Free Republic

At a memorial ceremony held in Johannesburg on Tuesday for late South African leader Nelson Mandela, US President Barack Obama made a surprise move on his way to the podium by greeting Cuban President Raul Castro with a long handshake and smile. Relations between the US and Cuba have been frozen since after Raul's brother Fidel Castro's communist revolution in 1959. The US has maintained sanctions on the communist regime throughout the decades, particularly given Cuba's poor human rights record. The handshake can be seen here: video .....

Lawmakers in the United States continue to show determination in passing new sanctions on Iran, despite the nuclear deal that was reached with it several weeks ago. Reuters reported on Monday that two senators are preparing legislation to impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic in six months if the interim deal on its nuclear program goes nowhere. The Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, and Republican Senator Mark Kirk are close to agreeing on legislation that would target Iran's remaining oil exports, foreign exchange reserves and strategic industries, their aides said on Monday, according to...

Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) spoke to Arutz Sheva on Tuesday, saying that by opposing the recently passed law to prevent infiltration by illegal immigrants, the leftist factions in the Knesset have taken a "mistaken outlook" that endangers the future of Israel. The law was officially passed on Monday after a heated debate. It allows police to jail illegal migrants for up to 12 months in special detention facilities, after the previously existing law allowing 3 years of internment was overturned by the Supreme Court in September. Sa'ar expressed confidence that the law would stand up to any petitions in...

He was just in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but United States Secretary of State John Kerry will be making yet another visit to the region this week. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday that Kerry would be leaving Washington on Wednesday to return to the region for more talks with both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. "This is an important time in the negotiations, and he felt it was important to return to the region," she told reporters, according to the AFP news agency, adding Kerry would spend two days...

Iran is using diplomatic pouches to smuggle weapons into and out of the country, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Monday. “The Iranians are taking advantage of diplomatic mail in order to transfer these items,” Yaalon told Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, who is visiting Israel. “They are taking advantage of the drug smuggling routes from South America into the United States in order to move weapons there,” he said. Iran, said Yaalon, was pulling out all stops in order to export its Shi'ite Islamic revolution to the West, preparing communities of Shi'ite Muslims for the day they must help Iran...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke Sunday at the Saban Forum and said that stopping Iran's nuclear program is not enough – Iran's policy of genocide must change, too. Netanyahu quoted incendiary statements by Iran's leaders, who called Israel "a rabid dog," among other things. The Iranian regime, he said, "is committed to our annihilation and I believe that there must be an uncompromising demand at the Geneva talks, for a change in Iran's policy. In other words, there needs to be not just a change in the capability of Iran to arm itself, but also a change in its policy...

Anti-Israel musician Roger Waters is at it again. The former member of Pink Floyd, who has previously faced criticism for virulently anti-Israel statements and for using anti-Israel and anti-Jewish imagery in his shows, has compared Israel to Nazi Germany. The comments were made in an interview Waters gave Saturday to Frank Barat of the CounterPunch magazine. Waters was asked what he would tell artists who say that culture should not be boycotted and who choose to perform in Israel, to which he replied, “The situation in Israel/Palestine, with the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime...

A top military commander of Hezbollah, which is helping Syrian troops battle rebels, has died in fighting in Syria, a Lebanese security source said. "Ali Bazzi, a high-ranking Hezbollah military commander, was killed today in a combat zone," said the source on Sunday, without specifying the location. Sources have confirmed the death of Bazzi to Al Jazeera. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported earlier that Hezbollah fighters died Sunday during battles in Nabuk, one of the last rebel-held areas in the Qalamoun region bordering Lebanon. "There is fierce fighting in Nabuk between government forces, backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters,...

The Jewish Home party responded coolly Sunday to a thinly veiled threat by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid party, to remove the Jewish Home from the Coalition and replace it with another party if negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) make progress. "The person who assembles the Coalition is the prime minister," said Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked, "and he will decide who will be in the Coalition." When she was asked by Channel 2's reporter about the negotiations with the PA, Shaked replied, "As we have already said in the past, as long as...

Recent statements from various leaders within the Syrian rebel movement show that the rift between secularists and Islamists remains a key issue. A video released by a leading Islamist faction shows Islamist military leader Abu Bilal al-Homsi exhorting his followers to reject the largely secular Free Syrian Army, led by Salim Idris. According to Al-Homsi, Idris has said that the Free Syrian Army under his command is fighting for "democracy, secularism, communism, and the rights of minority groups", including Syrian Druze. Rebels must fight not for democracy or rights, but for Islam, Al-Homsi declared. From the beginning, the purpose of...

Branch of al-Qaeda vows death to Shi'ites for 'cursing the prophet Mohammed'; urges terrorists to keep fighting in Iraq, Sinai peninsula. video A video has surfaced from the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria advocating the systemic genocide of Shi'ite Muslims for allegedly "damaging Mohammed's legacy" in perpetrating their beliefs. The video opens with a speech from a judge in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, which has been a focal point of territorial fighting between the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebel forces. The judge's job: to establish rule over...

MK Omer Ber-Lav (Labor) said, "President Obama clarified at the Saban Forum that the agreement obtained with Iran is the best possible option under the circumstances, as there was no option of entirely dismantling the Iranian nuclear program. Obama is a true friend of Israel, and I hope Prime Minister Netanyahu will successfully maneuver the superpowers to make the final agreement with Iran much better than...

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Saturday that Israel had no partner for peace in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Speaking at the Israel Business Conference in Tel Aviv, Ya’alon said that there will be not a peace partner so long as the PA continues to educate its children to hate Israel. "As someone who supported the Oslo Accords, I have learned to understand that there is no partner for two states for two peoples on the other side,” he said. “There isn’t, nor has there been since the dawn of Zionism, a leadership on the other side that is willing to...

Opposition leader MK Yitzchak Herzog (Labor) on Saturday accused Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman of trying to sabotage the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Herzog, who is currently in Washington where he will meet with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Secretary of State John Kerry, was responding to Liberman’s remarks at the Saban Forum on Friday, where the Foreign Minister said that peace was impossible in the near future, because there was “zero trust” between the two sides. Herzog called on Liberman to undergo a “reality check”, saying that the Foreign Minister “should remember that even if...

U.S. President Barack Obama said at the Saban Forum on Saturday that there must not be another Gaza in the Palestinian Authority-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, as part of the “Disengagement”. This resulted in Hamas taking over the region and escalating rocket attacks at southern Israel. Obama warned that in the event of a final agreement between Israel and the PA, there would be a "transition period" to ensure that Judea and Samaria does not become a security threat akin to Hamas-ruled Gaza. He said that the PA would have to accept...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday defended the nuclear deal signed in Geneva between the West and Iran. Speaking at the Saban Forum in Washington, Kerry said his country would “not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Not now, not ever.” .....

An overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews believe that the current negotiations with the Palestinian Authority will not lead to a peace agreement, a new poll by the Israel Hayom daily newspaper has found. The poll, conducted by New Wave Research and released Friday, found that 87.5% of Israeli Jews do not believe that the talks will result in a peace agreement. 6% of Israeli Jews said they think the peace talks will lead to a deal, while 6.5% said they were not sure. The poll was released hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on his latest visit to...

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that a peace deal could be imminent as he wrapped up his Israel visit, according to an AFP report. "I believe we are closer than we have been in years to bringing about the peace and the prosperity and the security that all of the people of this region deserve," he told reporters traveling with his delegation at Ben Gurion airport. The news follows reports from Maariv that negotiations were improving Thursday, as Kerry indicated that the US was more willing to follow Israel's stance on its security - specifically the...

The European Union (EU) is apparently fed up with the lack of progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and is threatening to take action against both sides if the talks fail. A senior EU official said Tuesday that the bloc was considering cutting its annual aid to the PA if the current round of talks fails to end in an agreement. The EU provides the PA with about 300 million Euros in aid per year. As well, the official was quoted by Israeli media as having said, the 28-nation bloc was considering reviving its plan...

The socio-economic gap between Jews and Bedouin has turned the Negev into “a powderkeg,” warned Sigal Moran, head of the Bnei Shimon regional council in the Negev, in an interview with Arutz Sheva. Moran suggested that the government start with the “carrot” of improved living conditions in authorized, planned cities before moving to the “stick” of destroying illegal encampments. “Let them improve the quality of life in the towns first… Then they can talk about evacuating unauthorized settlement,” she said. The government is planning to implement the “Prawer plan,” which will authorize many illegal Bedouin towns and expand existing Bedouin...

Thousands of demonstrators besieged government buildings in Kiev Tuesday, rallying against President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to abandon a long-awaited deal for closer ties with the EU. A group of protesters tried to storm Yanukovich's office and police chased protesters away with tear-gas and truncheons, injuring dozens. “The blockade is severely disrupting the process of government here," said a reporter for Al Jazeera in Kiev. "Essentially, President Yanukovich has lost control of the center of Kiev." The Guardian reported that police had “deserted the center of the city, while thousands of people blocked entrances to government buildings and gathered again on...

The Egyptian authorities have begun revoking the citizenship of Hamas leaders, according to reports in Palestinian and Egyptian media outlets. The move is seen in the context of intensifying tensions between Egypt and Hamas in the aftermath of the downfall of deposed President Mohammed Morsi’s regime. Under Morsi’s rule, the Egyptian authorities granted Egyptian citizenship to thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including top Hamas officials. One of the Hamas leaders who received an Egyptian passport was Mahmoud Zahar, who was born to an Egyptian mother. The Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported that the Egyptian authorities have taken effective measures...

Saudi Arabia's highest religious council, the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, has threatened a "religious war" over any attempts to implement equal prayer rights for Jews on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site, the site of two Jewish Temples and where some Jewish traditions state the world began. It is also the site of the large "Al Aqsa" Islamic complex, which is built on top of the ruins of the Jewish Temples. The site itself is administered by the Waqf Islamic trust. In measures Jewish activists decry as discriminatory, only Muslims may pray or carry out any other...

Commentator Shalom Yerushalmi wrote, Monday in Ma'ariv, that senior politicians feel that if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu arranges another presidential term for Shim'on Peres, Peres won' leave the Presidential Residence, despite his declaration, Sunday, that he is not interested in staying. ...Netanyahu is concerned that Peres would run for Knesset and could defeat him because there no leadership figure of Peres's stature has emerged since him in the center or the left.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu clarified on Sunday evening that he has no intention of stopping his warnings against a nuclear Iran. Netanyahu’s comments came shortly after he was criticized by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who accused Netanyahu of “declaring war” on the United States administration. "In contrast to others, when I see that interests vital to the security of Israel's citizens are in danger, I will not be silent,” declared Netanyahu during a Hanukkah candle-lighting at the Great Synagogue in Rome. “It is very easy to be silent. It is very easy to receive a pat on the shoulder from...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is threatening once again to pull out of the peace talks with Israel over its plans to build in Judea and Samaria. Channel 2 News reported on Sunday that the PA is accusing Israel of not having really cancelled tenders that were issued several weeks ago for 20,000 new homes in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reprimanded Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel over the construction and cancelled it, but the PA is now claiming, according to Channel 2, that the announcement of the tenders appeared as “active” on the Housing Ministry’s website...

Senior officials in the White House have said that Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “is desperate and weak,” in reaction to Netanyahu's remonstrations against the deal struck with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. Israeli television Channel 10 quoted the officials as saying “His pronouncements show a lack of self-confidence,” in an unusually harsh personal attack on Netanyahu. “We are not perturbed by his vocal opposition.” .....

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's handling of current disagreements with the United States, regarding the deal the US negotiated with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. "We've declared war on the United States administration,” Olmert said at a special debate at the Institute for National Security Studies on Sunday. "First and foremost,” said Olmert, “we must steer clear of anything that might give the impression that we want to lock horns with our biggest ally." Disagreements with the US must never be handled in a way “that might give the impression, G-d forbid... of a...

Hamas has already acquired some 250,000 signatures of PA Arabs who signed a convention calling for no peace compromise with Israel, insisting upon Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem and the West Bank and the return of all pre-1948 refugees with...

MK Ahmed Tibi on Saturday night slammed Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman over his remarks following the Bedouin violent ‘Day of Rage’. "The audacity of a fascist immigrant who sits on land which he stole from its Arab owners,” Tibi charged, responding to Liberman’s remarks that the Bedouin had stolen state land and were controlling it by force. “The Bedouin in the Negev did steal any land and they did not come here either on a plane or by boat,” he added. In his comments following the violent protests in the Negev, Haifa, Samaria and Gaza, Liberman called for a new...

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) slammed Israel on Friday, accusing the Jewish state of attacking its neighbors and committing atrocities. "Israel, sitting on 200 nuclear warheads all of them targeted at Muslim cities ... is crying wolf about nuclear proliferation,” the envoy, Reza Najafi, told the UN nuclear agency. “This regime (has) a long history of aggression against neighbors, atrocity against peoples under occupation and clandestine development of all kinds of” weapons of mass destruction, he declared in the comments quoted by The Associated Press (AP). In response, Joseph Macmanus, the chief U.S. delegate to the...

Two explosions were heard near the US Air Force base located near the Japanese capital of Tokyo. Japanese police and US officials reported that remnants of two IED's (Improvised Explosive Device) had been found in the area. No caualties...

Police arrested overnight Thursday four Arabs, aged 15-20. on suspicion of throwing the rocks that seriously injured a baby... The suspects, who fled the scene after the attack, were arrested when they arrived home.

U.S. President Barack Obama has reportedly asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stop being so vocal with his criticism of the deal reached between Iran and the West, reports The Washington Post. The newspaper’s columnist David Ignatius wrote on Thursday, “Obama has asked Netanyahu to take a breather from his clamorous criticism and send to Washington a team that can explore with U.S. officials a sound end-state strategy.” .....

In what is supposed to be a message to Iran, Israel and the United States plan a joint military drill in the coming months, TIME magazine reported Wednesday. A high-ranking Israeli officer told the magazine that the joint drill will take place in six months, just as the interim agreement signed between Iran and the West on Sunday is due to expire. “The strategic decision is to continue to make noise,” the official, who asked to remain anonymous, told TIME. “In May there’s going to be a joint training exercise with the Americans,” he added. “It’s going to be big.”...

The one-year-old granddaughter of Hamas’s Gaza Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has died, The Associated Press (AP) reported Wednesday. The girl was brought to Israel in grave condition last week, with a serious infection of the digestive tract which affected her nervous system. She was returned to Gaza a day later after Israeli doctors concluded they could not help her. A statement from Haniyeh's office quoted by AP said the girl, named Amal, died at a children's hospital in Gaza. Amal's father wrote on his Facebook page that she had suffered brain damage. Haniyeh's office declined comment on the granddaughter's seeking...

U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday urged the White House to lift its suspension of military aid to Egypt, AFP reports. The lawmakers warned that freezing funds and weapons deliveries might unravel decades of cooperation with a key regional ally. Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had initially supported a temporary halt to deliveries of F-16 aircraft to the Egyptian military following its ouster of President Mohammed Morsi in July. “But today I do not believe that suspending the military aid will make the Egyptian government more democratic or make it easier for the...

Peace is not possible so long as there is even one terrorist prisoner still in an Israeli prison, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared on Tuesday night. According to Kol Yisrael radio, Abbas made the comments in a welcoming ceremony for 21 Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists who had been released from Israeli jails as a gesture to Abbas. Abbas added, the report said, that the PA would continue its efforts to ensure that all terrorists serving time in Israeli jails are freed. "All 104 prisoners [that Israel has agreed to release] will be released, but the real joy will only...

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu about Iran on Monday, AFP reports, a day after Netanyahu warned that Tehran could convert uranium into weapons-grade material within weeks. The White House said in a short statement that the leaders discussed Iran, Israeli-Palestinian Authority peace efforts and other key issues. Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Iran is capable of converting low-grade uranium to material suitable for use in a weapons program with weeks -- even as Washington pursues diplomatic efforts to ease the nuclear showdown. "The important part stems from technological improvements which allow Iran to enrich uranium...

More than 3,000 people demonstrated on Monday evening outside the Ofer prison against the imminent release of terrorist murderers from Israeli prisons. 26 terrorists are set to be released on Tuesday, as part of a “gesture” to the Palestinian Authority so that it agrees to continue holding peace talks with Israel. Attendees at Monday’s protest included family members of the killers’ victims, who will be forced to see their relatives’ murderers being freed, as well as public officials. Among the speakers were Housing Minister Uri Ariel and MKs Ayelet Shaked, Shuli Moalem and Orit Struk, all from the Bayit Yehudi...

Reports of the death of the peace process with Israel have been greatly exaggerated, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday. In an interview with German television network Deutsche Welle, Abbas said that peace negotiations with Israel have not reached a deadlock, as reported by the Maariv newspaper recently. Abbas would not give details about the negotiations, but said that each side had discussed proposals offered by the other. "The fact is that we're still at the beginning. We still have time to negotiate the issues," Abbas told the German network. .....

Three people, including a girl aged eight, died when gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a wedding party outside a Coptic Christian church in Cairo on Sunday. At least nine others were wounded in the attack in the Giza neighborhood of the city, officials said, according to the BBC. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The unidentified attackers fired indiscriminately as people left the church. A man and a girl were killed outside the church and a woman died on her way to hospital. Coptic priest Thomas Daoud Ibrahim told Reuters he was inside the church when the gunfire...

Iran’s president on Sunday blamed Israel for trying to sabotaging his country’s efforts to get closer to the West. According to PressTV, President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic’s “active diplomacy” has slowed down the increasing pace of illegal sanctions against the country. “The administration’s diplomatic initiative in constructive interaction with the world ... has both made the [world] governments praise the democracy in Iran and halted the growing process of [imposing] sanctions [against the country],” the Iranian president was quoted as having said. “Iran’s active diplomacy has taken the initiative and attracted world public opinion ... and is moving...

During his October 6, 2013 speech at Bar Ilan University, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el-Husseini. Mr. Netanyahu characterized el-Husseini as, “the undisputed leader of the Palestinian national movement in the first half of the 20th century.” The Prime Minister highlighted the ex-Muft’s role in fomenting pogroms (dating back, in fact, to the so-called “Nabi Musa” riots of 1920) during the decades between the Balfour Declaration, and the eventual creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Netanyahu’s address also focused on el-Husseini’s World War II era collaboration with the Nazis, the...

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the U.S. economy risks a “very deep recession” if Congress doesn’t raise the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling. Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Obama said he’s willing to talk to Republicans about anything, including changes to his health-care law, once lawmakers end the partial government shutdown and increase the country’s borrowing authority. “No American president would deal with a foreign leader like this,” he said, according to Bloomberg News. “Most of you would not deal with either coworkers or business associates in this fashion. We shouldn’t be dealing this way...

I recently read a hundred-page book by a wonderful American historian who passed away nearly 50 years ago. His name was Will Durant and he wrote many books. He wrote an eleven volume history of civilization, but at the end of his life, he wrote a hundred-page book, The Lessons of History. You should read it. Every line is carved from the stone of truth, and I will give you the bad news and the good news. The bad news is that when you finish reading this book, you understand that in history, greater numbers rule. They matter. But here...

<p>President Shim'on Peres sent a letter to Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland of the Council of Europe, Monday, urging the council to reconsider its recent decision against circumcision.</p>

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has reported that on three different occasions, Palestinian Authority TV has broadcast children reciting a poem that includes the words "my enemy, Zion, is Satan with a tail." Last week during a performance given in the PA, the Egyptian writer of the poem, Hesham El-Gakh, recited this and other poems, after which the PA Minister of Culture, Anwar Abu Eisheh, and PA District Governor of Ramallah, Laila Ghannam, awarded him a plaque of honor. The event was broadcast on official Palestinian Authority TV Live. To warm up the audience, a young girl recited a small section...

Over a half a million people were attending the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Monday night in Jerusalem. Rabbi Yosef, 93, passed away earlier in the day. The crowd, observers said, consisted of a cross-section of Israelis, from hareidi to Religious Zionist to secular. Eulogies were being held at the Porat Yosef yeshiva in the Geula neighborhood. Dozens of speakers will eulogize the rabbi. Among the first to speak was Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, one of Rabbi Yosef's sons and current Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel. In a heart-wrenching voice, Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef spoke of his father, saying that “from the...

A top member of Fatah said on Sunday that he condemns the terror attack in the Binyamin region community of Psagot, but placed the blame for the attack on the Israeli government. Speaking to Kol Yisrael radio, Jibril Rajoub was asked if he condemns the attack, to which he responded, “Listen, listen, I condemn everything that causes damage. I condemn it and I condemn those responsible for it. And those responsible for it are the Government of Israel and the prime minister of Israel.” Rajoub went on to say that the Israeli government was responsible for the attack, in which...