Free Republic

2020 saved its weirdest twist for August: Jared Kushner’s going to win a Nobel prize.They’ll never give it to Trump, not even if he negotiates world peace. But Jared, the White House’s foremost Democrat, might be acceptable to the committee. His most intriguing comments this morning after normalized relations between Israel and the UAE were announced haven’t been noticed much elsewhere, to my surprise: “There is a good chance that another country could make a deal with Israel in the coming days,” Kushner said at the White House. Speaking to reporters after he unveiled the historic agreement, Trump suggested...

Turkey claims it is “breaking a blockade” by sending naval ships under the guise of a research mission to the Mediterranean. For a country that is a member of NATO – and which has sent drones to Libya, is busy bombing northern Iraq and occupies part of northern Syria – Turkey’s narrative that it is under “blockade” is a novel approach to fan its latest maneuvers in the Mediterranean. Never in history has Turkey been less under blockade than it is today, yet it has manufactured a crisis with Greece to lay claim to areas of the Mediterranean, asserting it...

IDF fighter jets attacked a Hamas underground infrastructure in the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday, the IDF Spokesperson confirmed. The attack was in response to several explosive balloon attacks from Gaza to Israeli territory during the day. Earlier on Thursday, after nearly six months without incendiary balloons, five fires broke out in the Gaza border communities. At least three of them were caused by incendiary balloons. Furthermore, a balloon carrying an explosive device was found in the Arad industrial zone. "The State of Israel will not accept any violation of sovereignty and harm to the residents of the south," said...

DUBAI: A fire broke out at an Iranian industrial area near Tehran on Tuesday, Iran’s state TV reported, the latest in a string of fires and explosions, some of which have hit sensitive sites. “The fire broke out at the industrial area of the Jajrud district in the Pardis county this morning ... there were no casualties ... firefighters are trying to contain the fire,” it said. A fire department official told state TV that the cause of the fire was under investigation. There have been several other incidents at facilities in the past weeks, including a fire at the...

Genocidal Arab leaders, 1930s, 1940s, 1960s and recent... 1920 Politische Studien - Volume 41, Issues 309-314 - Page 535- 1990 1929 – wieder Unruhen , Pogrome in Hebron , Jerusalem , Jaffa und der sich seit damals immer wiederholende Ruf : » Atbach al Yahud « ( schlachtet die Juden ) . Als die Unruhen 1936 bis 1939 ausbrachen , änderten die Engländer ihren ... https://books.google.com/books?id=jBtHAAAAYAAJ&q=yahud+atbach The Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas on September 21, 1938 · Page 3Nearly 2,000 Persons Killed in Two Years of War Waged by Arabs To Drive Jews Into Sea Palestine Has Become Home of...

Not sure about links from AP. clink on link to see.

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates minister of state for foreign affairs said on Saturday that Turkey should stop interfering in Arab affairs, criticizing comments on Libya made by Turkey’s defense minister. Turkish media had reported the Turkish minister making remarks critical of the UAE’s actions over Libya. The UAE, alongside Egypt and Russia, backs eastern Libya commander Khalifa Haftar, whose fighters have been battling the forces of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli. Turkey has stepped up support for the Tripoli government. “Relations are not managed by threats and there is no place for colonialist delusions in this day and...

Several fuel tankers have caught fire at a truck park near the western Iranian city of Kermanshah, sparking panic among local residents. Governor Fazlollah Ranjbar was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying that the fire broke out on July 28 during repair work to a heavy vehicle before spreading to seven others. The governor, however, denied there was an explosion. “We did not have any explosions anywhere in the city today and the black smoke that citizens see in the sky of Kermanshah metropolis was related to the fire in this truck park,” Ranjbar said. The blaze...

WASHINGTON — A Japanese rocket launched the United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars July 19, an orbiter that will study the planet’s weather while demonstrating the country’s growing space capabilities. The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 5:58 p.m. Eastern. The launch was originally scheduled for July 14 but delayed five days by poor weather at the launch site. The rocket’s upper stage released the Emirates Mars Mission, or Hope, spacecraft, nearly an hour after liftoff. The spacecraft contracted controllers shortly after separation. Hope is a 1,350-kilogram satellite developed by the Mohammed bin...

At least seven ships were on fire at the Iranian port of Bushehr Wednesday. The news of the ship fires was first reported by Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, and later reported by Reuters. Initial reports indicated three ships were on fire at the Iranian port, but updated reporting indicated the fire had spread to at least seven ships. The ship fires in Iran follow a pattern of unexplained explosions and fires at Iranian military and industrial facilities in recent weeks. “Several ships are on fire in the port of Bushar, southern #Iran,” tweeted Walla News foreign affairs editor Guy Elster,...

BEIRUT: Zakaria Al-Omar was walking through Beirut when a stranger robbed him at knifepoint, a desperate crime of a kind that has become increasingly common in crisis-torn Lebanon. The small Mediterranean country is mired in an economic crisis marked by a steep currency fall and runaway inflation that have plunged nearly half of the population into poverty. Omar, a 37-year-old graphic designer, recalled the terrifying and tragic encounter that started when a man in his 40s crept up behind him as he walked alone at night through Beirut’s Hamra commercial district. “He told me that he didn’t want to hurt...

After 19 years, $2 trillion, more than 20,000 wounded, almost 2,000 killed, and layer upon layer of lies, itÂ’s time to end the war in Afghanistan. On September 26, 2001, CIA teams infiltrated Afghanistan to seek out and organize Afghanis willing to topple the Taliban-controlled government. U.S. Army Special Forces advised and assisted Afghani allies in taking back their country, and by December 6, Taliban forces left their last stronghold in Kandahar.A little more than two months after the United States began its retaliation campaign against those who harbored the terrorists responsible for September 11, Afghanistan was no longer a...

Over the past several weeks, a series of "mystery explosions" has happened at very strategically sensitive locations inside Iran, and it has become obvious that what we are witnessing is not just a bunch of random accidents. For years, the Israeli government has pledged that the Iranians will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and several of the sites where the mystery explosions have taken place have direct connections to Iran's nuclear program. For example, there was a very large explosion at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility on July 2nd, and it is being reported that some officials believe...

Bolton is a thin-skinned and snarky figure who succeeded in convincing a surprising number of smart people in Washington that he is somehow serious and statesmanlike. In the good old days of the internet blogosphere, there was a running bit at Jeff Goldstein’s blog Protein Wisdom which provided a name for John Bolton’s prominent mustache – “Regis”, a globe-trotting nuke-loving Hamas-bashing sexually aggressive bon-vivant with lush whiskey-tinged follicles. The image is ridiculous of course, but it is not far from the image the real John Bolton paints of himself in the absurdly entertaining pages of his book, the inaptly named...

Do not miss this inspiring message from Amir, one of his best presentations ever. Get your thoughts off COVID-19 for a while and look at the rest of the world and what we should actually be doing. The first part is a discussion of Netanyahu and what is going on politically in Israel. The middle section is probably the only lucid account of the confusing scene over there in the Middle East that you will hear. The third and best part is an inspirational and superbly well-informed explanation of Pentecost and what it means to us as believers, with a...

So far, two dictators have been toppled and have been replaced by interim governments (with a striking resemblance to the previous ones), and there is a civil war in Libya. There are demonstrations throughout the Middle East, and indeed throughout the world, driven by mass movements demanding greater freedom. But there are also many demonstrators who want more rigid governmental control, typically inspired by fundamentalist Islamic codes that would dramatically worsen the civil rights of women, members of other sects and faiths, and more liberal Muslims. It’s a fight, with enormous stakes for the people involved and for the...

He insulted the currency and shared the video on social media. The Dubai Police have arrested a young man over a video that he posted on social media in which he can be seen insulting the UAE's national currency. In the viral video, the suspect can be seen pretend-sneezing and using a currency note to clean himself. He has been referred to the authority concerned for further action, the police said. The police said that the cybercrime law specifies a maximum fine of Dh1 million and a prison term for insulting the country or its symbols. The police also posted...

A massive fire erupts at a residential tower in Al Nahda in Sharjah. A massive fire was reported at a residential tower in Al Nahda in Sharjah on Tuesday night, Gulf News learnt. The quick response by Sharjah Civil Defence teams averted a major disaster, authorities said.Image Credit: Gulf News The name of the building is Abbco Tower. The fire started at 9.04pm, according to Sharjah Civil Defence teams. Residents have been evacuated. Civil Defence crew from Mina fire station and Al Nahda rushed to the spot to control the blaze after the police operation room received a call reporting...

JERUSALEM — A plague of locusts considered “extremely alarming” is headed toward Africa and the Middle East but is likely to bypass Israel. ...The swarms represent “an unprecedented threat to food security,” according to the Locust Watch website. Among the countries expected to be the hardest hit are Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan and Sudan, according to the report.

The oil price war that Saudi Arabia and Russia started will hurt the fiscal revenues of the oil producers in the Persian Gulf, including the Saudis, OPEC’s top producer and the world’s top oil exporter, according to credit rating agency Fitch. “The collapse in oil prices will clearly be seen in fiscal numbers for the Gulf,” Jan Friedrich, the senior sovereign analyst for the Middle East and Africa, said on Monday, as carried by Reuters.