Free Republic

On a recent TV show, Lebanese politician Vera Yammine said that the Holocaust was "shrouded in unclarity," and that the Jews "always fear exposure about the Holocaust, and are always eager to use it as a pretext." Yammine, a member of the political bureau of the Marada Movement, said: "Zionism has taken hold of the West and is taking hold of the East, and especially of the Arab world." She further said: "There is no such thing as ISIS or the Al-Nusra Front. All these terms have emerged from a single womb, the womb of Zionism. The show aired on...

Four and a half years ago, I reported that Hezbullah had set up operations in Cuba. Hezbullah, which already has operations in Paraguay, Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico (the article doesn't say Mexico, but I've reported that in the past) is setting up operations in Cuba to serve as a base for an attack on Israeli interests in Latin America to avenge the death of master terrorist Imad Mughniyah. The report in YNet is based upon an article in Italy's Corriere della Sera. According to the report, three Hezbollah members have already arrived in Cuba with the purpose of establishing...

As its relationships with the United States, Europe and Turkey have deteriorated since its interventions in Ukraine and Syria, one country Moscow remained on good terms with is Israel. This reflects the increasingly friendly Russian-Israeli relationship since Pres. Vladimir Putin first burst on the scene. Putin visited Israel twice — in 2005 and 2012 — making him the first Russian leader to ever travel to the Jewish state. While there, he went to the Western Wall — Judaism’s holiest site — as well as Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, where Putin observed a moment of silence.

Jerusalem Jerusalem - Talk to Israelis about the United States these days and you will provoke a physical reaction. Barack Obama is an eye roll. John Kerry is a grimace. The administration's conduct of regional policy is a slow, sad shake of the head. The current state of the presidential race makes for a full-blown shudder. The Israeli rundown of the candidates goes roughly as follows: "Hillary - she doesn't like us." "Cruz - I don't like him" "Rubio - is he done for?" "Sanders - oy vey." "Trump - omigod." As for Israel's own troubles - a continuing...

A private intelligence report from Hillary Clinton's confidant, Sid Blumenthal, claimed that Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist organization, had set up shop in Cuba, according to an email released by the State Department over the weekend. The group was actively "casing" facilities related to U.S. interests, the intelligence report also says. The dispatch read: During the week of September 5, 2011 extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America.The confidential...

A few years before the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism Hezbollah established an operational base on the communist island, according to intelligence received by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. The information comes straight from electronic mail released by the State Department over the weekend as part of ongoing litigation from several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets surrounding Clinton's use of a private server to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. This alarming information has been ignored by the mainstream media, which served as the...

“The next war in the North will have to be against Lebanon because Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese system,” Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland told Walla News on Wednesday. Eiland, former head of the IDF Planning Directorate and National Security Council, was responding to IDF assessments earlier this week which said that although the chances for armed conflict with Hezbollah at the moment are very low, if a confrontation were to occur, ...

As those who follow Syria's seemingly intractable civil war are no doubt aware, Washington is a big part of why the conflict is now going into its sixth year. What began as a plan to destabilize the Alawite government by "playing on Sunni fears of Iranian influence" (to quote a leaked diplomatic cable from then-Deputy Chief of Mission in Syria William Roebuck) gradually metamorphosed into a overt and at times absurd effort to arm and train a series of rebel groups in an attempt to bring about regime change in Damascus. Those efforts have thus far failed, in part because...

Did Mohamad al-Halabi visit his terrorist nephew in Damascus? Florida Hezbollah Imam Travels to Syria and Back Did Mohamad al-Halabi visit his terrorist nephew in Damascus? January 14, 2016 Joe Kaufman    Mohamad al-Halabi, a.k.a. Mohamad al-Fouani, the imam of the American Islamic Center of Florida, may operate out of Pompano Beach, Florida, however a good part of his life still resides in the Middle East, including his associations with the terrorist organization Hezbollah. In November, al-Halabi left the shores of the United States to travel to his native home of Syria. While there, he visited family, but were they...

One of the men given the death penalty was an Iranian convicted in absentia, and the other was a Kuwaiti who was in court. Other suspects were given sentences ranging from five to 25 years, and three were found innocent. Tensions between Shi'ite-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Gulf countries have escalated since a diplomatic dispute between Tehran and Riyadh erupted after Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric this month.

Hezbollah is expected to start mediating soon between Hamas and Iran in order to reconcile between both parties and bring Hamas, which is financed today by the Gulf states, back into Tehran's fold. London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday that the new mediation comes after Iran failed in its previous attempts to convince Hamas to announce its support for Iran in the Islamic Republic's battle with Saudi Arabia for regional supremacy, in exchange for Iranian financial aid. ...

Lebanon-based Hezbollah is growing stronger as a result of weapons' shipments from the Russian military, two mid-level commanders in the organization have said. According to the story, first circulated in The Daily Beast, Russia is directly transferring artillery and anti-tank munitions to Hezbollah without any caveat as to what they are used for, despite Russia’s close relationship with Israel. This begs the question whether the threat to Israel from the Shi'ite organization has intensified since Russian jets started to bomb Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s enemies. However, Hezbollah is still bogged down in the Syrian conflict and is unlikely to be...

The Iran-backed Shia terrorist group Hezbollah has lost an estimated 1,300 to 1,500 soldiers, more than one-third of its force, while fighting against rebels and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Syria on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to Israeli experts. Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, another 5,000 Hezbollah jihadists have been wounded, analysts reportedly said.

They joined to fight Israel in Lebanon, but after multiple combat tours in the Syrian cities of Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, and around Damascus, Hezbollah reservists tell The Daily Beast that they are no longer willing to die in Syria's unending, bloody civil war. As a result of their refusal to continue volunteering to prop up the embattled government of Bashar al-Assad, they say that the Shia Party of God has cut off the money they were accustomed to receiving: reservist paychecks and permanent family benefits packages. What other consequences there may be remain to be seen. Imad, as we'll call...

Israelis aren't the only ones celebrating, as members of Sunni opposition take to social media to hail Hezbollah commander's death. Video Kuntar was widely reviled in Israel for his role in a 1979 terrorist attack by the now-defunct Palestine Liberation Front, during which terrorists kidnapped an Israeli father and his four-year-old daughter from Nahariya and then brutally executed them on a nearby beach. Kuntar himself beat the young girl to death with the butt of his rifle; her two-year-old sister was accidentally smothered to death by their terrified mother as she stifled her cries to prevent them from being discovered....

As much as one third of Hezbollah’s fighting force has been killed or injured fighting in defense of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Avi Issacharoff reported Tuesday in The Times of Israel. According to Issacharoff, Israeli sources estimate that between 1,300 to 1,500 members of the Iran-backed terrorist group have been killed in Syria, while an additional 5,000 have been injured. The surging casualty count has forced Hezbollah to deviate from past policy and release details on its losses. This past weekend, Arab media reported that over a dozen Hezbollah fighters were killed while battling ISIS near the Lebanese border. The...

Iranian troops retreating from Syria, Western officials say Special to WorldTribune.com With scant few battlefield victories and the deaths of key military leaders, Iran appears ready to cut its losses and withdraw from Syria, Western officials say. The failed Russian-initiated offensive to retake Idlib province from anti-Assad rebels supported by the West and Gulf Arab states has led to the retreat of large numbers of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops, officials say. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said at the recent Saban Forum in Washington that Russia had planned to seize Idlib and other rebel-controlled areas within three months....

Russia says it does not define Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, which may impact international efforts to deal with terror attacks. Hezbollah has suffered huge losses in the fighting in Syria, with hundred of its fighters killed or wounded. Russia does not consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization, according to Moscow's deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. The official was quoted Sunday by the Interfax news agency as he explained that Russia maintains ties with the group. "Some say Hezbollah is a terrorist organization," Bogdanov said. "We maintain contacts and relations with them because we do not consider them a...

Lets see how Russia (KGB) deals with Islamic terrorist hostage takers Are you among those frustrated Americans who have wondered how the Soviet Union's only hostage crisis in Lebanon was resolved in just a month, while the plight of the six U.S. hostages held there continues to drag on without any break in sight? Well, according to the Jerusalem Post, the Soviets turned the trick by forgoing diplomacy in favor of a brutally more direct approach to the problem. Simply put, they presented the kidnappers with chilling proof that terror can cut both ways. Literally! The crisis began last Sept....

Moscow places S-400 'Growlers' in Syria's Latakia base, in an escalation that places Ben-Gurion Airport within range. Russia has revealed in photographs that it has deployed a highly advanced anti-missile system in western Syria, that is capable of downing planes taking off in Tel Aviv. The S-400 anti-missile system, known to NATO as the SA-21 "Growler," was shown to be stationed in the Latakia Airbase on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean Sea in photographs released by the Russian military, reports the Daily Mail on Thursday. In the past there have been Arab media reports of Israeli airstrikes in Latakia...