Free Republic

Headline: “Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich aims to legalize 68 outposts in Judea and Samaria and has instructed various ministries to prepare to provide them with public services.”Although Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir are portrayed as extremist fringe politicians within Israel and by the world for claiming all the land “from the river to the sea,” truth is that this has become the national, centrist consensus in Israel.After October 7, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been adamant that in the future Israel will exercise 100% security control from the river...

… Question 1: On Oct. 7, the terrorist group Hamas slaughtered young Israelis at a music festival as well as other civilians in surrounding communities. They murdered, stabbed, shot, raped, beheaded, burned. They forced children to watch the butchering of parents. They cut off the breasts of women. They killed the defenseless elderly. They abducted and continue to hold innocent civilians hostage. Did you protest that massacre in the days, weeks, months after Oct. 7. At least once? Did you fly flags, wave banners, demand justice? If not, why not? Why do you protest only Israel? Question 2: In the...

When the dangerous and fanatic leaders of Iran called the state of Israel the “Little Satan” and the USA the “Big Satan,” they were planning for the destruction of both.When Muammar Ghaddafi decided not to build nuclear weapons, he envisioned that he would be able to control Europe by having his loyal males marry the women of Europe, and dominate the continent in 30 years!When many radical Muslim spiritual leaders across the globe, preach for world domination of Islam and the destruction of all Infidels, they mean every word that they utter. Unfortunately, their followers take these words as a...

Let’s talk about the red hands on the Oscar pins and why it’s a fraught and painful issue for many of us who care about Israel: You didn’t know me then, but back in 2000, I was a freshman at UC Berkeley when things got crazy in Israel when the Second Intifada erupted. I will never forget the first time it hit me hard – I had just finished taking an anthro 1 quiz. I was drinking a green tea boba tea. And I was reading CNN online when I saw the story about the lynching in Ramallah. Two Israelis,...

Ehud Barak, noteworthy Israeli army general with a highly decorated military career, acquired public notoriety last year for his role in masterminding, organizing, and financing, the sweeping protest campaign against judicial reform in Israel. Throughout 2023, prior to the slaughter of October 7, he and his like-minded political allies sowed chaos in the streets, intimidated citizens, mobilized strikes, incited army reservists, and brought Israel to the precipice of civil war. They engaged in a so-called non-violent struggle for democracy, speaking on behalf of entrenched elites in Israeli society, while charging that the elected government of Binyamin Netanyahu was illegitimate. Now,...

Israel is now engaged in the fourth war it has had to fight for its survival. The three others were fought in 1948, 1967, and 1973. In addition, there have been a half-dozen other campaigns the Israelis have had to fight against the terrorists of the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The IDF soldiers, their ranks increased with the addition of 360,000 reservists, have been fighting up and down the Gaza Strip, a hellishly difficult theatre of war — that is, urban warfare in one of the most densely-populated places on earth. Israel’s mortal enemy, the terror group Hamas, has built...

Ironically, Hamas’s gruesome attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, instead of unleashing a flood of criticism of jihadist Muslims, has turned up the fire under the apparently ever-simmering cauldron of anti-Semitism. Everyone seems focused on Jews — even obsessed with them. But the loudest voices are those raised in condemnation of the Israelis, their supporters, and worldwide Jewry. There are a number of tropes that Jew-haters dredge up on such occasions: the debunked but widely disseminated Soviet psy-op pamphlet The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; the Jews as Christ-killers; the popular trope that the Jews “own the banks”;...

In all my years, covering nearly half a century, of studying, practicing, and teaching Judaic and secular law, I have never seen such gutless cowardice and irresponsible “adjudication” as what just has transpired in Israel with the Israeli “Supreme” Court voting 8-7 to ban a Constitutional Amendment regulating them. On top of that, they rule two days later on the Incapacitation Law. All amid an existential war that, if not prosecuted as a nation united, could result kiv’yakhol (as though possible, G-d forbid) in a situation where there would be no country left to implement those corrupt rulings, reached as...

Amid Israel's ongoing war with Hamas, Jewish entertainment figures have come together to issue an open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences criticizing their exclusion from being specified as an underrepresented group. "An inclusion effort that excludes Jews is both steeped in and misunderstands antisemitism," reads the letter, organized by the group Jew in the City's Hollywood Bureau for Jewish Representation. "Jewish people being excluded from the Motion Picture Academy's Representation and Inclusion Standards is discriminating against a protected class by invalidating their historic and genetic identity."

In all my years, covering nearly half a century, of studying, practicing, and teaching Judaic and secular law, I have never seen such gutless cowardice and irresponsible “adjudication” as what just has transpired in Israel with the Israeli “Supreme” Court voting 8-7 to ban a Constitutional Amendment regulating them. On top of that, they rule two days later on the Incapacitation Law. All amid an existential war that, if not prosecuted as a nation united, could result kiv’yakhol (as though possible, G-d forbid) in a situation where there would be no country left to implement those corrupt rulings, reached as...

[Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]Leftists generally know nothing about Jesus Christ and care even less, but around this time of year, they find it useful to invoke him, particularly as a prop to support their latest pet causes and buttress their propaganda. And so we have now been treated to the spectacle of that most thoughtful and learned of our elected representatives, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Would You Like A Lime With That?), informing us that Jesus was from a family of “Jewish Palestinians.”It simply won’t...

Let's look at the latest garbage about Israel from Politico, as it is illustrative of the “reporting” by the corrupt, know-nothing media and their surrogates. First, read Politico’s headline and the attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his judicial reform effort: “Israel’s Supreme Court overturns a key component of Netanyahu’s polarizing judicial overhaul.” If you know nothing about this subject, the headline alone suggests Netanyahu is undermining Israel's judiciary. “Polarizing”? The truth is that since the 1990s, Israel’s Supreme Court has been seizing power from the elected parts of Israel's government — their Knesset and the prime minister...

There never has been an independent, self-governed national entity called "Palestine." In Biblical times, the region now encompassing Israel was known as Canaan, which included the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The term "Palestine" originally referred to a small area occupied by the Philistines (as one theory has it), from whence comes the name "Palestine." In Roman times, the area was known as Judea and was ruled by Jewish kings, and, under the Roman Emperor Constantine, became a Christian province generally known in Europe simply as "The Holy Land." The name "Palestine" was not legally applied until the British occupation...

Leaders of elite schools disgrace themselves before Congress—and expose the rot at the core of American higher education. Forget Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, now in theaters: if you want to watch an epic drama of vanity and failed leadership that ends in catastrophe, just tune in to the hearing held this week by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Summoned to account for the surging anti-Semitism on their campuses, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania delivered a masterclass in obfuscation. When New York representative Elise Stefanik asked them whether calling for the genocide of the...

CHANUKAH Chanukah also spelled Hanukkah and known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. Hanukkah (Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה, usually spelled חנוכה pronounced [χanuˈka] in Modern Hebrew, also romanized as Chanukah or Chanuka), is observed for eight nights and days. According to the Hebrew calendar, it starts on the 25th day of Kislev, which may occur from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. #Chanukah Did you know these facts? Hanukkah is less...

The New York Times reports that a rocket fired during the Oct. 7th invasion of Israel, presumably by Hamas, struck near the Sdot Micha military facility in central Israel. International experts believe that the base houses the IAF unit 'Wing 2', which is responsible for the majority of Israel's nuclear-capable Jericho missiles. The attack caused a fire near the base but does not appear to have caused any damage, or even danger, to the missiles themselves. The report nevertheless claims that new defenses have been added to the base against future rocket attacks. Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of...

Rep. Jerry Nadler is very upset that Republicans are forcefully condemning all forms of anti-Semitism. During the Dec. 5 House vote on a GOP-led resolution denouncing anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, the 15-term congressman from New York displayed an unusual level of ignorance of Jewish history—especially for someone with a yeshiva education. “If they were at all familiar with Jewish history and culture, [the resolution’s authors] should know about Jewish anti-Zionism that was, and is, expressly not antisemitic,” Nadler fumed. He, along with Jamie Raskin, Gregory Meeks, Dan Goldman and others, voted “present” and encouraged other Democrats to do likewise. Ninety-three of...

International aid to Gaza is the only process that ensures its survival. This rather strange situation has no equivalent in any other place in the world except for the scientists living in Antarctica. Gazans are the most welfare-dependent population in the known universe, producing nothing except a few vegetables. And yet nobody asks why. Let us be crystal clear that every last Gazan would go elsewhere in the world if this aid stopped. The answer lies in the fact that the world’s powers hate what Israel stands for and, believe it or not, that’s not its Jewishness: It is, instead,...

After an initial delay on Saturday, another group of hostages was released by Hamas. As part of the deal, Israel then released an even larger group of terrorists who committed various violent acts, from stabbing to shooting attacks. As my colleague Jeff Charles chronicled, the reactions in Gaza and the West Bank were sickening and disturbing. Videos began to emerge of the released terrorists draping themselves in Hamas flags and symbology, showing that exactly zero lessons were learned. Prisoners after being released by Israel...wearing Hamas symbol. pic.twitter.com/D8qfN9ed96— Jeff Charles, An Awful Pundit🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) November 24, 2023There was one video in...

Survey by Palestinian polling firm shows 75% support for October 7 massacre. Defeating Hamas is just the first step if there ever is to be peace. Palestinian society is going to have to change, much like German and Japanese societies changed after their defeat.. We shouldn’t have to do this. But lowlife scum have been spreading false claims either that the Hamas massacre on October 7 never happened (e.g. The Palestinian Authority, you know, ‘the moderates’) or that Israeli did the killing (internet clickbait personalities like Jackson Hinkle and pathological anti-Israel fanatics like Max Blumenthal). So we continue with the...