Free Republic

They're back! The "Bomb Iran" crowd is making a big return to the political center stage after months of puzzlement over what to do about developments in the Islamic Republic. Hawks such as Daniel Pipes and John Bolton are arguing that Iran is dead-set on its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal -- and point to developments such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement this weekend that Iran would enrich its uranium stocks to 20 percent to argue that diplomatic avenues have reached a dead end. The would-be bombers fear that the mullahs will leverage their nuclear capability to expand Persian influence...

Six years ago, Yehuda Haim got on a bus to work one sunny February morning in Jerusalem, and paid with his life. Friday marks six years to the day, according to the Hebrew calendar, since a Jerusalem grocer, Yehuda Haim, was murdered on a bus that Arab terrorists blew up in Jerusalem. Ever since the restaurant at the Beit Agron Press Center in Jerusalem closed in 2001 because of declining tourism, Haim’s sandwich business at the corner grocery store had been booming for reporters. Yehuda would make each reporter a pre-prepared sandwich with fresh bread and any condiments the customer...

The singer who penned the lyrics to the ‘Exodus’ theme song was here last week with a delegation of Christian supporters of Israel. Even thought Pat Boone has sold over 45 million albums, enjoyed 38 Top 40 hits and starred in more than 12 Hollywood movies and a hit TV show during his ongoing 55-year career, there’s one song that his Jewish fans keeps wanting to hear from him – the “Theme to Exodus.” And as it turns out, it’s not only Jews, but also Christian supporters of Israel who are smitten with the “second Jewish national anthem,” as the...

Eleven people were arrested as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted while trying to deliver an address Monday night at the University of California, Irvine. Oren was speaking about US-Israeli relations and was interrupted nearly a dozen times. A young man began with the first outburst, yelling, "Michael Oren! Propagating murder is not an expression of free speech!" The man's yelling was followed by both heavy applause and objections. The outburst closely resembled part of a statement released by the university's Muslim Student Union (MSU) prior to and against Oren's appearance, which said "As people...

(IsraelNN.com) International travelers in and out Israel may find themselves in the Negev instead of at the venerable Ben Gurion Airport in a few years. Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who also is Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, has proposed a new international facility to boost growth in the Negev and take the load off the Ben Gurion airport, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran started making higher-grade nuclear fuel on Tuesday, state television reported, a defiant move that may increase pressure for new international sanctions on the major oil producer.

Palestinian child sings to victory over Israel and the US Feb. 8, 2010 Palestinian Media Watch Palestinian child sings about victory over Israel and the US: "Daddy gave me a present, a machine gun and a rifle" http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1643 by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik t :+972 2 625 4140 e: pmw@palwatch.org f: +972 2 624 2803 w: www.palwatch.org Violence is the ideal means to solve conflict. For years this has been the repeated message from both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas - from glorifying violence by honoring terrorists as role models to directly calling for the killing of Jews....

JERUSALEM – The women tattooed his name and portrait on their bodies and gave their children his name — Savior. They spoon-fed the bearded, one-time healer as if he were royalty, brushed his shoulder-length white locks, sent him text messages when they were ovulating and slept with him at his bidding. They turned over wages and welfare payments to him and lived in cramped, rundown Tel Aviv apartments with the children they bore him. According to police, he fathered some of his own daughters' children. The man, 60-year-old Goel Ratzon — whose first name is Hebrew for "Savior" — is...

"Culture matters. Race doesn't."The Third World is well known for voting against Israel in the United Nations General Assembly, and it is time to discuss the previously unmentioned elephant in the living room. These countries resent people of Euro-American background, and Jews in particular, because they remind them of the cultural inferiority that relegates their people to short lives of disease, poverty, violence, and abject squalor. Although no civilized person would say, as Pat Robertson did, that Haitians did "something" to deserve a catastrophic earthquake, Lawrence Harrison's "Haiti and the Voodoo Curse" shows what Haitian culture has done to make...

Mottaki says 'Zionist regime is in its weakest position' following Goldstone Report, Lebanon and Gaza wars, but warns entire region 'must be prepared for crazy operations against us' Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday referred to Israel as "a mad nation led by insane people". In an interview to the al-Jazeera network, Mottaki said that the Islamic Republic was not taking the Jewish state's threats to launch a military attack on its nuclear facilities seriously, but stressed that Tehran must be prepared for an Israeli attack. According to the Iranian minister, "The Zionist regime in the region is in...

Lebanon Sfeir: Possibilities of War Exist as Long as Hizbullah Wants to Play State RoleMaronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir lamented what he called continued Syrian influence in Lebanon and said that the possibilities of war exist as long as Hizbullah wants to play the role of the state."The side that has arms is forcing itself on others," Sfeir told al-Massira magazine in an interview. "The possibilities of war exist as long as Hizbullah wants to play the role of the state." The patriarch also rejected the presence of two armies in the country, calling "for the continuation of the struggle...

(IsraelNN.com) Prof. Nitza Nachmias of the Jewish-Arab Center in Haifa University says that if it wasn’t for UNRWA and its half-billion dollar annual budget, the Palestinian refugee problem would have been solved long ago. “In essence,” she told Arutz Sheva’s Shimon Cohen on Sunday, “there’s no such thing as Palestinian refugees. If people would stop calling the places in which they live ‘refugee camps,’ then they would see that these places are just like villages and towns anywhere else, and the inhabitants are totally rehabilitated… Refugee camps are like the maabarot [in which Israel housed its hundreds of thousands of...

Intel Israel general manager Maxine Fassberg: We want to build the next 22-nanometer fab in Israel, at an investment of $2.7 billion. ntel Israel Ltd. posted $3.4 billion in sales in 2009, 145% more than in 2008, as the company's Fab 28 in Kiryat Gat entered full production. Intel Israel general manager Maxine Fassberg said, "2009 exceeded all our expectations. We brought the Kiryat Gat fab to peak production capacity." Over the past decade, Intel Israel had $17.5 billion in exports. Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) invested $7.3 billion in Israel over the same period, including $3.3 billion in Fab 28....

One of the sad characteristics of contemporary Western society is the tendency to embrace noble lies. These are assertions and acts that don’t square with reality, with what we see and hear—and are voiced for apparently noble social purposes. Here are a few politically-incorrect examples.1.  Debt and Deficits. At our current rate we will very soon pile up between $18 and $20 trillion in accumulated national debt. We use the euphemism “stimulus”, talk of massive borrowing in terms of percentages of GDP, and casually pontificate about “inflating” our way out of the debt. The  fact is that the borrowing is now...

(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Israel Our Home party, says, "It's time to forget our obsession of "territory in exchange for peace; all future agreements must be based on 'peace in exchange for peace.'" Speaking at a party faction meeting on Monday, Lieberman said, "Peace is in fact our heart's desire, but it is not more important than Israel's existence as the state of the Jewish people or than lasting security for its citizens. We extend our hand in peace to enemies, but as long as they choose the path of war, we must be firm, return...

PM is the most moderate PA official, but doesn't represent Palestinian thinking. Imagine this. You’re a prime minister praised in the Western media as a moderate man of peace. You represent a people who the US president says is in an intolerable situation. You’re dependent on contributions from Western democratic countries that want you to make a deal. Your rivals have seized almost half the land you want to rule and work tirelessly to overthrow your regime and very possibly to kill you personally. But here comes a big opportunity. You are invited by your negotiating partner to its most...

Businessman Sheldon Adelson, the publisher of the Yisrael HaYom newspaper, fired a loud broadside over the decks of rival newspapers Sunday evening, accusing them of "dictatorial" practices. He also said that saw his newspaper as emulating the role that Fox News plays in the United States. Speaking at the Israel Media Watch media prize award ceremony, Adelson said that over the last 20 years, in which he has been visiting Israel very often, he noticed that “something seemed strange” about the political views of his friends in the Jewish state. While Adelson's own political views were “far to the right,”...

Two Israeli missile boats reportedly passed through the Suez Canal Thursday morning, according to Arab media reports over the weekend. Egyptian authorities reportedly adopted strict security measures to ensure the ships' safety. According to the reports, the two Navy ships traveled through the canal en route to the Red Sea.The sources did not provide the exact ultimate destination of the missile boats. However, Egyptian maritime sources quoted in the Arab media estimated that both ships were headed to the Persian Gulf and may reach it within four days. The veracity of these estimates is unclear. The sail through the Suez...

Human Rights Watch: Jordan revoked 2,700 Palestinians' citizenship recently. A US-based human rights group criticized Jordan Monday for stripping the citizenship of nearly 3,000 Jordanians of Palestinian origin in recent years. Nearly half the kingdom's 6 million people are of Palestinian origin and Jordan fears that if Palestinians become the majority, it will disrupt the delicate demographic balance. Concerned about increasing numbers of Palestinians in the country, Jordan in 2004 began revoking citizenship from Palestinians who do not have the Israeli permits that are necessary to reside in the West Bank. Human Rights Watch said Jordan stripped about 2,700 Jordanians...

Abbas disappointed with US stance Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was unhappy about the change in American policy toward settlement construction, in an interview published Sunday by Der Spiegel. Abbas told the German magazine he will not change his positions and will not agree to resume negotiations unless Israel completely halts construction in West Bank settlements and recognizes the 1967 borders. “These are not preconditions, but the first stages in realizing the Road Map and they should have been taken long ago. Unlike Israel, we stood up to our commitment – we recognized Israel’s right to exist and...

LATE last month, a Web site called the Electronic Intifada reported that Ethan Bronner, the Jerusalem bureau chief of The Times, has a son in the Israeli military. Others, including Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal media watchdog group, demanded to know if it was true and, if so, why it did not create an unacceptable conflict of interest for Bronner and The Times. Bill Keller, the executive editor, confirmed that Bronner’s son enlisted in the Israeli Defense Forces and said, “He’s a 20-year-old who makes his own decisions.” Bronner told me his son joined in late December for...

As Israel keeps threatening the regional countries with war, Egyptian maritime sources say the Israeli navy has deployed two missile ships to the Persian Gulf. Citing the sources, Yediot Ahronot reported Saturday that two Israeli missile ships passed through the Suez Canal en rout to the Red Sea on Thursday morning. The sources said the ships are expected to reach the Persian Gulf within the next four days. According to the report, Cairo adopted tight security measures to ensure the safe passage of the Israeli ships through the canal.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asked the country's nuclear chief to begin enriching uranium to 20%. He made the announcement a day after Western scepticism at Iran's earlier claim that a deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel was close. The US and European Union said they were unconvinced and Iran must make a meaningful offer or face new sanctions. Western countries fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. But Tehran insists its programme is peaceful. Civilian nuclear power requires uranium enriched to about 3%, but weapons grade uranium needs to be enriched to 90%.

Assume for a moment that you are a Palestinian parent. Assume (really, let your imagination run free) that you are a Palestinian parent who wants peace. You would presumably want to educate your children in the same spirit. So how difficult is it, if it is even possible, for parents who live in the Palestinian Authority today to educate toward nonviolence, tolerance, recognition of the State of Israel and peace? Sports are generally considered a good thing - a challenging, healthy activity. And that is certainly true of sports tournaments for children. A PA soccer tournament could be both fun...

It looks as if Iran has found allies in its quest to wipe Israel off the map -- the dopes at your friendly neighborhood Target store. On sale exclusively at Target is this innocent-looking toy globe. Thousands of these trinkets have already moved out of malls, from Queens to Honolulu, and landed in living rooms and kids' rooms across America. But folks who forked over a buck for the miniature worlds got less than they bargained for. These planetary models contain just about all the countries on Earth -- from France to China, Singapore to Spain. But there's one glaring...

A regional war may well be approaching. The actions and statements of Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian proxies over the past week or so indicate that this is what Israel’s enemies are gunning for. In preparing for this growing threat, Israel’s leaders need to consider more than just the military challenges it faces. They must consider the political actors at home and abroad that limit the IDF’s ability to fight to victory and develop strategies for neutralizing those actors. The latest developments are menacing. Last Saturday, Iran’s unelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to open up a new round...

The IDF’s deployment along the Golan Heights did not change on Thursday, despite the escalation in rhetoric on both sides of the Israeli-Syrian border. Relations between the countries took a turn for the worse on Monday, when Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a gathering of senior IDF officers that in the absence of a peace deal with Syria, Israel could find itself at war with its neighbor to the north. The war, he said, would be pointless since its conclusion would likely be followed by immediate peace talks that would focus on the same issues that are currently separating the...

Walid Othman Al-Rashoudi: "We would like to draw the viewers' attention to the attempt to hijack the Arabian Peninsula – Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Yemen – and to incorporate them in the false Persian state, desired by Khomeini's Safavid Persian followers. "It may come as a surprise – if not to you, to your viewers – that the American-Iranian alliance is one of the strongest alliances in the world. It is one of the strongest alliances in the world. Did this sink in, or is it too much of a shock?"

The Israeli government may be moving beyond its fear and loathing of a Syria governed by somebody other than Bashar Assad. For years, Jerusalem has been careful to avoid doing anything or even saying anything that might destabilize Damascus. But after Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Moallem, threatened Israel this week with a war that would be fought “inside your cities,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman snapped. “Not only will you lose the war,” he said to Assad, “you and your family will no longer be in power.” There are good reasons to feel squeamish about the aftermath of regime change,...

A regional war may well be approaching. The actions and statements of Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian proxies over the past week or so indicate that this is what Israel's enemies are gunning for. In preparing for this growing threat, Israel's leaders need to consider more than just the military challenges it faces. They must consider the political actors at home and abroad that limit the IDF's ability to fight to victory and develop strategies for neutralizing those actors. The latest developments are menacing. Last Saturday Iran's unelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to open up a new round...

DEBKAfile Iranian and military sources report the new war threats from Damascus are backed by massive Iranian airlifts for boosting Syria's missile arsenal. Fresh supplies have also reached Hizballah and Hamas.

KUWAIT: Kuwait will not allow its lands to be used as a base for any possible military strike against Iran, said a senior official, expressing "concern" at recent US military activities in the region. While the general feeling is that the situation in Iran is under control, the official said, "given the improbability of [Israel] opening foreign fronts in the Gulf or in Lebanon," there are concerns that Israel might go ahead with a military strike on Iran, "which would leave the United States with no option but to engage in a military conflict.

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program will neither completely stop Teheran’s nuclear march, nor bring down the ayatollahs’ regime, according to former Swiss ambassador to Iran Tim Guldimann. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on the sidelines of this week’s Herzliya Conference, Guldimann, who knows the Iranian way of thinking well, expressed – as a personal opinion – his deep concern about the military option against Iran. Guldimann was Swiss ambassador to Iran and Afghanistan from 1999 to 2004. As ambassador to Teheran, Guldimann – now senior adviser and head of the Middle East Project at the Center for Humanitarian...

Israel, Haiti - A Contrast In Life, Death And A Desperate Plea For Help (Photo) Israel Flying Aid provides food, medicine and treatment to children for severe trauma in Haiti. Photo: Ariel Shruster By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- February 4, 2010…… Having just arrived back from Haiti, I will attempt to transcend our soft, template existence here in Israel and articulate what life is like in Haiti. Many have described being in Haiti as having descended into a deep, dark nightmare. This would not be an accurate assessment. One awakens from a nightmare. Haiti is no nightmare....

In a paper published by the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Major General Amos Yadlin of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), in the Intelligence Research Center Journal, described the development of cyberwarfare, computer attacks in the 21st century, and the capabilities required from armies to fight this medium successfully. According to Maj. Gen. Yadlin, cyberwarfare is divided into three areas: intelligence gathering, defense and attack. "Anyone who is able to hack (personal computers, cell phones and internet) ends up knowing quite a lot. If you catch my drift," warned the Military Intelligence chief in the article. "Just imagine the...

(IsraelNN.com) In a recent speech in New York City, Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders, who became famous for a film on radical Islam, credited Israel with protecting the West.

I've been trying to answer this question for years: why? Why, of all the World’s conflicts, only this one interests them? Why a tiny country which struggles to survive is criminalized? Why does the manipulated information triumph so easily? Why are all the people of Israel, reduced to a simple mass of murderous imperialists? Why is there no Palestinian guilt? Why is Arafat a hero and Sharon a monster? Finally, why when it is the only country in the World which is threatened with destruction, it is the only one that nobody considers a victim?

A verbal juggling act Auschwitz speech, response to Goldstone characterized by dishonesty Ze’ev Tzahor Published: 02.03.10, 00:10 / Israel Opinion Two days separated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at Auschwitz and Israel’s response to the Goldstone Report. The two texts were very different in terms of their importance, length, and their intended audience. The Netanyahu speech was aimed at the Polish government, which currently holds an important EU status, while Israel’s response to the Goldstone report was meant to appease the UN. Yet despite the differences, it appears that the same person is responsible for drafting both texts; someone who...

We will issue a warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arrest if it turns out Israeli intelligence was behind last month's killing of a Hamas strongman, Army Radio quoted Dubai's police commissioner on Thursday. Dubai's police chief Dahi Halfan referred to the January 20 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was reportedly responsible for the smuggling of Iranian arms to Gaza. ?Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to assassinate [Mahmoud] al Mabhouh in Dubai. We will issue an arrest warrant against...

High School Students from Gaza Visit USA High School Students from Gaza Visit USA Date : 3/2/2010 Time : 18:14 http://english.wafa.ps/?action=detail&id=13708 JERUSALEM, February 3, 2010 (WAFA -PLO news agency)- The U.S. Department of State sponsored a two-week visit to the U.S. focused on human rights and democracy for a group of 30 high school students from Gaza. Two separate groups of 15 girls and 15 boys were selected because of their outstanding performance in their human rights classes at UNRWA schools in Gaza. Along with their teachers, the students visited Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; and New York City. While in Atlanta,...

Arab voices were fanning Middle East war fever Wednesday night, Feb. 3. DEBKAfile's military sources report that not only are Syrian leaders beating war drums - Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem said in Damascus: "Israelis, do not test the power of Syria since you know the war will move into your cities" - but Egyptian military sources have put out information purporting to outline Israel's preparations to strike Iran.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that if his country provokes Israel, it will not only lose the conflict, but his regime will collapse, Army Radio reported. "Assad should know that if he attacks, he will not only lose the war. Neither he nor his family will remain in power," Lieberman told an audience at a business conference at Bar-Ilan University. The Foreign Minister's remarks come after Assad on Wednesday said that Israel was pushing the Middle East toward a new war, during a meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos in Damascus. Advertisement...

•The rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus is only the culmination of the increasingly problematic policies pursued by the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). •Two factors in particular seem to have led to Turkey's shift away from Israel and toward Syria. First, Turkey no longer needed Israeli assistance to pressure the Syrian government to change its policy of providing safe-haven to the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Organization (PKK). Second, in the past seven years, once secular Turkish politics have undergone a profound Islamist transformation. •At the same time, the dynamic between the Turkish military and the state's civilian leadership has changed....

Even before the Goldstone Report was released, Richard Goldstone was arguing for its credibility by invoking his Jewishness, his Zionism, his daughter’s residence in Israel and his connection to Hebrew University. It was the mirror image of the classic fallacy known as the argument ad hominem, which is defined as follows: A substantive argument should not be rejected solely because of who has offered it. It follows of course from this fallacy that an argument should also not be accepted because of who offered it. A close relative of the ad hominem fallacy is what I have called “the argument...

Three strikes and you're out. Obama has blown two so far, and he's got one chance left when it comes to national security. What will happen if in the next twelve months or so the suicide-preaching fanatics of Tehran explode a nuclear bomb, as they obviously are dead-set on doing? What will happen if Israel tries a preemptive strike? What if the Saudis, Egyptians, and Gulf States then imported a Sunni bomb from Pakistan? All those countries are unstable and have sizable radical martyrdom groups trying to overthrow their regimes. If a nuclear Iran led a Shiite Axis with Syria,...

Navy Commander Brig. Gen. Eli Marom called Palestinian fishermen not to cooperate with terrorist groups. In a speech he made at the navy base in Ashdod, Marom addressed Hamas' barrels of explosives that have washed up on Israel's shores in the past few days: "The terrorist organizations are cynically exploiting the Gaza fishermen for terrorist purposes." According to Marom, "Sending barrels of explosives endangers the Palestinian fishermen and hurts their livelihood." (Hanan Greenberg)

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama does have a foreign policy. It’s called war. Unfortunately, the president has not defined any real difference between his hawkish approach to international issues and that of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. Where’s the change we can believe in? Bush left a legacy of two wars, neither of which was ever fully explained or justified. Obama has merely picked up the sword that Bush left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both wars lack a formal congressional declaration of war. In the struggle against terrorism one might say, "Who cares?" Well, one group that...

President needs dramatic gesture to change perception of him as lightweight ideologue. I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies. If Obama’s personality, identity and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the...

Gaza gunman claims many more bombs still at sea to avenge terror chief's death. Police sappers detonated a bomb found on the Palmahim beach late Wednesday afternoon, the third barrel containing explosives found on Israel's shores this week. Police closed down the entire area and shortly after 4 p.m., sappers blew up the barrel. A large explosion was seen and heard on the beach. The incident comes two days after two barrels containing explosive devices washed ashore on beaches in Ashkelon and Ashdod Monday. Both were destroyed by police sappers. Since Monday, dozens of policemen have been searching for additional...

Speaking at Herzliya Conference, Netanyahu praises Palestinian efforts to improve economy and build institutions, appeals to them to accept resumption of efforts toward peace accord. Photo by: GPO Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he had reason to believe that long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians could resume in a matter of weeks. Netanyahu did not give details, but an Israeli official indicated Israel would take a step to make it possible for the Palestinians to agree to talks. He did not give details and spoke on condition of anonymity because no offer has been made. Palestinians have been insisting...