Free Republic

The Democratic party has revamped the way it appoints members of its platform committee, apportioning representation based on votes in the primary. As a result, Hillary Clinton has appointed six members of the platform committee, Bernie Sanders has appointed five, and party Chaircritter Debbie Wasserman Schultz ('I wear my support for Israel to work on my sleeve every morning') has appointed four. One of Sanders' appointees is longtime anti-Israel activist James Zogby. Sanders’s choices include James Zogby, a pro-Palestinian activist who is president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington and a frequent commentator on Arab-Israeli issues. On Saturday Zogby...

With a media blitz, the Islamic State has set its sights on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as the next shot at expanding its empire and establishing a base from which to attack neighboring Israel.

Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to attend the preliminary foreign ministers' meeting that France is convening in advance of a French-sponsored Middle East peace conference, Haaretz reported Monday. The Palestine Liberation Organization's Saeb Erekat told the newspaper that Kerry has told Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas that he plans to attend the summit, to take place in Paris on May 30. At this stage, however, State Department officials will not confirm that Kerry will be attending the foreign ministers' meeting, and Washington has been reluctant to express support for the French initiative. For his part, Erekat told Haaretz...

A school built in Gaza using German funds is educating their students on hatred and violence for Israel and providing children with military training At the end of March, a Hamas-affiliated news agency distributed a video showing a Palestinian teacher indoctrinating school children with hatred for Israel and support for an armed struggle against it. The teacher used the letters of the Arabic alphabet as a didactic tool to teach them "the fundamental Palestinian national principles" even before they learn to read. The video did not specify the name of the school; however, data collected by the Intelligence and Terrorism...

Bernie Sanders wants to make “Palestinian rights” more of a priority in the Democratic Party platform, according to a report. The Washington Post reported on Friday that Sanders, the Vermont Independent Senator seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, wants to see changes to a platform to better reflect Palestinian aspirations for statehood. Sanders, the only Jewish candidate to ever have won major party nominating contests, has throughout the campaign defended Israel’s right to security, but also has called for an end to “settlement expansion”, and has criticized what he has said has been Israel’s “disproportionate response” to Palestinian terrorism. His grasp...

Senior Hamas politburo official Mahmoud al-Zahar reignited the war of words between his terrorist organization and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, which have long been bitter rivals. Hamas and Fatah have remained violently divided despite the unity deal sealed by Abbas in April 2014 when he torpedoed the US-led peace talks. In recent days - even as Egypt is leading talks in Cairo to try and unify the Palestinian factions - al-Zahar upped the ante on Hamas-Fatah tensions by slamming Fatah founder and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat for being a "coward" and fleeing a battle with Israel, before...

A Fake Museum for a Fake Palestine The Palestinian Museum is as empty as its soul. May 20, 2016 Daniel Greenfield    Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. 150 years ago, Mark Twain visited Muslim-occupied Israel and wrote of “unpeopled deserts” and “mounds of barrenness,” of “forlorn” and “untenanted” cities. Palestine is “desolate,” he concluded. “One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings.” The same is true of the Palestinian Museum which opened with much fanfare and one slight problem. While admission is free,...

Israel’s defense minister announced his resignation on Friday, saying the governing party had been taken over by “extremist and dangerous elements” and that he no longer trusted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following reports that he was to be replaced. Moshe Ya’alon’s departure removes a strong voice of moderation in the Cabinet and deepens the rift between the security establishment and the hardline politicians. Ya’alon told reporters that “Israel is a healthy society” with a “sane majority” that is tolerant of minorities and strives for a liberal and democratic society. “But to my great dismay extremist and dangerous elements have taken...

ISIS has executed 25 people in Mosul, northern Iraq, by lowering them in a vat of nitric acid, according to several local news reports. The men had been accused of spying on ISIS on behalf of Iraqi government security forces. According to witnesses, the 25 alleged 'spies' had been tied together with a rope and lowered in a large basin containing nitric acid until their organs dissolved.

Israel's military said on Wednesday it had developed a version of its Iron Dome missile interceptor system that can be fired from the deck of a cruising navy ship to protect its offshore gas platforms. The augmented defense system passed a live test two weeks ago when it shot down several short-range ballistic missiles from a moving boat, said Colonel Ariel Shir, the navy's head of operational systems. Israel has boosted its naval defenses over the past decade after the discovery of sizeable natural gas deposits off its Mediterranean coast. While the biggest fields are far from shore, the gas...

The Yad L'Achim anti-missionary organization safely extricated a Jewish mother and three children from an Arab village last week, after a 15-year ordeal. The woman, referred to as 'A.,' married a Palestinian Arab working illegally in Israel in 2001. They lived both in Israel and in a Palestinian Authority (PA) village. After he was arrested by police for crossing into Israel unlawfully, they were deported to the PA village and lived with his family. Eventually, they returned to Israel. Their first son was born in 2006. The Arab man promised A. many things before their wedding but reneged on them,...

Perhaps the Carter administration was comparably hostile to Israel, but the passive-aggressive, honor-deficient Obama administration has both caused and acceded to greater danger to the Jewish State than any other U.S. administration since 1948.Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he would not be attending the Mideast conference to be held in Paris on May 30, which was organized by France's socialist President Francois Hollande.According to State, Kerry is simply too busy.As a result, Hollande has postponed the conference and no alternative date has been set.Eager to force Israel towards negotiations with the bifurcated, terror-supporting Palestinian leadership, Hollande had...

A Gazan fisherman arrested by Israeli security services has revealed how Hamas regularly uses fishermen to smuggle weapons and other military equipment into Gaza. The Shin Bet security service (Israel Security Agency), Israeli navy and Israel Police released for publication Monday afternoon the arrest of 39-year-old fisherman Salim Jamal Hasan Na’aman back in April. Na’aman, a resident of the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, was initially detained by Israeli naval forces after straying beyond the zone permitted for fishing, as part of the Israeli military’s blockade aimed at containing the Hamas terrorist group. Under Shin Bet interrogation, the...

The latest issue of Al Qaeda’s online magazine Inspire released Saturday calls on would-be jihadis to undermine the American economy by targeting business leaders and entrepreneurs, according to analysts who monitor web chatter from the jihadist organization. AND the magazine also features a section on bomb-making and encouraging radical Islamic terrorists to emulate the Palestinian stabbings of Israelis by walking up to Americans and stabbing them to death.

Noted rabbis hold emergency conference on Arab terror, demand government reject 2-state solution and stop making 'stupid' statements.

GSM31 will be out of town on Thursday, so we recorded this early.

In April, the Islamic Republic of Iran conducted another rocket launch, ostensibly to put an Iranian satellite into orbit, which fell far short of its mark. Many analysts speculated that its purpose had nothing to do with satellites. Those paying attention to Iran’s recent activities & skeptical of the Islamic Republic suggested that this latest launch was yet another example of Tehran’s ongoing effort to test its long-range ballistic missile program. About two weeks later, these suspicions were confirmed when the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces, Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi, boasted that the launch had been a successful...

Islamic State fighters have recently arrived in the Gaza Strip to train with their Hamas counterparts, a senior IDF official said in an Arabic interview published Friday.

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai tells Saudi website that ISIS members entered Gaza from Egypt to undergo military training. Members of the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group have recently entered Gaza through tunnels from Egypt to undergo military training in the Hamas-ruled enclave, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said Friday. Speaking to the Saudi news site Elaph and quoted by Haaretz, Mordechai said the ISIS members entered Gaza a few days ago with the support of a well-connected Hamas affiliate in the city of Rafah, adding that Hamas is helping the ISIS fighters receive...

Top Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine has been killed, the Lebanese group said on Friday, the biggest blow to the Iranian-backed organization since its military chief was killed in 2008. Badreddine, 55, was one of the highest ranking officials in the group, and assessed by the US government to be responsible for Hezbollah’s military operations in Syria, where it is fighting alongside the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A Hezbollah statement did not say when, where or how he was killed, though it cited him saying he would return from Syria either victorious or as “a martyr”.