Free Republic

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel is still considering an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, even if Tehran and world powers sign a historic deal to curtail Iran's nuclear program next week. "Whatever happens, Israel will always defend itself, and the Air Force plays a major role in this," Haaretz daily quoted Netanyahu as saying at a pilots' course graduation ceremony. Netanyahu again expressed concern over the agreement and the concessions the world is prepared to do in order for Iran to sign the deal.

An ISIS fighter captured by Syrian Kurds last month described how easy it was for him to cross Turkey's notoriously porous border into Syria to join the Islamic State, according to a new video obtained by Al-Monitor. Turkish citizen Huseyin Mustafa Peri, who says he was wounded near the Turkish border, told his captors that getting into Syria “was an easy affair." Al-Monitor says it was unable to independently confirm details because Kurdish fighters would not allow him to be interviewed, noting that his statements aligns with the outlet's reporting. "[IS recruiter] Ibrahim Osama had given me a number ......

Link only

The EU will indeed merit the "Jew-hater" tag - should its ill-considered and misconceived labelling action proceed. The European Union (EU) runs the risk of being labelled “Jew-hater” - should it proceed with its plans requiring supermarkets and other retailers to label products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) differently from those made by Jews in Israel. No matter what spin the EU uses to justify any such discriminatory labelling—the EU will be seen to be actively supporting the 2005 Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel—whose manifesto states:

Two recent events aggravated the existing political disputes and tensions between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA). On May 22, 2015 worshippers disrupted a Friday sermon delivered at Al-Aqsa mosque by Jordanian chief qadi Ahmad Hulail, who was visiting the mosque at the head of a high-level Jordanian delegation. Also in late May, the Arab media reported that Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Palestinian Football Association, who holds dual Palestinian and Jordanian citizenship, refused to back the Jordanian candidate for the presidency of FIFA, King 'Abdallah's half-brother Prince 'Ali Bin Al-Hussein. These two incidents sparked furious reactions from the...

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government should not include Hamas, AFP reports. The remarks came on the eve of a key meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to discuss forming a new cabinet. The unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed last week as Abbas decided to dissolve it amid a deepening rift between the sides. "(Abbas) told me this government of national unity could only include women and men who recognize Israel, renounce violence and who are in agreement...

Three years after it withdrew its ambassador from Israel, when Operation Pillar of Defense was launched in Gaza, Egypt is about to send a new ambassador to its Tel Aviv embassy. Hazem Hayrath, 57, who was a senior assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister until recently, was tapped as the new ambassador to Israel and will discharge his duties from the Jewish state. …

Donald Trump, the bombastic builder of Trump towers and Trump gambling casinos, is moving from his reality TV show to the theater of presidential elections. If he survives the first three months of mass media drubbing him and his notorious affliction of ‘leaving no impulsive opinion behind,’ he’s going to be trouble for the other fifteen or so Republican presidential candidates. Already the commentators have derided his massive egotitis – he said “I” 195 times in his announcement speech, not counting the 28 times he said “my” or “mine” or the 22 mentions of “me.” But Trump revels in self-promotion...

Egypt's foreign minister has rebuffed calls from Washington to speed up the pace of political reform. Rejecting a US demand to lift a state of emergency, Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Washington should not "impose" its will on "a great country".

Nearly a year after a devastating war, Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appear to have formed an unspoken alliance in a common battle against the shared threat of jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group. While Israel and Hamas remain arch-enemies, both have an interest in preserving an uneasy calm that has prevailed since the fighting ended in a cease-fire last August -- a stalemate that is largely the result of a lack of options on either side.

Republican senators criticized the Bush administration Wednesday over its policies in Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian territories, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's first testimony on Capitol Hill in months exposed her to a tough grilling from some members of her own party. "I don't see, Madame Secretary, how things are getting better. I think they're getting worse in Iraq, they're getting worse in Iran," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told Rice as she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rice also had a tense exchange with moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., over the pace of progress toward Israeli-Palestinian...

Over the past two decades Israel has managed to destroy its regional reputation. With our own hands, we have twice shown our neighbors they have little reason to tie their fates to ours. We are unreliable. In 1994, Israel betrayed the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza who had helped us fight against PLO terrorists for decades. Open season on our Palestinian allies officially began in July 1994 with the entrance of thousands of PLO terrorists – led by Yasser Arafat – into Gaza and Jericho. Arafat’s henchmen did not limit their murderous wrath to the Palestinians who saved countless...

Iran’s support for international terrorist groups remained undiminished last year and even expanded in some respects, the Obama administration said Friday, less than two weeks before the deadline for completing a nuclear deal that could provide Tehran with billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions. The assessment offered a worrying sign of even worse terror-related violence to come after a year in which extremists in the Middle East, Africa and Asia committed 35 percent more terrorist acts, killed nearly twice as many people and almost tripled the number of kidnappings worldwide. Statistics released by the State Department on Friday...

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...

TEHRAN — Women have been "forbidden" from watching Iran play the U.S. volleyball team on Friday night despite the government signaling it would loosen restrictions on females attending sports events. Earlier this month, Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Molaverdi announced that a limited number of women — mainly members of players' families — would be allowed at upcoming men's volleyball matches. In an interview with The Associated Press, Molaverdi said women could also now watch live basketball, handball and tennis. However, women would not be allowed to attend soccer, swimming and wrestling. Hardliners objected angrily to...

A Knesset Channel poll published Thursday indicates that almost one half of the Israeli public agrees with MK Michael Oren (Kulanu), the former Israeli ambassador in the US, who said this week that US President Barack Obama has “deliberately” caused a deterioration in US-Israel ties. […] “From the moment he entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of championing the Palestinian cause and achieving a nuclear accord with Iran,” wrote Oren. Obama abandoned the two core principles of Israel’s alliance with America, he accused. …

A Palestinian terrorist died in clashes with the IDF near Ramallah Sunday morning, after his attack on an army jeep backfired quite spectacularly. Abdallah Ghanayem, 21, died after being struck by the vehicle during clashes that erupted in the village of Kfar Malik following a dawn Israeli army raid, the Palestinian Authority sources said. An IDF spokesman confirmed to AFP that a Palestinian had died - after he threw an incendiary device at a jeep and the vehicle overturned on him. It was the second Palestinian terrorist killed in the past week,....

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned European Union leaders that violence from Islamic extremists could escalate if the EU rejects Turkey as a member... Turkey signed the association agreement for EU membership in 1963 and it is expected that a two-day EU summit this week will finally decide to begin formal membership talks, probably in the second half of next year... Taking Turkey’s 69 million, mainly Muslim, population into the Union is widely disputed... In Germany, leader of the Christian Social Union Edmund Stoiber told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that his party in government would do what it...

Less than three weeks remaining to the June 30 deadline set for the P5+1 to reach an agreement with Iran in negotiations over its nuclear program, tens of thousands of Iranian exiles from across the globe rallied on June 13 raising their voice in protest to the regime in Iran. Over 600 prominent international dignitaries from 69 countries joined the gathering in Villepinte near Paris in support of Iranian opposition calling for regime change in Iran. The keynote speaker of this gathering was Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the umbrella opposition body composed of...

Paris – As the June 30 deadline approaches for a final nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, Iranians from all over the world overcrowded Villepinte Hall on Saturday June 13. They were Iranians from all walks of life with different tendencies, gathered in an annual meeting staged by National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The crowd wore Blue- colored shirts and stayed applauding the speakers for hours, featuring burning desire for freedom and democracy and demonstrating their desperate to topple the ayatollahs in Iran. Hundreds of figures and MPs from the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and the Middle...