Free Republic

Queen Esther, the heroine of the Biblical story of Purim when the Jewish people was saved from annihilation at the hands of the Persian villain, got a thunderous standing ovation when her name was mentioned in the Halls of Congress on March 3, 2015. She would have been delighted by the speech made there by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke of the urgency of dealing effectively with the Iranian threat to annihilate his country Less delighted than Esther was Democratic Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who confessed she was near tears throughout the speech...

A new bombshell report from Politico found that House Speaker John Boehner had several days of secret negotiations with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the recently emboldened former Speaker, leading up to his decision to flip-flop and fund President Obama’s executive amnesty—including a pre-hashed out deal to use the hoopla around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address to Congress over Iran’s nuclear ambitions as political cover to sneak in the extraordinarily controversial vote. Even with the bombshell report, however, Boehner’s office continues to deny any deal took place. “It was Monday at 5:30 p.m. when Pelosi and Boehner agreed that...

VIENNA, March 5 (KUNA) --- Israel must be made to join the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) and its nuclear facilities must be subjected to international inspection said the Arab Group in Vienna on Thursday. ...

FOX NEWS CHANNEL WAS #1 CABLE NETWORK ACROSS THE BOARD FOR NETANYAHU SPEECH FOX News Channel was the top-rated cable network yesterday for the speech made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, averaging 3.3 million total viewers and 558,000 adults 25-54, according to Nielsen. FNC's ratings were up 166 percent in total viewers and 100 percent in adults 25-54 compared to the same time last year). Additionally, FNC beat CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined by 112 percent in total viewers and 44 percent in Adults 25-54 during the 11AM-12PM/ET hour. Netanyahu speech/analysis common coverage (11a-12p) FOXN Netanyahu speech cvg 3328...

U.S. Army Lt. Col. (Ret.) Ralph Peters did not mince any words when he spoke about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Congressional speech on Fox News' America's Newsroom on Wednesday, saying, "I thought Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech was needed, honest, inspiring, and Democrats in response, including the President, acted like bitchy high school girls." Interviewed by Martha MacCallum, Peters was effusive in his praise of the Netanyahu speech, and frustrated that America had to hear the truth from a foreign leader instead of their own President. He ridiculed the Democrats who objected to Netanyahu's speech. “ MacCallum: Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu got...

Obama’s morally confused foreign policy is making the world more dangerous by the day. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress on Tuesday to warn Americans of the anti-Western threats from theocratic — and likely to soon be nuclear — Iran. Netanyahu came to the U.S. to outline the Iranian plan to remake the Middle East with a new nuclear arsenal. His warning was delivered over the objections of the Obama administration, which wants to cut a deal with Iran that allows the theocracy to continue to enrich lots of uranium. Netanyahu received a standing ovation for stating the...

Wasn't that refreshing? Don't you wish we had Benjamin Netanyahu as president, instead of Obama? I took a sampling among my friends- all smart, educated business owners. Men of substance. Every one of them said if they had a choice, they'd choose Bibi over Obama for president…of the United States. The media will concentrate on the substance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu's speech. But let's first look at the style. I am a business and motivational speaker who speaks all over the globe, often to audiences in the thousands. I understand communication, charisma, chutzpah and salesmanship. Bibi gets...

The NPT was signed in 1968 and became affective in 1970. Concerning non signatories for the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), Pakistan, India, Israel and South Sudan fall into this list. North Korea withdrew from it, and the rest of the world is either a recognized nuclear weapon state ratifier, a recognized nuclear weapon state acceder, and so on. There are five nuclear weapons states from the NPT (the U.S., Russia, China, France and Great Britain), other states known and/or highly suspect for possessing nuclear weapons (Israel) and states suspected of developing nuclear weapons (Saudi Arabia, Iran and others). There are...

In the U.S.-Israel dispute over Iran's nuclear program, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has emerged as an unlikely protagonist -- siding with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than President Obama. In his joint address to Congress, Netanyahu made a point of recognizing the 86-year old Wiesel, who sat in the Speaker's Box with the prime minister's wife, Sara. With us today is Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel." "Elie, your life and work inspires to give meaning to the words, 'never again,'" he added, as lawmakers gave Wiesel a standing ovation. "And I wish I...

El Rushbo made an excellent point on yesterday's show- how Obama's insane level of stubbornness always has him painted-into-a-corner and lashing-out whenever he's proven to be wrong- never clever or well-adjusted enough to possess a healthy self-awareness... And he NEVER admits an error or leaves himself a policy 'out': Obama simply doubles-down on whatever foolhardy endeavor of his has been exposed, and if he thinks you made him look bad, i.e. Sheriff Joe, it's all about revenge and forcing his intellectual superiority on you... SO superior he doesn't feel a need to explain any of it, either. You're just...

They dealt with the Iranian regime first-hand more than three decades ago, when it was founded in an act of war against the U.S., and several survivors of the hostage crisis say the idea of the U.S. negotiating with an unrepentant Tehran makes their blood boil. For 444 days, the 52 Americans were held prisoner in the U.S. Embassy by the student revolutionaries that would help usher in the hard-line Islamic theocracy that remains in place today. Many of the hostage takers and guards held key roles in the Iranian government then and continue in important positions today. “I think...

...Over Iran Nukes Speech to Congress Nobody on Obama’s staff has the power to speak this viciously and forcefully, to make crystal clear threats like this against a world leader, to the press, other than Valerie Jarrett. Plus, the sense of being so very PERSONALLY offended, so PERSONALLY invested in the President, is only going to come from Valerie Jarrett, we all know that. And lastly, the threatening language, the raging, vindictive arrogance are all Valerie’s emotional and rhetorical signatures. Take it to the bank that it was her. And it is beyond outrageous that she attacks Netanyahu as if...

Netanyahu’s arguments deserve a serious response from the Obama administration — one it has yet to provide. The White House has sought to dismiss the Israeli leader as a politician seeking reelection; has said that he was wrong in his support for the Iraq war and in his opposition to an interim agreement with Iran; and has claimed that he offers no alternative to President Obama’s policy. Such rhetoric will not satisfy those in and out of Congress who share Mr. Netanyahu’s legitimate questions. His speech singled out “two major concessions” he said would be part of any deal the...

Congressional Republicans haven't had many victories in their lasting conflict with President Obama, but Tuesday brought one. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's somber, provocative speech to Congress checked all the boxes. It called into question the efficacy of any deal the Obama administration might strike with Iran over its nuclear program, it likely renewed momentum for another round of Iranian sanctions on the Hill, it positioned the GOP politically as the party more worried about Israeli security, and, despite the White House's best efforts, made the president appear petty and churlish.

On the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israel's long-serving hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently cited the wisdom of Israel Zangwill, an early 20th-century British Zionist who tried to establish a Jewish homeland in places as diverse as Canada, Australia and Uganda. Mr. Zangwill's motto, as the former commando and diplomat has often been recalled favourably, was "obsta principiis," Latin for "resist beginnings," or as he described it, "oppose bad things when they are small." For Mr. Netanyahu, the first Israeli prime minister born in Israel proper, that meant railing against the Iranian threat back in the early 1990s...

Our coverage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of Congress gets underway at 10:45 a.m. ET. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to use the speech to lay out the case against a deal with Iran over its nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress at 11:00 a.m., but it appears that President Obama will not be watching most of the speech. The White House Press Office released an update to his daily schedule this morning, announcing a video conference call with world leaders for 11:30 a.m. in the situation room, likely as Netanyahu is finishing his speech. According to the White House, the conference will include British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and European Commission President Donald Tusk. The last minute...

MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry quietly cautioned Israel not to undercut nuclear negotiations with Iran that resumed on Monday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to make the case in Washington against the diplomacy. Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met for about 90 minutes on the first of what could be three days of talks in the Swiss lakeside town of Montreux on curbing Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. The two men, along with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Iranian atomic energy chief Ali Akbar...

President Barack Obama took a stab at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Reuters on Monday, on the eve of Netanyahu’s controversial speech to a special joint session of Congress on Tuesday morning. Obama said that Netanyahu “made all sorts of claims” about the interim nuclear deal with Iran that turned out to be untrue. Yet Obama mischaracterized Netanyahu’s remarks, and misrepresented Iranian compliance with the terms of the interim deal. Obama’s full comment on Monday was: “Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in...

Charlie Rose wasn't sure he'd heard right. National Security Advisor Susan Rice, his guest on PBS, was lamenting that the controversy over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's forthcoming speech to Congress had "injected a degree of partisanship" into the traditionally bipartisan US-Israel relationship. That's not only "unfortunate," said Rice. "It's destructive of the fabric of the relationship." Rose seemed nonplussed. "It's destructive of the fabric of the relationship?" The national security advisor dug in. "It's always been bipartisan. We need to keep it that way.… And when it becomes injected or infused with politics, that's a problem." Well, yes: Netanyahu's...