Free Republic

AMMAN/BEIRUT - About 30 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Bashar Assad have been killed in the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, Syrian activists said on Monday. Sunday's reported death toll was the highest for Hezbollah in a single day's conflict in Syria, highlighting the increasing intervention by the guerrilla group originally set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation troops in south Lebanon. If confirmed, the Hezbollah losses also reflect the extent to which Syria is becoming a proxy conflict between Shi'ite Iran and Gulf...

In an outdoor café, wearing jeans and his trademark black T-shirt, Finance Minister Yair Lapid gave his first interview to foreign press since taking office. “Lapid has embarked on a media blitz, deploying his telegenic good looks and sound-bite savvy,” the newspaper observed. In the interview, Lapid acknowledged that thousands of settlers would someday be uprooted, something he called “heartbreaking.” The interview itself revolved mainly around the stalemated negotiations with the Palestinians, but also on the future aspirations of the Yesh Atid chairman. Lapid told the NYT that he is still hoping to succeed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but clarified:...

State TV says troops have captured key buildings in the town centre, a claim strongly denied by activists. Rebels say 50 people have been killed while state media says 70 "terrorists" are dead. Lebanese militants are said to be involved - Hezbollah siding with the government, Sunni gunmen with rebels. The town - close to the border with Lebanon - has great strategic value. Its control would give the government access from the capital to the coast. For the rebels, control of Qusair means they can come and go from Lebanon, says the BBC's Jim Muir, in Beirut. The assault...

A group of North Koreans claim to have hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, are holding hostages, and demand some 600,000 yuan in ransoms. The initial hijacking took place on May 6, but authorities are struggling to pin down exactly what happened. They are investigating the boat owner's claims that his ship and its crew were taken, but officials have been silent. North Korea isn't just fun-runs and basketball stars; there is a serious concern that the hijackers were in the nation's military, and may be harming their prisoners, as South China Morning Post reports: Yu [the boat owner] was not...

Word is that both Israel and Turkey are seriously entertaining the notion of constructing an undersea pipeline to deliver Israeli natural gas to Turkey and, perhaps, hence to Europe. The Turks reportedly have expressed willingness to foot part of the estimated $2 billion bill. Such pipelines exist elsewhere in the world, most notably from Russia and from Norway. It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel. Turkey, it appears, hankers after Israeli gas. The perceived Turkish softening was fueled by Israel’s offshore gas discoveries, a fact which nevertheless did...

Keith Cressman of the locust-fighting unit of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said, Sunday, that the locusts crawling around Israel's southern border will start flying in two weeks and be most destructive as they prepare for the trip to the breeding grounds in northern Sudan. Following a tour out in the field, Cressman said he was impressed by the manner and pace of the Agriculture Ministry's determined war on the pests. The ministry is using ground spraying against every swarm that enters from Egypt, with air spraying as needed, around the clock. It noted that there were fewer...

A senior Hizbullah terrorist was among 20 members of the group who were killed in intense fighting in Syria on Sunday, Al Arabiya reports. According to the report, the Hizbullah terrorists were killed in the Syrian town of Qusayr, following clashes between Syrian rebels and regime forces who attempted to enter the town earlier in the day. Sources also told Al Arabiya that dozens of Hizbullah members were wounded during the fight and had been taken to hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon for treatment. .....

The government investigative committee that was set up to determine the truth of allegations that IDF soldiers killed 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura during the "Second Intifada" have determined that not only were the allegations – and a report by French television purporting to show IDF soldiers shooting and killing the boy – a lie, but that the al-Dura may not even be dead. ..... ....The fact that he was still alive at the end of the French television video, after the gunfire had stopped, could mean that the boy is alive even now. “Since this issue was first raised there have...

Arab vandals defaced the tomb of Shimon Ben Yaakov—believed to be the burial place of the father of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. While the tomb—located near Kibbutz Eyal, just off Route 6—is not one of the most popular tombs of forefathers, it is frequented on a more or less daily basis by Jews. …

“The Jewish religion is under attack in Europe”, declared the Conference of European Rabbis president Pinchas Goldschmidt. Many polls (such as the study on behalf of the German Social Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation) bring an iconic number measuring the disaster: 150,000,000 Europeans have a delegitimizing and demonizing view of the State of Israel and its citizens. For a large sector of Europe, the cities, skyscrapers, hospitals, cinemas, and schools on that tiny sliver of land named "Israel" are merely real estate that will be restored to Islam once this malefic Jewish form is swept away. This is a popular mobilization...

Despite President Obama’s assertion on Thursday that he reserves “the options of taking additional steps, both diplomatic and military,” foreign intervention in Syria seems a distant prospect, and that, along with a string of military successes, has fueled the perception that president Bashar al-Assad now has the upper hand in his country’s bloody civil war. As Republican Sen. John McCain bluntly put it this week: "Right now, Bashar al-Assad is winning."

If there’s one thing you can say about Bashar al-Assad, it’s that he has staying power. For more than two years, the Syrian president has defied predictions that his downfall is imminent. His regime has certainly suffered many setbacks during the brutal civil war that shows no signs of ending, but it's clear right now that Assad and his followers have been gaining momentum. The most recent example came just a few days ago, when Syrian forces took control of a town near the highway that links Damascus to neighboring Jordan. After battles with the opposition, government troops reopened the...

Israel is acting to prevent Syrian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hizbullah and will continue to do so, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, AFP reports. His remarks came two weeks after air strikes near Damascus that were widely attributed to Israel, which a senior Israeli source said were aimed at preventing the transfer of sophisticated Iranian arms to Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shiite ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu said the Middle East was going through its most sensitive period for decades, with the conflict in Syria at the center of the turmoil. "We are closely following developments and...

A new investigation released by Wall Street Daily just revealed a disturbing pattern of price manipulation in the energy markets. The six-month investigation, conducted by renowned energy analyst, Karim Rahemtulla, was triggered by the incredible disparity in gas prices between the United States and Europe. The price of natural gas in the United States is presently about $4/mcf. Yet the price in Europe is upwards of $15/mcf. “Such mispricing simply cannot occur in an efficient market,” says Rahemtulla. For the global economy to function properly, the energy markets must be priced efficiently. It can be no other way. Any malfeasance...

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles and has aimed them at Tel Aviv, the British Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Syria is preparing to strike Israel in case the Jewish State launches another attack on its territory. The army has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out, according to the Sunday Times. The information was reportedly obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles, which are capable of carrying a warhead of a half a...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said eight people were killed,...

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Syrian strongman Bashar Assad said in a weekend interview to an Argentinean newspaper that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime. “Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he said. “Firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them." Assad also told the Clarin newspaper said that rebels had attacked a radar station instrumental to Syria’s antiaircraft defenses against Israel, but gave no further details. The reporter asked Assad if he had any “self-criticisms." He replied: “It’s illogical to carry out self-criticism before...

<p>CEOs of large organizations all face the same problem – driving their agendas in organizations too diverse and geographically dispersed to manage directly.</p> <p>They hire competent managers for their units, set goals and establish clear metrics for evaluating performance. As in politics, competition in business is tough, and CEOs must set ethical boundaries for their managers’ conduct.</p>

The members of the emergency security squad (kitat konenut) at Amona, in the Binyamin region, announced Friday that they are collectively resigning their posts, after police arrested two of them. Police say that the two men had been throwing rocks at Arab marauders near their community, despite the fact that the IDF and police were present. The members of the emergency team have reportedly handed in their guns and communications radio to the army. The two men were under arrest at the Judea and Samaria (Shai) District Friday, but the police said they would be released before the Sabbath. "I...

Bedouin tribes in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula implied on Thursday that they were better off living under Israeli rule and that they have been suffering since Israel withdrew from the region as part of the peace agreement with Egypt. The residents of the Sinai spoke to the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, after local tribesmen kidnapped seven Egyptian security personnel near the city of El-Arish. The seven were kidnapped by an unknown group in north Sinai while en route to Cairo. Local residents said the kidnapping was "retaliation" by Bedouin tribesmen for heavy-handed security policies adopted by the Egyptian interior ministry. Mohamed El-Asati,...

The Inspector General released a report this week and found that 63% of scrutinized IRS applications were withdrawn or were still unresolved. Conservative, Tea Party, pro-Israel and Christian groups were targeted by the IRS. (GRAPHIC-AT-LINK) The Obama IRS refused to grant tax exempt status to Christian and pro-life groups on behalf of the abortion group Planned Parenthood. “In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group...

After weeks of a 21st century version detente between Washington and Moscow over the declining state of affairs in Syria, and possibly looking at a joint situation to the ongoing civil war that has gripped the nation, it appears Russia has decided to stop cooperating and continue supplying their allies within the Assad regime. According to two U.S. media reports: Russia has deployed at least a dozen warships to its Mediterranean Naval base in the Syrian City of Tartus and sent a large shipment of anti-ship missiles to the Assad regime, which could be used to defend against any potential...

Report: Russia sends Assad 'ship killing missile' Russia delivers Yakhont missiles, warships to Assad; Lavrov: Arms deal won't change regional balance of power Russia sold advanced Yakhont antiship cruise missiles to Syrian President Bashar Assad, outfitted with an advanced guidance system that makes them more effective than the older version of the missile Russia sold to Syria, The New York Times cited two American officials as saying on Thursday. These missiles will allow Syria to thwart any attempt by international forces to reinforce Syrian rebels by imposing a naval embargo or no fly zone, Nick Brown the editor in chief...

Al-Hamad, who is Wahhabi (extremist Sunni) and harbors a sectarian hatred for Alawite and Shiite Muslims, said he has another gruesome video of his killing a government soldier from the Alawite faith. “Hopefully we will slaughter all of them [Alawites]. ... Human Rights Watch (HRW), which validated the video, released a report on May 13 identifying al-Hamad as a well-known commander responsible for the recent cross-border shelling of a Shi‘ite Lebanese village that killed two. The organization called on the U.N. Security Council to refer the Syria situation to the International Criminal Court to ensure accountability for all war crimes...

Having once had the highest approval rating going back to Truman, George W. Bush left office with an appalling 34 percent approval rating – the same as Jimmy Carter. He could not attend the Republican Party’s 2008 National Convention for fear of hurting the party’s election chances. With the recent opening of his Presidential Library, Bush’s approval rating hit a seven-year high of 47%, but that was downplayed as a trend of Americans looking on their presidents more fondly after they’ve left office. And intense disapproval of Bush’s handling of a number of issues, including the war in Iraq and...

A man identified on Twitter as Abul Ala and claiming to be a Salafist-Wahhabist cleric, has decreed women should not turn on air conditioners or coolers at home, in the absence of their husbands... "turning on the cooler ventilator is prohibited for women in the absence of their husbands" because "the woman's act is very dangerous, and may bring about immorality in the society. When she turns the cooler on, someone may notice her presence home, and this might bring about immorality". ... In April, a Salafist cleric called Sheikh Yasir al-Ajlawni posted a YouTube video claiming the rape of...

'A controversial Church of Scotland report which questioned the divine right of Jews to the land of Israel has been rewritten. The 10-page discussion paper is due to be debated and voted on at the Kirk's general assembly next week. Last week Israel's ambassador to the UK described it as "truly hurtful". The Kirk said its revised version of The Inheritance of Abraham? paid attention to the concern over some of the language in the earlier report. The Church of Scotland made the changes following a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community in Britain facilitated by the Council of...

Russia has sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that US and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria's bloody civil war, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. On Thursday, Syria's official news agency SANA reported that five Russian warships had crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean Sea. A Russian Navy spokesperson said this was the first time in decades that Pacific Ocean Russian warships sail in the area.

Israel Shipyards Introduces the SAAR 72 Mini-Corvette Design Israel Shipyards is expanding the SAAR class of missile boats, extending the range from missile boats into ‘Mini Corvette’ class vessels. The new class is addressing the growing requirements of Israel and other nations in extending maritime control and sovereignty far from their territorial waters. Defense-Update reports from IMDEX 2013. Visit IAI at IMDEX 2013 The Israel Navy is required to expand the security and responsibility over much larger area while doing that with an ageing fleet of Saar 4, 4.5 missile boats and 5 corvettes. If only to maintain the numbers...

Russia has shipped an advanced antiship cruise missile to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said on Thursday. Russia has previously provided Yakhont missiles, as the weapon is known, to Syria. But the missiles that were recently delivered are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them far more accurate, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports. The new missile “contributes to Syria’s overall military capabilities, but specifically it would tend to push Western or allied naval activity further off the...

For six years, Rafat Shororo longed for the taste of a KFC sandwich he had eaten in Egypt. This week, he got his finger lickin' fix at home in the Gaza Strip after a local delivery company managed to smuggle it from Egypt through underground tunnels. "It has been a dream, and this company has made my dream come true," says Mr. Shororo, an accountant, as he receives his order from the delivery guy. The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple...

Residents of Beit El in the Binyamin region demonstrated Thursday against the continued rock terrorism against them by Arabs from the adjacent village. Last week, a woman from the community was injured when an Arab boy stood near the perimeter fence and threw rocks into the community. "We really don't understand where the sovereign power is," a resident said. "Enough with this disgrace. We are being discriminated against in order to please Obama." A week does not go by without an attack against Beit El by Arab terrorists. "This is terror and every incident it must be treated like the...

Arab terrorists who in the past served terms in Israeli prisons warned prisoners currently being held for terrorism to watch out for a group of undercover informers seeking to trip them up, who are known as “birds.” The network apparently stretches far and wide, with these "birds" tasked with wheedling out confessions that lead to convictions through a mixture of charm, camaraderie and favors. The “birds” usually pose as terrorists themselves, the Arabs said, as reported by AFP. Ahmed Azzam, 30, says his first exposure to the "birds" was after several unsuccessful Israeli attempts at interrogating him. “When I was...

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni wants punishment for "price tag" operations – as Jewish nationalistic vandalism is called – to be legally defined as terrorism. She is in the process of proposing a law to this effect and is expected to present it to the Cabinet next week. The law would mandate heavy punishment against people convicted of such vandalism and those who express support for it. It will also make it possible for the police and Shin Bet to take harsher measures against suspects in the vandalism, like the measures that are taken against Arab terrorists. Minister of Public Security...

A New Zealand Defence Force peacekeeper has been released after a five-hour abduction in a contentious Israeli border area. The army officer, one of eight New Zealanders serving as a United Nations military observer, was abducted from an observation post on the Golan Heights, on the border between Israel and Syria.

The state is looking to authorize four West Bank outposts, including Givat Assaf that had been slated for demolition, according to a response it submitted Tuesday to the High Court of Justice as part of an ongoing Peace Now petition. Until Tuesday it had been assumed that the Givat Assaf outpost on Route 60, in the Binyamin region of the West Bank – would be demolished because it had been built on private Palestinian property. But last year the Givat Assaf residents told the court they had purchased much of the land on which their outpost, of some 30 families,...

A United Nations agency has caused a firestorm after an official of the organization proudly posed with a map that only lists Palestine. The U.N. official posed with the map in which Israel did not exist in Lebanon, and the whole area from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea was listed as "Arab Palestine." During a presentation of German-funded projects in Lebanon earlier this month, Ann Dismorr, the director of the United Nations Agency Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in Lebanon, held up the map which included Jordan, Syria and other neighboring countries, but...

A senior Israeli official signaled on Wednesday that Israel was considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamist Hizbullah – and warned President Bashar Assad against any kind of retaliation against the Jewish state. The New York Times quoted the Israeli official who said, “Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hizbullah. The transfer of such weapons to Hizbullah will destabilize and endanger the entire region.” “If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he...

SodaStream is an Israeli company which makes a really cool and really popular product, essentially a make your own soda at home device. I plan on getting one. Its U.S. division is SodaStreamUSA.This video shows the SodaStream story of building bridges between Jews and Arabs:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl85AL1l0H0Nonetheless, SodaStream has been the subject of a vicious boycott by the anti-Israel BDS movement, that grouping of Islamist, anti-Israel leftists and academics and other fringe players like Code Pink, which seeks to delegitimize Israel. The latest iteration, as you know, was the pressure campaign which succeeded in convincing Stephen Hawking to boycott an Israeli conference.SodaStream...

Manufacturing in the West Bank has collapsed due to a flood of cheap Chinese imports and the effects of the Israeli occupation. But one family is holding the line as the last local producer of a symbol of Palestinian resistance. No one told the looms at the Hirbawi Keffiyeh factory that business is slow in the West Bank. Some are as old as the factory, bearing the inscription “1961.” But they still churn out the fabric for traditional Palestinian head scarves, and at a deafening pace. This is the only Palestinian factory that still produces keffiyehs, popularized by the late...

Iran persuaded Syrian President Bashar Assad to allow Hezbollah to open "a new front" from which to attack Israel in the Golan Heights, Israel Radio reported Wednesday citing a report by the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. According to the report, an Iranian source told the newspaper that Tehran is determined to prevent the fall of Assad's regime in Damascus, because the Syrian president has been convinced to open the Golan to all Arabs and Muslim wanting to fight Israel.

Canada has deported to Lebanon a “Palestinian” man who lived in the country for the past 26 years over a 1968 attack on an Israeli airliner, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Monday, according to the AFP news agency. Issa Mohammad immigrated to Canada using a false alias in 1987, after being convicted by a Greek court of storming a civilian airliner and killing a passenger and later being released from jail in a hostage exchange.

5 Questions on Russian S-300 Missile System Sales to Syria MOSCOW, May 14 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti) – If fresh media reports are true, Russia, Syria’s longtime supplier of military equipment, may soon provide Damascus – or already has – with advanced S-300 air defense systems, tipping the balance in the devastating 26-month conflict in the Middle Eastern country. But the “if” is a big one. The missile batteries would give Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime a powerful weapon against foreign air strikes – one of the options being bounced around as a form of international intervention – and could...

For starters, to set back human progress. You would think the Left would love a country that has universal health care, prosperous trade unions, and same sex marriage. All of these things can be found in Israel. Yet where Israel is concerned, none of these count with the Left. -------------------------- Well, if not for Israeli science and technology, Stephen Hawking could not communicate with the world. As Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney, stated, “His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should...

Two months after the Obama administration released $250 million in aid to Egypt in what Secretary of State John Kerry called “a good-faith effort to spur reform,” the country is witnessing a surge of anti-Israel sentiment, much of it stoked by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood. “Israel is our enemy,” senior Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leader Mohamed el-Beltagy chanted during a rally outside a prominent Cairo mosque on Friday, accusing the Jewish state of “irresponsible and apprehensible crimes against our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine and Syria.”“As Muslims, we will stay as one, generation after generation, and our goal will remain...

In those first minutes, they'll be stunned. Eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, nerve endings numbed. They'll just stand there. Soon, you'll notice that they are holding their arms out at a 45-degree angle. Your eyes will be drawn to their hands and you'll think you mind is playing tricks. But it won't be. Their fingers will start to resemble stalactites, seeming to melt toward the ground. And it won't be long until the screaming begins. Shrieking. Moaning. Tens of thousands of victims at once. They'll be standing amid a sea of shattered concrete and glass, a wasteland punctuated by...

Israelis will have to cut down on their expenses due to the planned austerity measures but at the same time, according to figures released on Monday, the budget of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Residence has increased by 80% over a period of four years. The figures, which the Prime Minister’s Office had to release to the public following an appeal to the Jerusalem District Court by the Movement for Freedom of Information, show that the budget of the Prime Minister’s Residence was 3 million shekels in 2009, but jumped to 5.4 million shekels by 2012. The numbers show an increase...

Another day, another story of a brutal attack by Arabs against Jews. And as usual, most news outlets will not cover this news. A large-bodied Arab man attacked an elderly Jew in Jerusalem's Old City last Saturday. The victim's daughter, Tali Hoffman, told Arutz Sheva that her father was making his way to Shacharit prayers, as he does every Sabbath, from his home in the Muslim Quarter to the Kotel. When he arrived at HaGay Street, just a few dozen meters from the Kotel, the Arab man stepped out of a falafel shop and tried to knock him down by...

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a backlash after reports surfaced that his office was charged an extra $139,000 for a bed on a recent five-hour flight to London. The uproar comes as Israel faces a new austerity budget, tax hikes and just two months after the Netanyahu residence’s $2,700 annual ice cream bill came to light.