Free Republic

Jerusalem will seal the fate of the current peace negotiations. Jews and Arabs must square the circle and recognize the legitimate demands of each side in order to clinch a genuine peace agreement. Is doing so a geometrical impossibility or can Jerusalem transcend the limits of political geometry? […] The Gordian knot negotiators need to tackle is reconciling Arab sovereignty aspirations with Jewish security rights. This political aporia can only be solved by looking beyond the bounds of European political convention. Although there are good reasons to oppose a Palestinian militarization of east Jerusalem, there is no reason Arabs in...

Iran publicly refused to recognize “the Israeli regime” during a full meeting on Thursday of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The move appeared to stun not a single onlooker at the United Nations, but prompted a sharp response from Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. During the opening moments of the 68th UNGA’s 60th plenary meeting, Iran’s representative took the floor to reiterate her country’s distaste for the Jewish state. The UNGA meeting was held to mark a procedural—and typically uneventful—vote in which nations meet to approve the credentials of various U.N. member states. While Iran, like every other nation,...

The European Union (EU) is apparently fed up with the lack of progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and is threatening to take action against both sides if the talks fail. A senior EU official said Tuesday that the bloc was considering cutting its annual aid to the PA if the current round of talks fails to end in an agreement. The EU provides the PA with about 300 million Euros in aid per year. As well, the official was quoted by Israeli media as having said, the 28-nation bloc was considering reviving its plan...

Iran: The nuclear deal with Tehran is right out of the Neville Chamberlain appeasement playbook. A straight line can be drawn from President Obama's 2009 overture to Islamists and this historic misjudgment. The Great Appeaser, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, is best known for his September 1938 "peace for our time" speech hailing the Munich Agreement. But six months later, even after Kristallnacht and just after the Munich-breaking Czechoslovakia occupation, he was still denying reality. "I hoped in going to Munich to find out by personal contact what was in Herr Hitler's mind," Chamberlain said in March 1939, quoting the...

MOSCOW — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Moscow on Thursday after failing in a last minute attempt to move Russian President Vladimir Putin away from backing a Iranian nuclear deal taking shape in Geneva. After four hours of talks in Moscow, Russia’s leader told reporters, “We, in Russia, have an optimistic view on the Iranian nuclear problem." The Israeli leader faced an uphill battle in Moscow. Russia is a northern neighbor of Iran and is known for sitting on the fence about Iran’s nuclear program. On Monday, Putin talked by telephone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Afterwards, a Kremlin...

Christianity is just a “generation away from extinction” in Britain unless churches make a dramatic breakthrough in attracting young people back to the faith, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has warned. Clergy are now gripped by a “feeling of defeat”, congregations are worn down by “heaviness” while the public simply greets both with “rolled eyes and a yawn of boredom”, he said. His comments at a Christian conference came as a stark report laid before the Church of England’s General Synod warned that its position as a “national institution” will be in doubt if numbers in the pews...

What do the Bible, "The Hunger Games" and "Fifty Shades of Grey" have in common? All three are works of fiction, according to the booksellers at Costco. Pastor Caleb Kaltenbach made that shocking discovery last Friday as he was shopping for a present for his wife at a Costco in Simi Valley, Calif. “All the Bibles were labeled as fiction,” the pastor told me. “It seemed bizarre to me.” Kaltenbach is the lead pastor at Discovery Church, a non-denominational Christian congregation in southern California. He thought there must be some sort of mistake so he scoured the shelf for other...

“Gay Marriage” as a Sign of the End Times Posted on November 1, 2013 by Pastor Scott Originally published September 15, 2011 Harold Camping was wrong about Judgment Day, but he was right that the rise of the homosexual movement is a sign of the end times. We are probably all familiar with the oft-cited fact that the collapse of numerous civilizations prior to our own were heralded by a rise in sexual immorality, especially homosexuality. That alone should alert us to the grave situation we find ourselves in today. But there is a deeper spiritual significance beneath that statistic....

As the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lurch forward, the burning question is: will Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank put an end to Palestinian claims? According to an Israel TV scoop, the Palestinians in the current peace talks seem not to have budged an inch on their “right of return.” Even if Israel is negotiated back to the 1967 lines, will the Palestinians renounce their “right of return”? This issue cannot be brushed aside as rhetoric: it is intimately bound with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. >>SNIP<< The...

I know the adage goes “let him who is without sin, cast the first stone,” but some people deserve to be written a ticket to damnation…with the greatest sin being utter stupidity. Meet televangelist Rick Joyner (pictured), who recently made headlines for openly praying to God for a military takeover of the U.S. government. While appearing on ”Prophetic Perspective on Current Events,” Joyner claimed that democracy in America has failed and that the nation might not last even to the end of President Barack Obama‘s term. Why not? Well, according to Rev. Crazy Town, America is teetering toward tyranny. You...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met on Monday at the State Department with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In remarks to reporters before the meeting, Kerry said, “Israel, as everybody knows, is a very special friend to the United States of America. And we have just had a very constructive luncheon with the President and a very important meeting before that with a larger group of people. And now the Prime Minister and I will talk about both Iran, the Middle East peace process, Syria, and issues of concern.” Video .....

(Vatican Radio) The following is a joint statement of the Bilateral Commission of the Holy See and the State of Palestine at the conclusion of their plenary meeting on 26th September 2013. "On 26 September 2013, the Bilateral Commission of the Holy See and the State of Palestine, which is working on a Global Agreement following on the Basic Agreement, which was signed on 15 February 2000, held a Plenary Session in the Vatican to acknowledge the work done at an informal level by the joint technical group following the last official meeting held in Ramallah at the Ministry of...

The US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have reportedly reached an impasse due to an Israeli refusal to discuss land-swap and border issues, an Israeli newspaper reported Sunday. According to an unnamed, senior foreign diplomat with knowledge of the discussions, during the latest round of talks, the Israeli team of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Netanyahu adviser Yitzhak Molcho made it clear to the Palestinians that Israel intends to keep some of the settlement blocs inside Israel as part of a final agreement, but refused to name which areas or discuss possible compensation to the Palestinians for...

Reuters and other news agencies are reporting that the Pope has capitulated on several issues such as homosexuality, abortion and contraception. The PopeÂ’s remarks were taken from a 12,000 word interview with the Jesuit periodical, Civilta Cattolica, (Catholic Civilization) the most prominent statement reaching news agencies is his declaration that the church needs to shake off its obsession with abortion and homosexuality. The Pope has pleased the liberal factions of the Catholic Church and sickened and worried the conservative members of the church. Few have reported on the prophetic implications of the PopeÂ’s remarks and with some exceptions, such as...

There’s an astronomical tall tale from the Middle Ages that seems to get recycled as factual every time a “great” comet rolls around. This week, we thought we’d look at a story that just won’t die, as well as a new twist in comet conspiracy that’s rolling around ye’ ole ‘Net.

As talk and rumors of an impending Western attack against Syria mount, a top Syrian official said Monday that if attacked, his country would react – against Israel. Speaking to an Arabic-language radio station operated by the United States, Syria's Deputy Information Minister Halaf Al-Maftah said that Israel would face not only Syria in the event that the US, Britain and France attempted to unseat Bashar al-Assad. A coalition consisting of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria would respond to any attack against Assad with a response against Israel. In addition, terrorist groups in Syria and Lebanon would attack Israel with...

U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians will result in dramatic Israeli decisions, the chief Israeli negotiator predicted on Tuesday. Tzipi Livni coupled her forecast with acknowledgement that at least one partner in Israel's right-wing coalition opposed the goal set by the United States, which is brokering the talks, to create a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. Livni, speaking on Israel Radio, said "there will be dramatic decisions" by Israel at the end, and negotiators had agreed not to disclose details about their deliberations in order to build trust. "We are arguing, but we are arguing inside the...

In the wake of the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat’s angry letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry about Israel’s new settlement building amid the resumption of peace talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his own letter to Kerry over the weekend, lambasting the Palestinians for failing to curb incitement against Israel. Netanyahu wrote to Kerry that leading Palestinian Authority officials were calling for Israel’s destruction even after peace talks resumed on July 31 in Washington — the first major effort since negotiations broke down in 2008. Incitement and peace don’t go together,” Netanyahu wrote, explaining that new generations...

The top US military officer is scheduled to arrive in Israel and Jordan next week, in a visit which will focus in part on Iran and the war in Syria, the US military said Wednesday. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet in Israel with his counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, to discuss advances in Iran's nuclear program, which Israel regards as an existential threat, given the Islamic regime's declared ambition of destroying the Jewish State, and continued support for anti-Israel terrorist groups. "In Israel, the chairman expects to discuss the United States'...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas laid out his vision on Monday for the final status of Israeli-Palestinian relations ahead of peace talks that have resumed in Washington for the first time in nearly three years. Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.