Free Republic

Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's. According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the situation...

Syrian Accountability Act to Combat Terrorism By Jim Hauser Talon News December 18, 2003WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Last week, President Bush signed into law H.R. 1828, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. The legislation calls on the president to impose sanctions on Syria to discourage support for international terrorist groups and the occupation of Lebanon.The bill demands that Syria end support for terrorism; halt the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) along with medium- and long-range missiles; and withdraw the roughly 20,000 troops it has deployed in Lebanon.It also calls on Syria to "enter into...

President Obama held an Oval Office meeting with Middle Eastern-based Arab Christians on 9/11, one member of whom is a loud and proud supporter of the terrorist group Hezbollah. The day before, members of the same group, holding a conference under the name In Defense of Christians, booed and shouted down keynote speaker Senator Ted Cruz ”It’s surprising White House staffers allowed Maronite Patriarch Bashara Rai to meet with the President in the first place. As the Washington Free Beacon reports, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah supporting cleric isn’t shy about his views. “Everyone says why is Hezbollah carrying arms?” said Rai...

Knesset Member Azmi Bishara in Lebanon: We are original inhabitants of Palestine, not ‘those who came from Poland, Russia; says Israelis should leave, take their democracy with them Israel is the 20th century's greatest robbery, carried out in broad daylight, Arab Knesset member Azmi Bishara (National Democratic Assembly) told a Lebanese audience last week during a speech at an Arab book fair in Beirut. "I will never recognize Zionism even if all Arabs do," he said. "I will never concede Palestine. The battle is still long." Bishara, who recently launched his campaign for an additional term in the Knesset, left...

The arrest (which has since been reduced to house arrest) of Iz a-Din Badran, the parliamentary aide of Balad MK Azmi Bishara, due to suspicions that he organized trips by Israeli Arabs to Syria without a permit, testifies to the hardheartedness of the Israeli security system, which does not distinguish between issues of a human-humanitarian nature and issues of security and politics. Israeli citizens whom Badran is suspected of helping traveled to Syria in order to meet family members that they had not seen for 57 years. Most of these citizens are elderly people who became separated from their family...

(IsraelNN.com) Security services suspect that former MK Azmi Bishara, a fugitive living abroad accused of providing aid to Hizbullah, is intent on recruiting agents for the Lebanese terrorist group among Israeli Arabs. In recent days, agents of the General Security Services (GSS) invited activist members of the Balad party from Wadi Ara to the agency's offices and warned them against contact with Bishara. Balad was led by Bishara until his flight from the country in 2007. A member of the Arab Coordinating Committee, Ashraf Kortam, was also questioned by security services about his relationship with Bishara. He was asked to...

Woman Expected To Plead Guilty To Disclosing Unauthorized Info To Hezbollah Sympathizers (CBS) A woman who previously worked as an FBI agent and a CIA analyst is expected to plead guilty to charges she disclosed unauthorized information to people outside the government, CBS News has learned. Sources say the woman, from Lebanon, entered the United States on a student visa and earned citizenship through a sham marriage. While officials say there is no evidence of actual espionage and no evidence that she was working as a spy, she is accused of passing information to sympathizers of Hezbollah, a group the...

Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

War On Terror: The head of U.S. Southern Command has warned lawmakers that IS is radicalizing converts and other Muslims in Latin America and could train and send them north via human traffickers. Gen. John Kelly issued his warning in a hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on defense appropriations for fiscal 2016. He's concerned that in addition to the Iranian terrorist puppet Hezbollah being active in Latin America, the Islamic State is promoting and recruiting for jihad against the United States in the region. "Last year, IS adherents posted discussions on social media calling for the infiltration...

Editor’s note: While reports have been gaining lately about both Hezbollah and other Islamic forces being found in Latin America – this is the first (to my knowledge) of actual violence being done. For a report in Spanish of such activity, country by country, read here. Peruvian media outlets accused Hizbullah of being involved in violence and killing a Peruvian citizen during protests staged by locals a few weeks ago, al-Arabiya news website reported Saturday. During demonstrations staged by locals from La Pampa district against government projects, one of the demonstrators was shot and killed. Local media in Peru...

Democratic Party Conducts Outreach through Leader of Terrorist Group Debbie Wasserman Schultz and company's disturbing embrace of radical Islam. December 7, 2015 Joe Kaufman In a push to do outreach to the local Muslim community, the Florida Democratic Party has officially recognized the American Muslim Democratic Caucus (AMDC), a group based in South Florida with members around the state. While this might look innocuous on its face, AMDC is headed by a woman, Ghazala Salam, who is the leader of a terrorist organization and has deep ties to various radical Islamic institutions. Salam is the Community and Government Relations...

Russia and Syria plan to significantly expand strategic relations in 2010. Officials said the Kremlin was discussing strategic programs with Syria during a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Syrian President Bashar Assad. "The Russian visit will mark a sign of support for isolated Syria, which Western countries accuse of supporting terrorism, although it mainly only supports Palestinian movements," Russian professor Yelena Melkumyan said. Ms. Melkumyan, professor at the Russian State University, said Syria marked an important regional partner for Russia. She said the Assad-Medvedev visit would result in strategic cooperation between Moscow and Damascus, both of which regard...

Egypt’s foreign minister paid a rare visit to Israel on Sunday, saying that his country remains a “steadfast and unwavering” supporter of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians but warning that conditions for achieving that are deteriorating. Sameh Shoukry’s trip was the first official visit to Israel since 2007 and reflected the strong but low-profile ties that have developed between the two countries in recent years. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Shoukry’s visit was aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. …

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Saturday rejected a proposal to include a statement in the party's platform calling for Israel's "end to occupations and illegal settlements," CNN reported. ... While the committee voted against the addition 95-73, CNN reported that the move garnered the loudest negative response of the day from the audience. ... One crowd member was escorted out of the meeting after he stood up and yelled that the party had "sold out" to AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

Taysir Kubaa, deputy head of the Palestinian National Council, on Thursday called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to abandon the path of negotiations with Israel which, he said, does not lead to success for the Palestinians. Speaking in an interview with Hamas's Palestine newspaper, Kubaa said that the Palestinian reliance on false negotiations is wrong, since negotiations are “worthless”, as he put it, and “the only option we face is a return to national unity and enlisting our people to the forces of the struggle.” Referring to the French peace initiative which calls for an international conference to renew peace...

The time has surely arrived for trilateral negotiations to be commenced between Israel, Jordan and Egypt to allocate sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza between their respective sovereign States The Quartet—America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations—has effectively consigned any negotiated two-state solution to political oblivion with its latest Report. Two statements in the Report stymie any resumption of negotiations—stalled since April 2014.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee heard expert testimony detailing the Palestinian Authoritie's payment of funds from its budget in assistance to imprisoned and dead terrorists and their families. Yigal Carmon, the president and founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute says that most of the funds come from donor countries like the US and western Europe, making them virtually complicit in attacks on Israeli citizens.

A senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recently threatened Israel, saying the ground is ready for the annihilation of “the Zionist regime”. The comments by IRGC Deputy Commander Hossein Salami were made at a sermon in Tehran this past Friday prior to prayers marking Al-Quds Day. He also declared that Iran has over 100,000 missiles waiting in Lebanon alone and that tens of thousands of other missiles were placed throughout the Muslim world in order to wipe "the accursed black dot" – that is Israel – from the map of the world. Salami also threatened Kurdish leaders...

President Hassan Rouhani said the last year’s nuclear deal “was the cheapest way to achieve Iran’s goals and interests.” Speaking in Tehran on Saturday at an iftar meal breaking the Ramadan fast, Rouhani said the pre-Iran nuclear-deal era is past and Iran now needs to take advantage of the new atmosphere to pursue its “national interests more than before,” Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called for student associations to establish a “unified anti-US and anti-Zionist front” among the Muslim world’s students, Tasnim News Agency reported. “By using advanced means of...

WASHINGTON -- Frustrated over a stall in an arms sale to Saudi Arabia, Obama once questioned the necessity of maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge in the region, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday. Panetta was confirming a report from Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg, who attributed the claim to him in an article on Obama's foreign policy doctrine published last March. The former Pentagon chief said the White House, at the time, was deeply concerned that Israel was preparing to unilaterally strike Iran. Simultaneously, the administration was also hoping to complete with Riyadh a significant sale of fighter jets....