Free Republic

You may have heard: President Donald Trump replaced his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, with John Bolton. You may have heard because of the mixed reaction to the prospect of Bolton running national security — “mixed” as in apocalyptic among leftists and heaven-sent to many on the right. Look no further than the pro-Israel spectrum for each extremes: “We are horrified by his selection to be national security adviser and believe this move by the president gravely imperils our country’s national standing and the fundamental security of the United States and its allies, including Israel,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president...

'Pompeo is a hawkish ideologue'The far-left J Street lobby announced that it opposes CIA Director Mike Pompeo's nomination for Secretary of State and urged Senators to scuttle appointment. "We oppose Pompeo’s nomination and urge Senators to vote against his confirmation," said J Street. "Pompeo is deeply ill-suited to manage US foreign policy and, in particular, the future of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran." "Even in an administration known for its fundamental hostility to diplomacy, Pompeo stands out as a hawkish ideologue and an extreme advocate for the use of military force," continued the statement. "He called for the use...

Two high-level Iranian government backers, including a former Islamic Republic official and another accused of lobbying on Tehran’s behalf, were hosted at the Obama White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates. Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of its national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to...

Rep. Mark Pocan (D., Wis.) has been identified as the anonymous member of Congress who reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum that is being organized by several organizations that support boycotts of the Jewish state, according to congressional sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon. News of the June 8 anti-Israel event, which was first disclosed earlier this week by the Free Beacon, sparked outrage on Capitol Hill and initiated a search to identify the anonymous member of Congress sponsoring the event. The event, which sources confirmed to the Free Beacon is being sponsored by Pocan,...

President Obama’s July 31 phone call organized by the anti-Israel group J Street and other progressive Jewish groups could be summed up in one sentence: Please help because, those rich people are helping those warmongering Jews to fight this wonderful Iran deal because they don’t like me and they want war just like they did in Iraq. In the 20 minute call Obama said that opponents of the Iran deal come from the same “array of forces that got us into the Iraq war” and that a “bunch of billionaires who happily finance super PACs” are “putting the squeeze on...

Democratic Senator Chris Coons from Delaware betrayed his backers and his voters when at the end of the summer, as the Senate returned from recess, he announced that he was supporting President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Coons announced his decision in an address at the University of Delaware. There Coons acknowledged that the deal was terrible for America. He detailed all the ways the deal harms US national security and places US allies, including Israel at grave risk. “Frankly, this is not the agreement I hoped for,” Coons began. “I am troubled,” he explained, “that the parties to...

..... Here is the exchange between Virgina Senator Tim Kaine (D) and Tillerson: KAINE: Mr. Tillerson, thank you. I encourage people to fly north to south not just east and west, and other parts of the world have a claim in our attention, but there are some real opportunities. I assume you support the U.S. position that's been in place since the 1940s to do what we can to provide a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine with a living peacefully side by side, that is the dream we hope for that region and I assume that you support that?...

Did the community organizer from Harvard Law just deliver some personal payback to the IDF commando? So it would seem. By abstaining on that Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and invalid, raged Bibi Netanyahu, President Obama "failed to protect Israel in this gang-up at the UN, and colluded with it." Obama's people, charged Bibi, "initiated this resolution, stood behind it, coordinated on the wording and demanded that it be passed." White House aide Ben Rhodes calls the charges "falsehoods." Hence, we have an Israeli leader all but castigating an American...

President-elect to nominate attorney David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman: I look forward to serving from Jerusalem. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will nominate attorney David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel, the transition team said in a statement on Thursday, according to Reuters. Friedman served as Trump’s advisor on Israel affairs during the election campaign. "(Friedman) has been a long-time friend and trusted advisor to me. His strong relationships in Israel will form the foundation of his diplomatic mission and be a tremendous asset to our country as we strengthen the ties with our allies and strive for...

While the overwhelming majority of Jewish voters voted for Hillary Clinton over President-elect Donald Trump, the Republican candidate still received the second-highest total Jewish vote for the GOP in the past 30 years, beaten only by Mitt Romney in 2012. According to a poll released on election night for J Street by Democratic pollster Jim Gerstein, “there is a bloc of Jewish Republicans — it exists, it is small, but it is not going away.” ... Brooks also noted that Jewish representation on the Republican side of the lower house had now doubled with David Kustoff’s appointment for Tennessee. Jewish...

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=8FMMfVCojvE The organization J-Street, seen as representing the Jewish far-Left in the US, has publicized in recent days a video which attempts to label Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as holding positions equivalent to those of the Israeli Right. The video, however, may have backfired for J-Street, as it has gone viral - and representatives of the Trump camp claim that it only serves to bolster support for Trump. Representatives of the Trump campaign in Israel told Arutz Sheva: “We thank J-Street for saving us the budget for another video ..."

I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's Vice Presidential nominee, is a longtime favorite of Saudi and Iranian funded J Street, which favors cutting up Israel piece by piece. On Capitol Hill, Senator Kaine, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has consistently advocated the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the only way to ensure that Israel can survive and flourish as a Jewish and democratic state and that Palestinians can live with independence and dignity. He was also a leader in the successful effort to...

Two delegates to the Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee — one appointed by Hillary Clinton and the other by Bernie Sanders — said the platform must reflect the hardships faced both by Israelis and Palestinians. [Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., appointed by Sanders and Clinton respectively, said] “Palestinians struggle under an unjust occupation that deprives them of the rights, opportunities and independence that they deserve. That is the reality of a conflict that has gone on for far too long and at a terrible cost.” The statement was released by J Street, the liberal Middle East policy...

'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...

TEL AVIV – A group that advocates a nuclear-free world and was identified earlier this month by the White House as central in helping to market the Iran nuclear deal to the news media has funded National Public Radio since 2005, an Associated Press investigation has revealed. Think tanks funded by the Ploughshares Fund include the Arms Control Association, Brookings Institution, and the Atlantic Council, the AP reported. Unmentioned by the AP is that the Ploughshares Fund is financed by billionaire GEORGE SOROS' OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE. The involvement of Ploughshares in selling the Iran agreement to the public was revealed...

The first lesson from how the Iran deal was sold to the public is that it is important to follow the money. Eight hundred eleven op-eds. Three hundred fifty- two letters to the editor. Two hundred twenty-seven editorials. That’s the number of “pro-diplomacy” articles that Ploughshares Fund takes credit for helping support as part of its “proactive” media campaign to support the Iran deal last year. They “were published during critical moments of the Iran campaign,” the website of the fund boasts in its 2015 annual report. The revelations about the work that this one fund did to support the...

The leftist American Jewish group J Street on Sunday issued a response to the revelation that it received more than half a million dollars to advocate for the Obama administration's controversial nuclear deal with Iran. The expose, revealed by Associated Press, noted that the Ploughshares Fund was named in an explosive New York Times profile of Obama aid Ben Rhodes, in which the President's chief propagandist listed the central groups responsible for creating an "echo chamber" in order to promote the deal. J Street was listed as receiving $576,000 to sell the deal, in a sum greater than that of...

J-Street received more than half a million dollars to advocate for the Obama administration's controversial nuclear deal with Iran, it has been revealed. The liberal Jewish group, which bills itself as "pro-Israel and pro-peace" but which critics say takes solely anti-Israel stances, was paid the money by the White House's main surrogate organization for selling the deal. The Ploughshares Fund was named in an explosive New York Times profile of Obama aid Ben Rhodes, in which the President's chief spin doctor listed the central groups responsible for creating an "echo chamber" in order to promote the deal, even when the...

J-Street received more than half a million dollars to advocate for the Obama administration’s controversial nuclear deal with Iran, it has been revealed. The liberal Jewish group, which bills itself as “pro-Israel and pro-peace” but which critics say takes solely anti-Israel stances, was paid the money by the White House’s main surrogate organization for selling the deal. The Ploughshares Fund was named in an explosive New York Times profile of Obama aid Ben Rhodes, in which the President’s chief spin doctor listed the central groups responsible for creating an “echo chamber” in order to promote the deal, even when the...

Vice President Joe Biden’s jabs at Israel’s prime minister during a speech Monday evening at a gathering for a left-wing Israel lobbying group amount to “payback from the White House,” retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. In an address delivered at J Street’s annual convention in Washington DC, Biden singled out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for criticism, expressing his “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli leader’s policies. “I firmly believe that the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts,...