Free Republic

Iran will receive the first $550 million installment of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds on or about February 1, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. The money will be transferred to Iran as part of the implementation of the nuclear deal reached with it in Geneva on November 24. Earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama confirmed that the agreement would be implemented starting January 20. Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the next stage in talks with Iran on its nuclear program would be "very difficult" after an announcement on Sunday that an interim deal with world powers, designed to create space to reach a comprehensive pact, would take effect on January 20. "The negotiations will be very difficult," Kerry said...

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander said Saturday that Hezbollah in Lebanon has upgraded its capabilities in recent years and is now able to carry out pinpoint missile strikes on targets throughout Israel. Speaking in an interview with Iran's Fars News Agency, Commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Force, Brig-Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said, "Based on our information, Hezbollah’s power has so much increased in recent years that they can attack any target in any part of the occupied territories with a high precision capability and with a very low margin of error.” Hajizadeh added that Hezbollah "has always shown that...

Lebanese militants have been streaming into Syria in recent months to help that government in its war with the rebels—and by all accounts, they’ve been making a difference in an ongoing and critical battle in eastern Syria. Desperate to slow that tide, Syrian rebels are trying a brutal new tactic to dissuade Hezbollah militants from crossing the border: They’re decapitating captured fighters and sending the heads back home to Lebanon, according to several reports and pictures posted on various sites. One Israeli Facebook page called “News In SOS” quoted and translated Syrian rebel sources late last month saying they sent...

Dozens of Palestinians took to the streets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to celebrate the death of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The Palestinians handed out candy to drivers, shopkeepers and passersby, while others set fire to portraits of Sharon, the Palestinian news agency Safa reported. The agency said that the celebration took place in the town of Bani Suhaila east of Khan Yunis. Dozens of residents gathered in the center of the town, chanting “Allahu akbar” as women ululated in joy over Sharon’s death, the agency said. .....

The immigration of Diaspora Jews to Israel increased by seven percent in 2013 while North American aliya dropped by 11 percent, according to figures released by the Jewish Agency and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry on Sunday. The overall increase was partially driven by a 63% increase in aliya from France, part of a 35% rise among Western European nations. In total 19,200 Jews immigrated to Israel, a rise of 260 from the previous year. While the official figures listed an 11% drop in aliya from North America with some 3,000 immigrants coming over the past year as opposed to 3,389...

Iran's leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, via Twitter, that Israel had high expectations of former prime minister Ariel Sharon, but instead claims he led to the intifada. "The Zionists’ all hopes relied on this vulture (Ariel #Sharon) to bring down the rising nation of #Palestine to their knees." "He (#Sharon) was their last hope. ....

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi said on Saturday that Israel's demand that the PA recognize it as a Jewish state is an attempt to “legalize racism,” reports the Ma’an news agency. Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said that defining Israel as a Jewish state would signify that any Jewish person would have the right to return to “Palestine”, while Palestinian Arabs would lose that right. Israel wants to "create a narrative that denies the Palestinian presence, rights, and continuity on the historic Palestinian lands," she charged, in a conversation with Ma’an. She also claimed that...

British student Gary Spedding was deported from Israel on Friday because his social media activity allegedly posed a "security threat." Spedding is an activist against anti-Semitism and in favor of finding a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to Sky News, Spedding arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday on a flight from London's Luton Airport. At immigration, he was taken to an interview room where he was subjected to a full body search and interrogation. Immigration officers took Spedding's phone and went through its contents for four-to-five hours, copying content from it, according to Spedding, who kept his...

A 15-year-old boy in Pakistan is being hailed as a hero, after he tackled a suicide bomber terrorist to stop him from blowing up his school on Monday. The boy was killed defending his fellow students, 2,000 of whom were at the school, as the bomb detonated. The boy, Aitzaz Hasan, was with his friends outside his school in the Hangu region of north-western Pakistan, which has suffered from Muslim sectarian violence and high Al Qaeda and Taliban activity. Aitzaz and his friends spotted the terrorist approach wearing a bomb belt. According to his cousin Mudassar Hassan Bangish, Aitzaz said...

TheMilitary Court of Appeals has accepted an appeal against the leniency of the sentence handed to Muhammed Awad by the Samaria Military Court, over his part in the brutal murder of five members of the Fogel family in March 2011. Muhammed Awad was originally found guilty of accessory to voluntary manslaughter (the military court's equivalent to murder), failing to prevent a crime, weapons trafficking and conspiracy to carry out a shooting. The military court acquitted Muhammed of the first, most serious charge, finding him guilty only for failing to prevent a crime, as well as the latter two charges, which...

From my e-mail: You can find this fax request by proceeding to https://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=15663 Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Al.) has proposed an amendment to the unemployment benefits extension bill, S. 1845. This amendment, number 2626, would mandate use of the E-Verify system. While NumbersUSA takes no position on the overall legislation or the extension of unemployment benefits, everything needs to be done to make sure this bill protects Americans from increased foreign worker competition and illegal workers. With 20 million Americans unable to find a job, and 7 million illegal aliens holding jobs, mandating use of the E-Verify system for all employers...

In a dramatic last minute reversal, the top French administrative court ruled Thursday to uphold a ban on anti-Semitic comic Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala. The ruling overturned a local court decision earlier in the day allowing his performance in Nantes, and came right before the show was to begin. The local Nantes judge earlier Thursday had overruled the ban of the comic, which was implemented according to the instructions of French Interior Minister Manuel Valls and President Francois Hollande. The ban was previously upheld Wednesday in the city of Pau regarding a planned show in Biarritz. Valls turned to the Council...

Israeli Arab leaders continued to drum up opposition on Thursday to Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s proposal that Israel offer the Palestinian Authority control over townships inhabited predominantly by Palestinians in exchange for settlements in the West Bank. During a demonstration against the Prawer-Begin Plan for Beduin resettlement, MK Ahmed Tibi lambasted “the immigrant” Liberman. “Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s statements regarding territorial swaps are provocative,” Tibi said. “We [Arabs] were in the Triangle before the establishment of the State of Israel. We didn’t come here on boats or planes.” “Liberman is an immigrant,” Tibi said. “If he wants to repartition the...

Dozens of Jewish men were abducted and beaten in a mob attack in the Binyamin region on Tuesday afternoon. The men were set upon by an Arab mob, chased down, tied up and beaten senseless. One of the men told Arutz Sheva about the vicious attack. The men were attacked as they were walking from the Jewish village of Esh Kodesh to the nearby Givat Hayovel. Suddenly, they were set upon by an Arab mob, he said. “They blocked us in with trucks. The Arabs started hurling rocks at the Jewish group.” The Jews were forced to hide nearby, he...

Bayit Yehudi chairman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett dismissed on Tuesday the possibility of swapping land with the Palestinians for peace or security. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations "have only brought us terror," Bennett said at an Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conference. He further warned that the establishment of an independent Palestinian state under any future peace deal will lead to terror. The Palestinian children who were born at the time the 1993 Oslo accord was agreed upon are now 21 and have grown up on incitement, he said. "No piece of paper will change this." Bennett turned...

Iranian lawmaker, cleric, and Majilis (council) member Mohammed Nabavian declared Monday that Iran does need a nuclear bomb - to destroy Israel. Iran would be able to build a nuclear bomb in “two weeks” if it gets “access to 270 kilograms of 20 percent [enriched uranium], 10 tons of 5 percent, and 20 thousand centrifuges,” Nabavian stated, according to Iranian media reports. “We are not looking for a nuclear bomb, but having a nuclear bomb is necessary to put down Israel." Regarding Iran's resumed diplomatic relations with the US, Nabavian stated, "If Obama asked for a meeting five times before...

A secret report by one of the Palestinian Authority security services paints a worrying picture of a possible upsurge in terrorist attacks in the West Bank this year. The report, which was obtained by the Hebrew news website Ynet, warns that there is a high probability of a third intifada if the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks fail. PA officials in Ramallah said they were unaware of the existence of such a report. According to Ynet, the report recommends that the Palestinian civilian authorities and the security forces draw up a plan to deal with any escalation in demonstrations. .....

Palestinians hurled two improvised grenades at Israelis in Bethlehem on Monday evening in two attacks, injuring one civilian. An explosive was thrown at Rachel's Tomb, causing injuries to one man, who was evacuated to hospital by paramedics. Earlier, an explosive was thrown at an IDF base in the area. No injuries were reported in that attack. Monday's events are the latest indication that Palestinian violence is on the rise, though Israeli policymakers and defense experts remain doubtful that we are on the cusp of a third intifada. Last week, news outlets learned of a secret report by one of the...

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert on Monday insinuated that his successor Binyamin Netanyahu was an “idiot” and that his predecessor Ariel Sharon was revered only after lapsing into a coma. “In times of peace, even an idiotic prime minister can come out looking good,” he said during a lecture at Hebrew University on Monday. “Of course, an idiot prime minister cannot make peace, and if he makes peace he’s not an idiot,” after the audience laughed at his veiled tongue-in-cheek reference to Netanayhu, Olmert was quick to backtrack and added, “I mean that only generally, of course. Really!” The Prime...