Free Republic

On Sept. 26, 2012, an American pastor named Saeed Abedini who was visiting family and fellow Christians in Tehran was dragged out of the private home he was staying in and hauled away to jail by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Friday marked the second anniversary of his imprisonment, and for the last two years he has been beaten, abused and subjected to solitary confinement for weeks on end in Iran’s most notoriously dangerous prisons for the crime of professing his Christian faith. Pastor Saeed isn’t the only American suffering at the hands of the Iranian regime. Marine veteran Amir Hekmati is...

An Iranian woman sentenced to death for killing a man who tried to rape her told her mother goodbye and prepared to die, even as the Islamic republic’s president was meeting with world leaders at the United Nations. Rayhaneh Jabbari, 26, is set to be executed Tuesday, according to reports from Iran. On Monday, her mother, Shole Paravan, recounted on her Facebook page an emotional farewell call her daughter made when a sympathetic guard loaned her a cellphone before she was taken to Rajaiy Shahr Prison to be hanged. […] In April, a court postponed Jabbari’s execution in the face...

An investigation was underway Tuesday after Iraqi military pilots mistakenly gave food, water and ammunition to enemy ISIS militants instead of their own soldiers, a senior security official and a brigadier told NBC News. The supplies were supposed to help besieged Iraqi army officers and soldiers who had been fighting Islamist extremists for one week in Saglawyah and the village of Al-Sijar in the country’s western province of Anbar.

Glenn Beck presented a theory Tuesday about why the United States bombed targets from the Khorasan group last week, saying it’s possible that the United States did it to help prop up the Iranian government in return for increased cooperation from Iran’s leaders. “It is a theory, but remember, my theory was that you were being lied to in great detail on Benghazi,” Beck said on his television program. “I think this is going to fall in the same thing. I have an answer that nobody else does. [But] I want you to know again, it is a theory.” Beck...

In his address to the UN General Assembly last week, President Obama called the conflict in the Middle East “a fight no one is winning.” I think the evidence suggests he’s wrong. I think Iran is making significant gains.That should distress us because the Islamic Republic, no less than the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL), is committed to waging jihad. Iran’s 1979 revolution was led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- a Persian, Shi’a, Islamist version of Lenin. His intention: to spark a global uprising against the West.Khomeini championed social justice – of a sort. “If one permits...

According to Iran expert Michael Ledine, Obama had sent William Green Miller to Tehran before Obama assumed office to relay the message that Iran-US relationship would change. In 2008, he sent Ambassador Miller to a secret trip to Iran to let Iran know that things would change when he became president. I was told that during the campaign, Miller told me that it was true. Meanwhile this administration trashes Israel for building settlements.

With the Iran nuclear talks now in their endgame and the prospect of a very different political environment in Washington next year if Republicans capture the Senate, Obama officials are in overdrive to achieve their dream of a legacy agreement with Tehran so that President Obama can claim he halted the threat from the Iranian nuclear program. Their goal is to get a final agreement before the nuclear talks are scheduled to end November 24. While the Obama administration has long been desperate to get such an agreement, two recent ill-advised American concessions and a string of misleading statements and...

The Temple Institute’s crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the modern architectural plans for the Third Holy Temple in Jerusalem came to a close on Rosh Hashanah after surpassing its $100,000 goal in 60 days. The initiative began on the first day of the month of Av, when Jews commemorate the destruction of the ancient Holy Temples. Almost 900 pledges have come in from more than 30 countries worldwide. Crowdfunding is a new method of fundraising that leverages the power of the Internet to gather investments or contributions from around the world. The Temple Institute used the Indiegogo platform to...

Our hopes and the world's hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march. It's not militants. It's not Islam. It's militant Islam. Typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds – no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it's rapidly spreading in every part of the world. You know the famous American saying: "All politics is local"? For the militant Islamists, "All politics is global." Because their ultimate goal is to dominate the world.

'We're inviting him because he's one of Israel's greatest friends,' ZOA's president said.Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of the Zionist Organization of America in late November, giving him an audience of some of the nation's most influential Jewish leaders, including casino magnate and political financier Sheldon Adelson. "We're inviting him because he's one of Israel's greatest friends," the organization's president, Morton Klein, said. Klein said he expects as many as 1,000 attendees at the dinner, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Nov. 23....

A sobering speech at the U.N. about the “master faith” and its quest for global dominance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a powerful and sobering speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 29th. He said he came from Jerusalem to speak on behalf of the Israeli people and to “expose the brazen lies spoken from this very podium against my country and the brave soldiers who defend it.” “Truth must always be spoken, especially here, in the United Nations,” the prime minister said to an audience of government leaders and delegates not used to hearing the truth...

Israel is to press ahead with the planned construction of 2,610 homes in Jerusalem, extreme leftist group Peace Now complained Wednesday to AFP. The housing units, which have been slated for construction since 2012 in the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, were given final approval last week, Peace Now said in a statement. Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran told AFP the government could now publish tenders for the project, but that it would be months before building actually began. Ofran, true to the Peace Now agenda, also stated that the plans damaged prospects for peace and an eventual independent Palestinian state....

Obama Insults Jews In Netanyahu White House MeetingBy Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyWashington, D.C. — October 2, 2014 … US President Barack Obama criticized Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House yesterday warning him not to proceed on “proposed settlements in a disputed part of east Jerusalem.” The White House then issued a press statement on “Israel settlements” hours after Obama met with Netanyahu. The White House stated: “This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, (and) distance Israel from even its closest allies.” Netanyahu, in an interview yesterday with Univision responded: “This isn’t a settlement. These...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is promising a “razor sharp” speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. Speaking to reporters who accompanied him on his flight to New York, Netanyahu said the speech would be made up of two parts: a response to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s speech and a response to the speech made by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Israel of “genocide” and “war crimes” in his speech last Friday. Arutz Sheva has learned that Netanyahu's full speech is not yet ready and is expected to undergo some last minute touch ups, but his associates...

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...

Three Muslim women were arrested at the Temple Mount today (Monday) after shouting and calling out at visiting Jews in an attempt to disrupt their visit. .....

Deal with Russia comes amid speculation that Egypt may be reducing its military cooperation with the United States Russia plans to hold talks in Egypt next month over the latter’s planned purchase of MiG-35 fighter jets, reported Russian news agency ITAR-TASS on Monday. “They [Egyptian representatives] visited our corporation. We hope that we will be invited to technical talks next month,” Director-General of Russia’s Aircraft Corporation MiG Sergei Korotkov said. The deal, which is reportedly worth LE21 billion ($3 billion), was reported in February amid suggestions Egypt is aiming to reduce its military cooperation with the US, whose ties with...

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The Obama administration looks set to go weak in the knees in life-or-death negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. From the start, the United States and its allies have pressed the mullahs to disable all but about 1,500 of their centrifuges. The logic: With that many machines in operation, should Tehran flip the switch to begin enriching weapons-grade nuclear material, the process of amassing enough uranium for an atom bomb would take a year. Cold comfort, but better than nothing. All the while, Iran has insisted that it needs all 9,400 of its spinning centrifuges, which, of course, ha ha, it...

Israel's foreign minister says Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas clearly doesn't want to make peace with Israel, calling his speech to world leaders last week "a message of hatred and incitement." Avigdor Lieberman also questioned Abbas' "legitimacy" to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people, telling reporters Monday it's clear he doesn't control the Gaza Strip, where Hamas remains in charge of security.