Free Republic

'Justice for Palestinians cannot be attained without the lifting of the occupation,' Cornel West was quoted as saying by 'The New York Times' on Wednesday. The Democrat party is facing a possible dilemma as supporters of the two candidates vying for the nomination gear up for a debate on what to do with its Mideast policy. The Israel issue is threatening to tear the party apart as Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who has mounted a considerable presidential campaign that has earned him greater clout within the left-wing camp, has tapped two individuals to a key committee who seek to...

From Wafa: An estimated 80,228 guests stayed in West Bank hotels in the first quarter of 2016, marking a drop by 32% from the previous quarter and 20% lower than in the first quarter of 2015, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said Monday. It said 33% of the hotel patrons were from European Union countries and 13% were Palestinian. The PCBS said room occupancy rate was 16.5% in the first quarter – 25% lower than in the previous quarter and 17% lower than in the first quarter of 2015. Nobody really talks about the financial hit that comes...

Bent on destroying Israel, and gripped by vicious anti-Semitism, Baghdad ‘pauperized’ its Jews and forced them to leave for the nascent Jewish state in 1951-2. It believed Israel would collapse under the strain. But the immigrants ultimately helped Israel thrive, and it was Iraq that suffered After Adolf Hitler’s defeat in May 1945, many Nazis melted away from the Reich, smuggled out by such organizations as the infamous Odessa group and the lesser-known Catholic lay network Intermarium, as well as the CIA and KGB. They ensured the continuation of the Nazi legacy in the postwar Arab world. Egypt was a...

BDS Flounders Amid String of Humiliating Defeats How anti-BDS legislation has neutered the group and hampered its ability to function. May 31, 2016 Ari Lieberman    It’s been a really bad month for the anti-Semitic BDS movement, a strange alliance of radical leftists and Islamists who advocate the destruction of Israel through economic and cultural boycotts.  The hate group suffered a number of major setbacks in recent weeks. Some of these reversals represent mere moral victories but others have far reaching consequences that may well spell doom for BDS’s future operations and ability to function.  In May, the Strasbourg-based...

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness made sure to release this announcement at the end of last week: "Several media outlets have reported that UNRWA intends to close its headquarters in Gaza. These reports are false. UNRWA HQ Gaza is not closing. The Agency affirms categorically that there are no plans to do so and staff are not being let go." Puzzlingly, the panicky announcement seemed to have been circulated even more widely than the alleged reports of the UNRWA closure. In any event, Gunness took the opportunity to state that "UNRWA is fully committed to maintaining its presence in the Gaza...

On May 15, Al-Alam TV broadcast a report on the opening of the third International Holocaust Cartoon Contest in Tehran. The exhibition features caricatures of Israeli PM Netanyahu, comparing him to Hitler and to ISIS terrorists. The organizer, Shojai Tabtabai, said that the exhibition was "a response to the publication of cartoons by the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, which affronted the Prophet Muhammad, as well as an expression of [our opposition] to the massacres perpetrated against the Palestinian people." Reporter: "As a form of expression of the Palestinian cause, and in the context of the massacres, perpetrated by the Zionists...

White House hints that time for new Gaza policy is near. WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had warned Israel's government repeatedly to use "caution and restraint" with half a dozen aid boats bound for the Gaza Strip before Israeli commandos raided the flotilla this week in an operation that killed nine people. In an interview with Charlie Rose broadcast Wednesday night, Vice President Joe Biden agreed that Israel had a right to inspect the cargo. "You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not ... but the truth of the matter...

The family of Abedel Fattah al-Sharif, the Arab terrorist who was neutralized and later killed by IDF soldier Elor Azariya during a terror attack in Hevron in March, buried al-Sharif in Hevron on Saturday, amid demands for revenge. The body of al-Sharif was returned to his family on Friday, before it was examined at the Al Ahli hospital in Hevron. Relatives of the dead terrorist called upon Arab residents of Hevron to join in a mass demonstration during al-Sharif’s funeral, which included demands for revenge and the waving of Hamas flags. The body of al-Sharif was also wrapped in a...

Speaking on the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement last week, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, declared that the old Middle East created by European imperialism was dead – and that an independent Kurdish state must be part of the emerging new order. Referring to the secret arrangement by the Allied Powers in World War I to divide the Middle East into “spheres of influence”, Barzani blasted the Sykes-Picot Agreement, saying that it denied the rights of the inhabitants and carved up populations with arbitrary lines. The agreement served as the basis for the establishment of the modern...

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,...