Free Republic

Keith Cressman of the locust-fighting unit of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said, Sunday, that the locusts crawling around Israel's southern border will start flying in two weeks and be most destructive as they prepare for the trip to the breeding grounds in northern Sudan. Following a tour out in the field, Cressman said he was impressed by the manner and pace of the Agriculture Ministry's determined war on the pests. The ministry is using ground spraying against every swarm that enters from Egypt, with air spraying as needed, around the clock. It noted that there were fewer...

A senior Hizbullah terrorist was among 20 members of the group who were killed in intense fighting in Syria on Sunday, Al Arabiya reports. According to the report, the Hizbullah terrorists were killed in the Syrian town of Qusayr, following clashes between Syrian rebels and regime forces who attempted to enter the town earlier in the day. Sources also told Al Arabiya that dozens of Hizbullah members were wounded during the fight and had been taken to hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon for treatment. .....

The government investigative committee that was set up to determine the truth of allegations that IDF soldiers killed 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura during the "Second Intifada" have determined that not only were the allegations – and a report by French television purporting to show IDF soldiers shooting and killing the boy – a lie, but that the al-Dura may not even be dead. ..... ....The fact that he was still alive at the end of the French television video, after the gunfire had stopped, could mean that the boy is alive even now. “Since this issue was first raised there have...

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3835.htm

Syrian strongman Bashar Assad said in a weekend interview to an Argentinean newspaper that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime. “Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he said. “Firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them." Assad also told the Clarin newspaper said that rebels had attacked a radar station instrumental to Syria’s antiaircraft defenses against Israel, but gave no further details. The reporter asked Assad if he had any “self-criticisms." He replied: “It’s illogical to carry out self-criticism before...

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3834.htm

The members of the emergency security squad (kitat konenut) at Amona, in the Binyamin region, announced Friday that they are collectively resigning their posts, after police arrested two of them. Police say that the two men had been throwing rocks at Arab marauders near their community, despite the fact that the IDF and police were present. The members of the emergency team have reportedly handed in their guns and communications radio to the army. The two men were under arrest at the Judea and Samaria (Shai) District Friday, but the police said they would be released before the Sabbath. "I...

Bedouin tribes in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula implied on Thursday that they were better off living under Israeli rule and that they have been suffering since Israel withdrew from the region as part of the peace agreement with Egypt. The residents of the Sinai spoke to the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, after local tribesmen kidnapped seven Egyptian security personnel near the city of El-Arish. The seven were kidnapped by an unknown group in north Sinai while en route to Cairo. Local residents said the kidnapping was "retaliation" by Bedouin tribesmen for heavy-handed security policies adopted by the Egyptian interior ministry. Mohamed El-Asati,...

Residents of Beit El in the Binyamin region demonstrated Thursday against the continued rock terrorism against them by Arabs from the adjacent village. Last week, a woman from the community was injured when an Arab boy stood near the perimeter fence and threw rocks into the community. "We really don't understand where the sovereign power is," a resident said. "Enough with this disgrace. We are being discriminated against in order to please Obama." A week does not go by without an attack against Beit El by Arab terrorists. "This is terror and every incident it must be treated like the...

Arab terrorists who in the past served terms in Israeli prisons warned prisoners currently being held for terrorism to watch out for a group of undercover informers seeking to trip them up, who are known as “birds.” The network apparently stretches far and wide, with these "birds" tasked with wheedling out confessions that lead to convictions through a mixture of charm, camaraderie and favors. The “birds” usually pose as terrorists themselves, the Arabs said, as reported by AFP. Ahmed Azzam, 30, says his first exposure to the "birds" was after several unsuccessful Israeli attempts at interrogating him. “When I was...

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni wants punishment for "price tag" operations – as Jewish nationalistic vandalism is called – to be legally defined as terrorism. She is in the process of proposing a law to this effect and is expected to present it to the Cabinet next week. The law would mandate heavy punishment against people convicted of such vandalism and those who express support for it. It will also make it possible for the police and Shin Bet to take harsher measures against suspects in the vandalism, like the measures that are taken against Arab terrorists. Minister of Public Security...

WASHINGTON - Steven Miller, who resigned on Wednesday as the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, said in a message to colleagues that there is a "strong and immediate need" to restore public trust in the nation's tax agency. Miller resigned after the IRS became embroiled in a controversy over the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny. "It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June," Miller said in an internal message that was released by the IRS. "This has been an incredibly difficult time for...

A senior Israeli official signaled on Wednesday that Israel was considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamist Hizbullah – and warned President Bashar Assad against any kind of retaliation against the Jewish state. The New York Times quoted the Israeli official who said, “Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hizbullah. The transfer of such weapons to Hizbullah will destabilize and endanger the entire region.” “If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he...

Israelis will have to cut down on their expenses due to the planned austerity measures but at the same time, according to figures released on Monday, the budget of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Residence has increased by 80% over a period of four years. The figures, which the Prime Minister’s Office had to release to the public following an appeal to the Jerusalem District Court by the Movement for Freedom of Information, show that the budget of the Prime Minister’s Residence was 3 million shekels in 2009, but jumped to 5.4 million shekels by 2012. The numbers show an increase...

Another day, another story of a brutal attack by Arabs against Jews. And as usual, most news outlets will not cover this news. A large-bodied Arab man attacked an elderly Jew in Jerusalem's Old City last Saturday. The victim's daughter, Tali Hoffman, told Arutz Sheva that her father was making his way to Shacharit prayers, as he does every Sabbath, from his home in the Muslim Quarter to the Kotel. When he arrived at HaGay Street, just a few dozen meters from the Kotel, the Arab man stepped out of a falafel shop and tried to knock him down by...

Iran's looming status as head of a UN disarmament body sparked outrage Monday from campaigners who said its nuclear program and arming of Syria and Islamist militias disqualified it from a place at the table. “This is like putting Jack the Ripper in charge of a women's shelter,” said Hillel Neuer, head of Geneva-based UN Watch, announcing that the organization would organize protest events involving Iranian dissidents. The leadership of the UN Conference on Disarmament rotates automatically in alphabetical order among its 65 member nations, and Iran is scheduled to take the helm on May 27 for a session running...

A commander in the Syrian opposition said on Sunday that President Bashar al-Assad's regime has been defeated, but accused Israel of collaborating to keep Assad in power, the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reports. The commander, Abdulkader Saleh of the al-Tawhid Brigade, said the Assad regime does not have the strength to carry on its battle against opposition fighters, adding that Iran and Hizbullah are the forces behind the protracted war. “Iran and Hizbullah are the ones who are continuing the war in Syria,” Saleh was quoted as having told the Cihan news agency, adding that the war is between the...

Syria’s Information Minister, Omran al-Zoubi, warned Israel on Sunday that his country had a right to launch an operation against the Jewish State from the Golan Heights. Speaking at a public symposium and quoted by the state-run SANA news agency, Al-Zoubi said that Israel committed an aggression against Syria recently by raiding military sites near Damascus. With these acts, he said, Israel violated international commitments. He added that Israel has allowed terrorists to operate inside the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights and kidnap the UN observers stationed there. "Accordingly, Syria has the right at this time and at any...

The Palestinian Authority on Sunday sent a warning to Israel, over what it calls its attempts to harm the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Speaking during a meeting of the PLO's Executive Committee, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that it is impossible to hold back in the wake of what he called the attacks by Israel on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and PA Arabs in Judea and Samaria, in particular by local Jewish residents. "We cannot remain silent over such actions, nor can we accept their recurrence," Abbas said. "If Israel is dreaming about establishing facts on the ground through its...

Former US President Jimmy Carter has once again expressed his blatantly anti-Israel allegiances by calling on the European Union to “introduce proper labeling of goods produced on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.” Carter was in Dublin together with former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso for talks with Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore and diplomats from some 20 European countries on revitalizing the peace process in the Middle East. “With the Middle East peace process making no significant progress, we call on Europe to play a stronger and more independent role in...

Israelis marched late Saturday in an echo of mass cost of living protests in 2011, but this time their ire focused on finance minister Yair Lapid who came to power in January on the coattails of that protest movement. 2,000 people gathered in central Tel Aviv, an AFP journalist said, to protest against an austerity budget due for cabinet debate on Monday. The budget is expected to raise income tax and VAT while slashing government spending, including social benefits. Rallies were also scheduled for Jerusalem, Haifa and elsewhere on Saturday, but local media reported just 150 taking part in Haifa...

<p>Twin car bombs in Turkey killed 41 people and injured 100 others Saturday.</p> <p>The double blast occurred in a crowded area of the small town of Reyhanli in the southern Turkish province of Hatay, just a few kilometers from the main border crossing into Syria.</p>

A report by a political activist and reservist combat soldier claims the IDF has effectively capitulated in the face of Arab rock and firebomb attacks. Writing in the web magazine Mida, Erez Tadmor says that in the past week, since the grave injury of Yaakov Zlatkin at the hands of an Arab mob, he has spoken with dozens of officers and soldiers who all said the same thing: The health and security of Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, as well as those of the soldiers who are supposed to guard them, have been left to the mercy of...

The recent months have seen a considerable increase of tension between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Lebanon, to the extent that there is growing fear of a confrontation between the two sides – especially between the Shi'ite Hizbullah and Sunni Salafi elements. On February 27, 2013, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki – both of them Shi'ites – expressed concern that a sectarian war might break out in the region, including in Lebanon.... ..... The sectarian tension in Lebanon has expressed itself in several violent incidents. The severest of them occurred on March 17, 2013, when four...

On April 7, 2013, the Bahraini government approved a proposal by parliament to compile a list of terrorist organizations and to enter Hizbullah onto it, and ordered the interior and foreign ministries to take steps to implement this resolution. This is an unprecedented move in the Arab world, which comes after the exposure of terrorist cells and attacks in Bahrain that are attributed to this Lebanese Shi'ite organization, and following Shi'ite protests in the kingdom that began in February 2011, which the Bahraini government claimed had been guided and funded by Iran and Hizbullah. The Bahraini authorities' fear of involvement...

Subhi Al-Tufayli: I know for a fact that the vast majority within Hizbullah strongly oppose [joining] the Syrian war. However, a resolute decision to participate [in the war] has been imposed upon them. Interviewer: By Iran? Subhi Al-Tufayli: Yes. Interviewer: Even Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah opposes this? Subhi Al-Tufayli: I don't want to name names, but I'm talking about the situation at hand. Everyone realizes how dangerous this is. First, of all, this is internal strife among Muslims, which will be devastating to all. This is the beginning of things to come. I say to the Shiites, to Hizbullah, and to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vA6cCGo_ASE

A senior Palestinian Authority has praised the use of violence against Israel, asserting that if the PA had the military wherewithal to rise up against the Jewish state, it would not hesitate to do so. "I swear that if we had a nuke, we'd have used it this very morning," vowed Jibril Rajoub during an interview with the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel, as reported by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Jibril Rajoub is the Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee and Chairman of the PA Olympic Committee. The interview was also published on Rajoub's Facebook page on May 2,...

British physicist Stephen Hawking has confirmed that he will not be attending the Presidential Conference in Israel because he is joining an academic boycott of the Jewish state. The University of Cambridge released a statement late Wednesday saying that Hawking had told the Israelis last week that he would not be attending "based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott." Earlier, the university said that news reports saying Hawking was boycotting the conference were wrong, and that the noted physicist's decision to cancel his visit to Israel stemmed from health reasons alone. .....

NDTV reports an armed Syrian group on Tuesday abducted four UN peacekeepers from the Philippines in the Golan Heights, which has been hit by a mounting spillover from the Syrian civil war, the United Nations said. The four were patrolling near the Al Jamlah locality in the ceasefire zone between Israel and Syria where 21 Filipino peacekeepers were seized by Syrian rebels in March...

“Israel, obviously, must do everything necessary to protect itself,” a top United States Army Lieutenant Colonel told Arutz Sheva in an exclusive interview. “For Washington, Iranian nuclear weapons are a strategic question. For Israel, Iranian nuclear weapons are an existential question,” said Ralph Peters, who spent ten years in Germany working in military intelligence and later became a Foreign Area Officer, specializing in the Soviet Union. ..... “My fear is that strategic circumstances will force Israel to act unilaterally and as brave and as capable as the IDF is, the IDF has the ability to start a fight with Iran....

The United Nations has called on Israel to halt military air patrols over Lebanon amid heightened tensions after air raids on targets in Syria, a UN spokesman said Tuesday. UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said that the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, had protested after recording an increase in Israeli flights over Lebanon. UNIFIL "says that in the course of the past week it has observed a higher number of Israeli air violations over Lebanese airspace," Nesirky told a briefing, the AFP news agency reported. He added that the flights are a "violation of Lebanese sovereignty and of Security Council...

Syria responded angrily to the overnight air strikes on military targets that it accused Israel of carrying out, warning that the attack "opens the door to all possibilities." "We will not accept to be humiliated," Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi said at an afternoon press conference, according to ABC News. "We are all in a state of anger. We are abused by this attack," he added. Israel has not confirmed or denied the series of strikes early Sunday morning, which the Syrian foreign ministry said had targeted three military sites: a "research center" at Jamraya, a "paragliding airport" in the...

Israeli security forces caught three Palestinian Authority Arabs near Kibbutz Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion on Sunday night. The three were found to be carrying improvised weapons and knives. .....

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed Sunday for restraint to avoid an escalation in the Syrian conflict, expressing "grave concern" over Israeli air strikes, AFP reported. "The secretary-general calls on all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict," his spokesman Martin Nesirky said. Nesirky said the United Nations was unable to independently verify the Israeli strikes, and had no details about them, but Ban "expresses grave concern over reports of air strikes in Syria by the Israeli Air...

The Lebanese army said on Friday that eight Israeli warplanes had flown over Lebanon’s airspace in a span of 14 hours, the Daily Star reported. The report said that Israel sends reconnaissance jets and warplanes over Lebanon on almost a regular basis, but the air traffic in the last 24 hours has been unusually high. “At 7:10 p.m. Thursday, two Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace entering above the sea west of Sidon and flying over all Lebanese areas as they conducted aerial maneuvers,” an announcement from the Lebanese army’s general directorate said, according to the Daily Star. The planes left...

Among the many jewels in this interview, Islamic extremism is a Mossad plot.

"...I say that America is an enemy to appease you, and I say it is a friend in order to get you food. Which do you prefer?"

The “game changing” weapons destroyed in an Israeli airstrike Friday before they could reach Hizbullah were sent by Iran, the New York Times reports, citing senior American officials. The strike reportedly targeted Fateh-110 missiles. The Fateh-110 has a range of up to 300 kilometers. Syrian sources gave the New York Times similar information, saying that Iran had sent arms and rockets to Damascus International Airport and planned to ship them on to Hizbullah. A diplomatic source in Lebanon previously told the AFP news agency that the airstrike destroyed surface-to-air missiles delivered by Russia. Israeli experts have warned in recent months...

An Arab terrorist armed with a knife stabbed an Israeli at the Tapuach junction in Shomron (Samaria) on Tuesday morning. The terrorist stabbed the victim, identified as Evyatar.Borovsky, in the upper body, wounding him critically. The terrorist then grabbed his gun and fired at the Border Police who were stationed in the area. Border Police officers fired back, wounding the perpetrator. Magen David Adom teams arrived at the scene and tried to revive the 31-year-old Israeli father of five from the Yitzhar, but pronounced him dead on the spot. Evyatar was an actor who appeared in various theater productions and...

An Iranian leader with close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently accused the Jews of engaging in sorcery and employing it against Iran, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported. “The Jews are currently subjecting us to an unprecedented trial. As you read in the Koran, [King] Solomon ruled the world… and God ordered a group of sorcerers to come out against him. The Jews have the greatest powers of sorcery, and they make use of this tool,” said Mehdi Taeb, who heads Khamenei's Ammar Base think tank. “All the measures that have been brought against us originate...

Prof. Alan Dershowitz, appearing at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York this week, spoke about his plan to restart the peace talks. Dershowitz, who has not official position in Israel, spoke to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and suggested a version of the Allon Plan of 1970. His suggestion for a "tripartite settlement freeze" was panned by Israel's Minister of International Affairs, Yuval Steinitz, as well as by former National Security Advisor to PM Netanyahu, Dr. Uzi Arad, who opposed "ulilateral concessions." AFSI's newly elected Chairman, Attorney Mark Langfan, sent an open letter to Prof. Dershowitz for posting in the...

In a statement to Al Manar TV, the Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah gave his clearest admission to date that the Shi'ite Islamist group is offering active support to Syrian government troops and other pro-regime forces. Nasrallah declared that "Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel or the Takfiris," referring to a particularly extreme brand of Sunni Islamism. ...as Al Qaeda cells from the latter have reportedly been migrating westward to take part in the civil war with the intent of establishing an...

Domestic violence is not one-sided, Professor Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire told Arutz Sheva on Monday. Straus participated at the two-day conference entitled "Violence, Conflicts and Unity in Family Context: A Reappraisal of Therapeutic and Judicial Doctrines." The conference is being held at the Ariel University. Video “The bottom line is that in domestic violence, about the same percentage of women assault their partners as men,” he said. “Women are more often injured, but that doesn’t change the fact that women attack as often as men.” Prof. Straus admitted that he’s been censored in the past for...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told members of Knesset on Sunday to refrain from voicing concern over mounting evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria, in an effort to avoid the impression Israel is pushing the international community into armed intervention, Army Radio said. Netanyahu gave the instructions after Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin suggested the international community might react militarily to "take control of the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal". The radio station reported Netanyahu sought to avoid the notion that Elkin's words be seen as an Israeli attempt to push the United States into launching a military operation in Syria....

Clip #3810

U.S. President Barack Obama repeated on Friday his past assertions that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would cross a line and produce an American response. At the same time, he indicated that he was not yet 100% certain that the findings by U.S. intelligence agencies are an indication that such weapons had indeed been used. “Knowing that there’s chemical weapons in Syria doesn’t tell us when they were used or how they were used,” Obama told reporters before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan which focused on Syria. “We ourselves will be putting a lot of...

Only in Israel: a new app for android phones lets drivers know if they are about to drive into a mob of Arabs armed with firebombs and rocks. Such ambushes have killed and maimed many Israelis over the years, including a baby girl, Adelle Biton, who has been barely clinging to life in the Schneider Children's Hospital since last month. As reported exclusively on the Tamar Yonah Show, .....

For years Jews have been allowed to visit the Temple Mount, the holiest place on earth according to the Jewish religion, but have not been allowed to pray there. In late 2012 police issued draconian instructions under which Jewish visitors could be arrested for merely appearing to pray. All that may change with MK Miri Regev’s appointment to head the Knesset’s Internal Affairs Committee. Regev (Likud) is planning a trip to the Temple Mount in order to weigh the option of permitting Jewish prayer at the site. In announcing her plans, Regev quoted from the Biblical prophecies of Isaiah, “Even...

DM Moshe Ya'alon chose Gilad Altman, of Kibbutz Maale HaHamisha as his advisor on Yesha towns. Altman served as an IDF commando, and later as Chief of the 'Green Commandos', responsible for preservation of national real estate against Arab land theft. Altman, of strong right wing affiliation, was preferred over Mt Hebron Council Chairman Tzviki bar-Hai...