 2008, Israel offered Mr. Abbas a state covering 94% of the West Bank, along with a compensatory 6% of Israeli territory and a land bridge to Gaza. Mr. Abbas never took up the offer. Last March, President Obama personally offered Mr. Abbas a U.S.-sponsored “framework” agreement. Again Mr. Abbas demurred. The following month, Mr. Abbas signed a “reconciliation” pact with Hamas. War came by summer. Now Mr. Abbas has moved to have “the state of Palestine” join the International Criminal Court, chiefly in order to harass and perhaps arrest Israeli military officers and politicians spuriously accused of war...

One of the suspects in the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine has been killed and the two others are in custody, a two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials told NBC News. Authorities identified the three men as Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, both French and in their early 30s, and 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, whose nationality wasn't immediately clear. One of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss the investigation, told The Associated Press that the men were linked to a Yemeni terrorist network. And Cherif Kouachi was convicted in 2008 of terrorism...

. . . the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics just released a new report. It contains projections based on 2014 data. These data, like Bacchi’s information, are wielded as kryptonite to subdue any thoughts about Jewish sovereignty in parts of the Middle East. Back in the ’40′s it was used to deter any thoughts of a Jewish state in the region at all. Now it is being used to forestall talk of annexing territory beyond the Apartheid Green Line, beyond which all foes and even some friends demand no Jew should live. After reading one article in particular which continued...

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Year’s Day to Cairo’s Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam. This is something no Western leader has the had the courage to do, certainly not Barack Obama, despite his Muslim education. Accusing the umma (world Islamic population) of encouraging the hostility of the entire world, al-Sisi’s speech is so dramatic and essentially revolutionary it brings to mind Khrushchev’s famous speech exposing Stalin. Many have called for a reformation of Islam, but for the leader of the largest Arab nation to...

One of the world's largest publishing houses is distributing school Atlases in Middle Eastern countries which totally erase any reference to the State of Israel, it has been revealed. HarperCollins' subsidiary Collins Bartholomew, which specializes in maps, are selling "Collins Middle East Atlases" to English-speaking schools in the Gulf states which depict Jordan and Syria extending all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

What can one say about Europe? I imagine that if one wants to be bitterly truthful then one could easily say that Hitler has in effect triumphed. He branded the Jews as the root of all troubles and proclaimed that the “final” and only solution to the “Jewish problem” was to eradicate all Jews from the face of the earth. And as we all know, he followed through on his genocidal program. A great deal of Europe, its leaders, intellectuals and common folk, willfully and almost gleefully cooperated in this genocide. Many did so actively while many more Europeans did...

Incitement against the Jewish State is directly related to the stabbings, raping and killing of Jews inside and outside of Israel. But doing something to stop it requires confronting a very troubling fact: the global epicenter for incitement is the “human rights” leviathan, the United Nations. From November 24, 2014 until December 5, 2014, UN human rights headquarters in Geneva mounted a public exhibit that was pure incitement. UN-driven antisemitism that takes the form of seeking to demonize, disable and ultimately destroy the Jewish state...

The bizarre story of the refusal of British royals to visit Israel, while they are constantly in the Arab world, continues. I wrote about this phenomenon here, last February, when Prince Charles visited Saudi Arabia. As I noted then, the Queen has never set foot in Israel and Prince Charles set foot there briefly only once, for the Rabin funeral. By contrast, in just the month of November 2014 we found Prince Andrew and Prince Harry at what the Foreign Office must have considered a diplomatic necessity: the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Prince Andrew also visited Saudi Arabia (at the...

Israeli Jews took the streets on Thursday in support of Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni's decision to temporarily stop the employment of Arab construction workers on sites near schools citing security concerns, even as a debate raged as to the legality of the move. In Jerusalem, right-wing activists protested in front of the Rami Levy supermarket in the Givat Shaul neighborhood against the employment of Arab workers at the store. Givat Shaul is located adjacent to the Har Nof neighborhood where two Arab terrorists lethally attacked a synagogue on Tuesday with hatchets and guns, killing four Jews and a Druze police...

Just hours after four Jews were murdered praying at a synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof, a young Jew in his 20s was attacked by two Arab assailants armed with iron bars in Jerusalem's Old City on Tuesday night. The attack took place at the Old City's New Gate, located in the north-western corner of the Old City and not far from the Jerusalem Municipality building. The two Arab attackers fell upon their victim as he was riding a bicycle, hitting him with iron bars and leaving him moderately wounded. The youth was treated on the scene by Magen David Adom...

A perfect storm is brewing for Israel. After years of counterproductive concessions, if the Jews wish to preserve their sovereignty, what is required is ruthless resolve, not reticent restraint. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. – Winston Churchill, in first speech to the House of Commons as prime minister, May 13, 1940 A military defeat of Israel would mean the physical extinction of a large part of its population and the political elimination of the Jewish state... Nor does this reflect a...

Palestinian Arab social media is aflame with graphic violence laced tweets urging Palestinians to run over and/or kidnap Jews, directly referencing a “Car-Intifida” in Arabic. The posts mix the messages that the Temple Mount is under attack by Jews and that Palestinians should attack Jews. The posts were exposed by Mudar Zahran, who describes himself on his Tweeter feed as the “Secretary General of the Jordanian Coalition of Opposition.” In another tweet, Zahran posted that “This hashtag is the most spread now on Palestinian social media... it means 'run over' which reads 'dais,' sounding like 'Daish,' (ISIS).” In other words,...

Arabs on Monday were caught red-handed cooking up another “tree libel” against Jewish residents of Samaria. The Arabs were seen cutting down olive trees and demolishing fences in an Arab olive grove near Har Bracha in Samaria, apparently intending to blame the damage on Jews. Two volunteers working with the Samaria Residents Council caught the vandals on film. The volunteers were on special patrol, after Council director Benny Katsover urged Jewish residents of the area to watch out for Arab provocations during the olive harvest season. Katzover called on residents to carry video-filming equipment as they traveled the roads, in...

Kurds are an ethnic group who live in a sizeable area, though not a national one that borders Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It is referred to as Kurdistan As this is being written there is a battle going on between the Kurds in a Syrian town on the border with Turkey, Kobani, and the Islamic State (ISIS) militants that have seized a large area of northern Syria and Iraq. ISIS is also moving south toward Baghdad. The only area they have not been able to seize has been Iraq’s Kurdish region which has been virtually autonomous from what is...

Indecision and double dealing best describe the Obama regime of the past six years. Why is Obama making his move against the Islamist State only now? Has anyone—anyone—noticed that it took President Barack Hussein Obama six long years to notice that radical Islam is well on its way to conquering the world? Has anyone noticed that this dubious president seems to be conning the world with a Hollywood script type no-boots-on-the-ground war and is thus far getting away with it? It’s as if Obama, complete with teleprompter and photo ops is sitting there playing with toy soldiers while ISIS-ISIL, the...

Geneva, Switzerland – In a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council today, September 23, Father Gabriel Naddaf, an Israeli Arab Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth, called attention to the plight of Christian minorities suffering under Muslim extremists in the Arab world. Speaking immediately after a panel discussion on the “Human Rights Situation in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories,” during a special debate on racism at the Council’s 27th Regular Session, Father Naddaf discussed the violent oppression facing Middle Eastern Christians and their widespread flight from the region in recent years.

Americans have to face the painful reality that Arabs are, when judged by 21st century Western Standards, a crazy people. This is not meant as an insult. Early this year, the Iraqi parliament proposed a law that would permit men to marry 9 year old girls. The law had the support of a majority of parliament. The law would also permit men to beat up and rape their wives, and prevent women from leaving the house without the permission of the husband. These SOBS are supposed to be the allies of America in the fight against ISIS. The Shia regime...