Free Republic

It is one thing to hate Greeks or Turks, for want of example, and quite a different thing to hate Jews. Likewise, to hate this country or that one is not akin to hating Israel. The faultless logic of a felon explains all. Asked why he robbed banks Willie Sutton explained, “That’s where the money is.” Well, Israel is where six million Jews are, and Iran is not the only power that, day and night, aches to wipe them off the face of the earth. Clearly there’s more to hating Israel than meets the eye. By “more” I mean a...

Archaeologists from the Deultum-Debelt National Archaeological Reserve near Bulgaria's Burgas have discovered the first written evidence that the Roman colony Deultum had a port, BGNES reported. The inscription was found on limestone sarcophagus, dating from the II-III century AD. Experts say that the inscription, which is in Greek, proves that today's Debelt was a port town. Deultum is the oldest Roman colony in the Bulgarian lands. It was established in the 1st century AD, immediately after the Jewish-Roman War and is located at the mouth of today's river Sredetska, which flows into the Burgas Bay. The port town was of...

A nearly 7,000-year-old ceramic prism with what might be pre-alphabetic writing has been unveiled to the public for the first time by the Regional Museum of History in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Burgas. The prism-shaped prehistoric artifact featuring the supposedly pre-alphabetic signs on its four sides was discovered during the excavations of an Early Chalcolithic settlement mound near Burgas back in 2008, and has never been shown to the public before. The artifact (and the Burgas Chalcolithic Mound where it was found) dates back to the Early Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age) – 4,900 / 4,850-4,600 / 4,550 BC, the...

SNIPPET: "BERLIN – Bulgarian police officers last summer arrested a Canadian citizen linked to the Iranian government who engaged in surveillance of the local Chabad center in the capital of Sofia, a well-placed and reliable local source told The Jerusalem Post last week, on condition of anonymity due to security reasons. An Iranian-sponsored female agent in her 50s, holding a Canadian passport, traveled from Istanbul to Sofia several weeks after the bombing of the Israeli tour bus in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas in July 2012. She was arrested on her first day in Sofia after the Bulgarian...

By Wednesday John Brennan, US President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism made a quick trip to Israel to discuss Hezbollah's massacre of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last week. Hopefully it was an instructive meeting for the senior US official, although his Israeli interlocutors were undoubtedly dumbstruck by how difficult it was to communicate with him. Unlike previous US counterterror officials, Brennan does not share Israel's understanding of Middle Eastern terrorism. Brennan's outlook on this subject was revealed in a speech he gave two years ago in Washington. In that speech Brennan spoke dreamily about Hezbollah. As...

The Muslim terrorist group Qa’adat el-Jihad claimed responsibility Saturday for a terrorist bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The bombing in Bulgaria last week killed five Israelis, one a pregnant woman. The Lebanese paper El-Nashra reported that the group, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in an email to the Arab press.

An explosion on a bus transporting Israeli tourists at the airport near the city of Burgas in Bulgaria has reportedly left seven dead, five of whom are apparently Israelis. Bulgarian television said that the dead apparently include a Bulgarian tour guide. The destination is popular among Israeli youths and most of the casualties are reportedly youths. The Foreign Ministry has announced that it is sending personnel to the site. Voice of Israel Radio said that about 30 people are wounded, four of them seriously, quoting Bulgarian TV. It said that a suicide bomber boarded the bus before the explosion occurred,...

Bulgarian archaeologists have found a church dating back to the late Antiquity period, which is located near the village of Sarafovo, on the Black Sea coast. The site, which is close to the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas, has been excavated by the team of Prof. Dr. Lyudmil Vagalinski, who is the Director of the National Archaeology Institute and Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, since the start of May 2012. The excavations at Sarafovo (a village also known for hosting a military airfield) began after over the winter the sea waves uncovered parts of a Roman structures...