Free Republic

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority (PA), called for a comprehensive strategy against Islamic extremism on Saturday - by blaming Israel for rising radicalization a la' the remarks of US Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry insisted on Friday that the failure of peace talks between Israel and the PA - not Western apathy to Islamism nor the US's failures to resolve tensions in Iraq - was the culprit for the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) group, sparking outrage from Israeli officials. "There wasn't a leader I met... who didn't raise with me...

A pair of activists in the state of Washington are promoting an anti-Israel curriculum that high school social studies teachers are considering adopting. Ed Mast and Linda Bevis, of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, have developed “The Palestine Teaching Trunk.” Bevis gave a presentation on it in October at the Washington State Council for the Social Studies annual meeting, Edward Alexander reported in The Weekly Standard on November 10, 2014. “In 1967, Israel seized control of the West Bank and Gaza from Egypt and Jordan,” the “Teaching Trunk curriculum reads. “Israel instituted a military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank—which...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow on Monday where the issue of Middle East peace talks will be raised, Russian authorities announced Thursday. “The two leaders will hold talks concerning key aspects of Russian-Palestinian relations and their future, with particular attention on the trade, economy and humanitarian sectors,” the Kremlin said in a statement according to AFP. There will also be “an exchange of ideas on the process of Israeli-Palestinian talks and other problematic regional situations,” the statement continued, adding that North Africa would also be on the agenda. …

Local militiamen in the Yemeni city of Aden said they captured two Iranian military officers advising Houthi rebels during fighting on Friday evening. Tehran has denied providing military support for Houthi fighters, whose advances have drawn air strikes by a regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic's main rival for influence in the Gulf. If confirmed, the presence of two Iranian officers, who the local militiamen said were from an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, would further worsen relations between Tehran and Riyadh who are vying for dominance in the region. Three sources in the southern port...

I am not generally given to doomsday fantasies, but I'm starting to get unnerved by where I see President Obama’s Middle East diplomacy taking us. Now that Israel’s Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu has been re-elected, with Obama’s knife is still firmly lodged in his back, we can reasonably expect the long anticipated Middle East regional wars to become a no-holds-barred slugfest. Just to recap, we have the Saudis already bombing the hell out of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Egyptians are bombing ISIS jihadists in Libya who slaughtered Coptic Christians. There are credible reports of Iranian troops massing...

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, represents everything the Jewish left hates. He’s a lifelong Republican, a former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan and a former member of Reagan’s cabinet. Baker’s positions on hot button social and political issues are the exact opposite of the positions taken by liberal-minded Jewish Democrats. Yet there was Baker delivering the keynote address at J Street’s national conference in late March, the most prominent left-wing Jewish group in America. How is that possible? The answer is that James Baker and J Street have found one issue on which they can...

It is ironic that as we prepare to celebrate Passover, the festival of freedom, we are facing vicious efforts by the vindictive leader of the United States, our greatest ally, who is abandoning us — the only democratic state in a region suffused with barbarism. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obliged to respond diplomatically to the outrageous provocations directed against him by President Barack Obama. But we Israeli citizens must rise above political correctness and come to terms with an unpleasant reality. The president of the United States, the leader of the free world and of Western civilization, is not...

The Times of Israel’s military correspondent takes stock, six years after writing a heartfelt letter in support of the presidential candidacy of a young senator from Illinois Sometime in the fall of 2008 I sat down at my desk and banged out an impassioned letter to my sister. She was on the fence, I knew, about the young senator from Illinois who was running for president. There was some talk in the family that perhaps, on at least one occasion, during the Bush years, she had voted Republican. We chalked it up to her decision, made as a college freshman,...

I am a gay Jewish American. My mother was the youngest of nine siblings, most of whom were married and had children when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. My mother spent four years confined in a ghetto and then was transported to two different slave labor camps. A month before the second camp was liquidated, she suffered an industrial accident and her right arm was severed at the elbow. Despite this, when the camp was liquidated, she survived a six-day death march before she was liberated. My father was one of five siblings and was confined to the same...

Many dismayed by Obama’s lack of understanding of Gulf politics Dubai: Reactions among Gulf citizens to President Barack Obama’s comments on the region were disparate, covering the gamut between derogatory and laudatory, but shock and dismay were the strongest emotions. Obama in an interview said that Gulf countries had legitimate grievances about external threats menacing them, but insisted that the biggest threats they faced were “not from Iran” but from within. “They have some very real external threats, but they also have some internal threats — populations that, in some cases, are alienated, youth that are underemployed, an ideology that...

A chilling new jihadi video has emerged on social media, showing a new militia of female jihadis firing machine guns and practising drills in Syria. All of the women are fully veiled, making it hard to identify individuals but it is possible the group may be linked to Islamic State. Standing on their parade ground, the radical women are shown shouting jihad slogans and attempting to use their AK 47 rifles.

Don’t look now but ISIS fighters are just a few short miles away from Bashar al-Assad’s Presidential Palace in Syria after taking control of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus where some 18,000 are trapped in what the UN calls a “beyond inhumane” situation. The camp, which has been under siege by the Assad regime for years came under attack by ISIS earlier this month who reports indicate may be working alongside al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm al-Nusra in what would be a break with recent precedent. Some Palestinian factions — who, alongside the Free Syria Army are battling ISIS for control...

Last week, as radical Islamists slaughtered 148 Christian students at a Kenyan university, America’s faithful celebrated Easter and Passover in tranquility, demonstrating why religious liberty is not the eccentric uncle in the human-rights family — it’s the matriarch. Yet with demonic evil spanning the globe, and religion a life-and-death matter, punishment for defending one’s faith is now acceptable in America. Our “live and let live” ethic is increasingly imperiled. Witness the firestorm after Indiana became the 20th state to enact its version of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In our morally upside-down world, we accommodate the nuclear ambitions of...

“I think the biggest threats that they face may not be coming from Iran invading,” said Obama. “It’s going to be from dissatisfaction inside their own countries.” While the president’s remarks were mostly overlooked by the U.S. and Western media, the comments received headline coverage in news outlets run by Iran and by the Hezbollah jihadist organization. Obama sat down Saturday with Times’ columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who asked about “protecting our Sunni Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia.” Obama explained he thinks “that our friends in the region, our traditional Sunni states, have some very real external threats, but they...

In the Assad regime's heartland, dead officers are sent home in ambulances, while the corpses of ordinary soldiers are returned in undecorated pick-up trucks. Then come the press gangs: military recruiters raid houses to find replacements by force for the dwindling ranks of Syria's military. Sharing their sect with President Bashar al-Assad, Alawites have long been the core constituency for the Syrian regime. As the civil war drags into its fifth year, the minority sect is seen by opposition rebels as remaining unwaveringly loyal.

You are not alone look beside you and find me filling your Wellspring with hope even now as the enemy flees with his lies and " T "rue hope becomes your warmth and understanding, that My light is upon you to shed all darkness and though things now seem out of reach "Truly " (( ( I AM ) )) and this is all you Truly need to know for I have already laid out your steps before Me and nothing can alter your path in Me alone . So come closer and completely dissolve all your worries into Me...

Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Planning Directorate, told Israel Hayom in a weekend interview that when Israeli leaders say “all options are on the table” with regard to Iran, they mean it. “If someone builds a nuclear bomb and at the same time declares that the State of Israel has no right to exist, then we have to think about how to respond,” he said. “It goes beyond a simple challenge." When asked if Israel might take “dramatic steps” in defiance of the American position, Sheffer answered positively: "When it comes to our national...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State has taken control of 90 percent of a Palestinian refugee camp on the Damascus outskirts where 18,000 civilians have suffered years of bombing, army siege and militia control, a monitoring group said on Saturday. The hardline group's offensive in Yarmouk gives it a major presence in the capital. Islamic State, the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, is now only a few kilometers from President Bashar al-Assad's seat of power. The United Nations has said it is extremely concerned about the safety and protection of Syrians and Palestinians in the camp. Civilians trapped there have...

The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating. This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.