Free Republic

His march through Georgia has been gravely misunderstood ― as has Israel’s strategy in Gaza. William Tecumseh Sherman 150 years ago took Atlanta before heading out on his infamous March to the Sea to make Georgia “howl.” He remains one of the most controversial and misunderstood figures in American military history. Sherman was an attritionist, not an annihilationist — a strategist who believed in attacking the sources that fuel and field an army rather than butting heads against the army itself. To review his career is to shed light on why the Israeli Defense Forces were both effective in Gaza...

Those 13-year-olds in Gaza sure grow up fast. Maybe it’s hormones in the milk. Or maybe they haven’t been 13 year olds in this century.Elder of Ziyon notes something rather odd about one 13-year-old boy slain by the brutal Zionist overlords of doom. The Hamas Interior Ministry reported that 13-year old Ibrahim Jamal Kamal Naser was killed on July 19.Here is the shahid poster of “13-year old” Ibrahim Nasser, killed on that same day in that same place, by the Abu Rish Battalions of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades Maybe a really old 13. A 13-year old who has been...

Hamas' military chief is believed to have been killed in an airstrike in Gaza early Wednesday, Israeli intelligence sources tell Fox News. Israeli officials said Wednesday the country's military targeted Mohammed Deif after militants fired rockets at Israeli cities just hours before a temporary cease-fire was set to expire. The Times of Israel reported that a house believed to be the home of Deif was hit early Wednesday. Dief has escaped numerous Israeli assassination attempts in the past. It was not immediately clear whether he was there at the time of the attack. A Hamas spokesman said Deif was not...

Hamas rockets have not hit an Israeli natural gas field, the IDF stated Wednesday, after the terror group's "military wing" boasted two false hits about 30 kilometer (19 miles) from Gaza. Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades claimed on its website that two rockets struck the Noa gas installation, which is owned by Nobly Energy and Delek. Israeli authorities denied the claim, however, in statements from both military and corporate sources. "The gas is flowing, business as usual," a spokeswoman for Nobel said in an email to Reuters. Delek has not yet commented on the claims. According to the daily, Noa, in Yam...

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has said that the elusive head of the terror group's "military wing", Mohammed Deif, is still "alive and well" despite an IDF assassination attempt which killed his wife and son. "The occupation will pay for its crimes against the Palestinian people," declared Abu-Zuhri, who added a chilling warning to the people of southern Israel. "The residents of the Gaza periphery will return to their homes only by the decision of the commander Mohammed Deif and one Israeli commitment to stop the aggression and lift the siege," he threatened. Adding to the threats, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi...

An Israeli diplomatic source confirmed Wednesday morning to Walla! that Israel tried overnight to eliminate Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas's "military wing," the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades. Hamas has claimed that five bunker-buster bombs were fired by Israel targeting the elusive mastermind behind Hamas's terror war. "The wife of the great leader (Deif) was martyred with his daughter," wrote Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk on his Facebook page Tuesday night, not indicating the fate of Deif himself. Hamas emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra later modified the appraisal, saying Deif's second wife Widad (27) and seven-month-old son Ali were killed in...

MK Erel Margalit (Labor) sharply condemned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday morning, in the wake of the massive renewed rocket fire by Hamas terrorists since Tuesday afternoon in breach of the ceasefire. "Where is the prime minister?" asked Margalit on his Facebook page. "This is a disgrace, simply a disgrace. There's no other definition of what is happening here. A terrorist organization is holding target practice on Israel and deciding for it. It sends Israeli residents time and again to shelters and disrupts their lives," continued the MK. Hamas has itself supported Margalit's appraisal that it is determining what...

Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk accused Israel on Tuesday night of having trying to eliminate the head of the group's “military wing”, Mohammed Deif, in one of its airstrikes on Gaza. According to Reuters, Marzouk said Israel had broken the truce that was supposed to expire at midnight in order "to assassinate Mohammed Deif," but that civilians were killed at the site of the attack. AFP reported that Marzouk said the airstrike killed Deif’s wife and child. "The wife of the great leader was martyred with his daughter," in the strike, he wrote on Facebook while saying nothing about the...

Smartguy @Gr8_guy Follow The top Hamas commander that was assassinated by the IDF this evening is Mohammed Yassin Dalou (Dalu?) Head of the Hamas Rocket division 2:16 PM - 19 Aug 2014 IMRA @IMRA_UPDATES Follow Speculation on Israel Radio that Mohammed Deif was killed and this explains the massive missile attack 2:15 PM - 19 Aug 2014   Alon Ben-David @alonbd Follow לפני הירי: נסיון חיסול של בכיר חמאס בשייח רדואן. בישראל מסרבים לאשר האם מדובר Translation: Before the firing: An assassination attempt on a senior Hamas member in Sheikh Radwan. In Israel they will not confirm whether it's...

This is the word of the LORD concerning Israel. The LORD, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares: “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. (Zechariah 12:1-3)The last chapters of Zechariah have an amazing relevance...

Hamas declared on Tuesday night that Israel had “opened the gates of hell”. In a statement, the group’s so-called “military wing” said that it had resumed the rocket fire on Israel because the Israeli Air Force had launched an airstrike on a home in Gaza. The group warned that “the price will be a heavy one”. Senior Hamas official Ezzat al-Rishq warned, according to AFP, "Israel will not enjoy security so long as the Palestinian people do not, and it started it." While the latest truce between Israel and Hamas was set to end at midnight on Tuesday, Hamas violated...

But the "free world" continues to focus on Israel's "genocide" against "Palestinians" rather than on the Islamist terror groups aligned against her. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8EdkH4blIA]Video linkIf the Obama Nation is serious about combating the Islamic State (IS), perhaps it should embed intelligence types with the Vice News teams to get better information on where its forces are located and what they are doing. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvOC50m4EI] Video linkDoes Obama's American really want to prevent the IS' creation of an Islamic caliphate? How about other Islamic terror organizations? Hamas? As observed in an article titled Christians and Yazidis in Iraq – and a World’s Indifference, For the United Nation’s (UN)...

15:47 Rockets launched from Gaza Two or three rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesman’s office says. Many civilians are reporting large explosions near Beersheba. The launches are the first since the truce between Israel and Hamas was announced, midnight of Wednesday last week. The rockets fell in open fields outside the city and caused no injuries or damage. No sirens were sounded after the rockets were launched.

[Huge SNIP of excellent "rant." Must read in full] ".........And don't you buy the crap so-called academics are peddling, that Hamas was the duly democratically elected government of Gaza. Hamas took power, not in an election, but in a bloody coup, machine gunning their fellow Palestinians, blindfolding, binding and throwing them off of multi story buildings. They have terrorized their own people, not only Israel. Their people, indeed, live under the yoke of occupation, but not by Israel, by Hamas. And as for the apologists and enablers of Hamas, who contribute to the misery of Palestinians and Israelis alike, while...

Reverend Al Sharpton, host of PoliticsNation on MSNBC and former presidential candidate, will be the keynote speaker at the annual fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity with an extremist history. CAIR’s 20th Annual Banquet will be held on September 27 in Arlington, Virginia and also features Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). According to the U.S. Justice Department, CAIR is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. More specifically, CAIR is part of the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, a secret body that was established to push the agenda of Hamas and...

The prime minister went on to say that the proposal only addressed the issues of Gaza's rehabilitation and the lifting of the blockade on the Strip, Only when Lieberman brought copy to cabinet meeting did PM reluctantly admit its existence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried last week to hide from cabinet ministers the draft of a cease-fire agreement drawn up by Egypt. A senior Israeli official said that during last Thursday evening's cabinet meeting, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman confronted Netanyahu, showing him the copy of the Egyptian proposal that he, Lieberman, had received, and demanded an explanation. The Israeli official...

Further cementing the increasingly prevalent impression that the Palestinian Authority is much more responsible than are the Hamas militants in control of Gaza, the terrorist group was implicated on Monday in a plan to mount attacks on Israeli civilians and to orchestrate a coup in the West Bank with the aim of toppling Mahmoud Abbas’s government.The plot, planned by a Hamas wing headquartered in Turkey, centered on executing a series of mass casualty terror attacks in Israel and destabilizing the West Bank which would facilitate a military coup, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday. The Hamas infrastructure relied on...

JERUSALEM - Hamas reportedly rejected a comprehensive, 11-clause long term ceasefire proposal on Saturday. Egypt has warned that this proposal will be its final effort to secure a lasting end to the Israel-Gaza conflict. According to details leaked by Egyptian newspaper al-Shorouk, the 11-clause proposal contained several key concessions to the Palestinian delegation, including the opening of border crossings between Israel and Gaza, the elimination of the so-called "buffer zones" along the Israel-Gaza border, the extension of the fishing zone to 12 miles off the Gazan coast, and the assistance of Israel and the Palestinian Authority in rebuilding the infrastructure...

US aircraft spotted the Yazidi massacre this week. But did not act until after the killing. At least 80 men from the Yazidi faith were killed, and scores of women and children abducted, in the village of Kawju (also spelt Kocho) on Friday.

An online friend “Miss Marple” notes the similarities between the thuggery in Ferguson, Missouri and the depredations of the Middle East’s jihadi wild packs: I read a book by the historian Barbara Tuchman [A Distant Mirror. The Calmitous 14th Century] which theorized that the Hundred Years War was caused by a culture that was adolescent, because so many older people had died during the Black Plague. All of the nobles and rulers at that time were in their late teens and had not much guidance from older, calmer heads. That idea has remained with me ever since I read the...