Free Republic

n the first large-scale study of ancient feline DNA, the results reveal how our inscrutable friends were domesticated in the Near East and Egypt some 15,000 years ago, before spreading across the globe and into our hearts. The study was presented at the International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Oxford, UK back in 2016, and sequenced DNA from 209 cats that lived between 15,000 and 3,700 years ago - so from just before the advent of agriculture right up to the 18th century. Found in more than 30 archaeological sites in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, these ancient feline...

(Original title too long, at "BREAKING: The Captain Of Flight MS804 Is A Muslim Linked To Major Muslim Terrorist Involved In Killing Americans In Benghazi) So look what we have here. Amr Khaled is a well known Muslim Brotherhood Jihadi of the first class known in Egypt. And what do we know. Look here. He shares his friendship and old photos on that flight with the captain of the crashed Egyptian flight MS804, Mohammed Said Shaker/Shukeir. Amr Khaled: “I was with Captain Ahmad Shukeir in the plane that is missing in one of my journeys. He is the kindest of...

(Original title too lengthy: The Largest US Foreign Policy Blunder Since Vietnam Is Complete: Iran Readies Massive Syrian Ground Invasion) On Thursday, in “Mid-East Coup: As Russia Pounds Militant Targets, Iran Readies Ground Invasions While Saudis Panic”, we attempted to cut through all of the Western and Russian media propaganda on the way to describing what Moscow’s involvement in Syria actually portends for the global balance of power. Here are a few excerpts that summarize what’s taking shape in the Middle East: Putin looks to have viewed this as the ultimate geopolitical win-win. That is, Russia gets to i) expand...

[This is from the International Edition of SCMP] China has won the bid to co-produce a multibillion ($3Billion) long-range air and missile defence system in Turkey, in what is its largest and most advanced arms sales to a NATO country. The Turkish defence minister announced the decision to approve the US$3 billion bid by China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp, rejecting rival offers from Russian, US and European firms. The winning Chinese FD-2000 system beat the Patriot, the Russian S-400 and the French-Italian Eurosam Samp-T, it was announced on Thursday. [snip]

Archaeologists rewrite timeline of Bronze and Iron Ages, including early appearance of alphabet FOR RELEASE: Dec. 19, 2001 Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr. Office: 607-255-3290 E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu ITHACA, N.Y. -- Using information gleaned from the sun's solar cycles and tree rings, archaeologists are rewriting the timeline of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The research dates certain artifacts of the ancient eastern Mediterranean decades earlier than previously thought. And it places an early appearance of the alphabet outside Phoenicia at around 740 B.C. Writing in two articles in the forthcoming issue of the journal Science (Dec. 21), archaeologists from Cornell University ...

Israel is routinely beset by attacks, physical and rhetorical, at the hands of its hostile neighbors and the Western media and elite. Our mistake is to assume that we can counter those attacks with logic, reason, and evidence. We assume that we are presenting our arguments to people who want to objectively examine the arguments on each side of the conflict, and then come to a rational conclusion to discern right and wrong. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Take this example. Just days after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran publicly claimed that the Holocaust was a fabrication, Mark Steyn...

Christianity began in the East, not the West, yet today Christians in the East are enduring an all-out-assault by Islamic terrorists, while Christians in the West live their lives largely oblivious to it all. This has to change. This is no imaginary persecution; in Syria alone there have been reports of kidnappings, Christian communities intentionally displaced by militants and, worst of all, shootings and beheadings of Christians who refused to convert to Islam. In Egypt radicals have recently destroyed dozens of churches, and the once vibrant Christian population in Iraq has been decimated. Christians in the West should stand up...

Islamist rebel forces in Syria have killed 45 Christians in the west-central town of Sadad, the largest massacre of Christians yet in the Syrian conflict. In the wake of the killing, an Orthodox archbishop has mourned, “We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is the human consciousness? Where are my brothers?” According to Agenzia Fides, Syrian Orthodox Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh reported that Islamist rebels entered the town on October 21st; a week later, it was re-captured by the Syrian army. “What happened in Sadad is the...

“These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” ~ Erdogan, PM of Turkey Turkey took another step backwards this week … lurching toward Sharia … when 4 female MPs marked the end of a ban enforced since the early days of the Turkish Republic. The female MPs were wearing headscarves, as they walked into Turkey’s parliament in Ankara on Oct. 31st, designating the end of a prohibition vigorously imposed since the dawn of a secular Turkey. On its face, this step...

For moral, ethical and biblical reasons, the United States should not drop bombs on Syria. To cross Syria’s boundary, a country which has not attacked us, is to show a profound lack of respect for its national sovereignty. Had Syria attacked us, we would of course have the moral right to use whatever military force is necessary to neutralize the threat to our own sovereignty. But absent the moral justification of self-defense, we have no right to be there. The Scriptures are clear that the boundaries of the world’s nations are established by God (Acts 17:26), and those boundaries should...

The New York Times story, "President Gains McCain's Backing on Syria Attack," is predictable, considering that Obama had invited Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to the White House for the specific purpose of supporting his proposed military strike on Syria. Obama has also asked the same two senators to travel to Egypt to undermine the military leaders who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government there. What is lacking from the media coverage is any recognition that the inevitable result, according to congressional testimony, will be the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood and associated terrorist groups in Syria, and...

Dr. Kamil Sedik, secretary of the Congregational Council in Alexandria, has condemned repeated attacks by Islamist groups against Coptic Christians in Egypt, saying that authorities are permitting the violence by not providing adequate security for vulnerable Copts."Copts are subjected to violence by criminals, who were released from prison by deposed President Morsi, because of their [Copts] ideological affiliation," Sedik told Mideast Christian News. Moreover, Sedik accused government officials of failing to cope with criminal attacks against Copts. "The government does not provide security for Copts, but it tolerates prisoners who are under investigation," he said in reference to the meeting...

The oldest example of grave flowers has been discovered in Israel. An ancient burial pit dating to nearly 14,000 years ago contained impressions from stems and flowers of aromatic plants such as mint and sage. The new find "is the oldest example of putting flowers and fresh plants in the grave before burying the dead," said study co-author Dani Nadel, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa in Israel. snip... Past evidence suggested that humans only started using flowers in graves more recently. (A 35,000-year-old Neanderthal burial site called Shanidar Cave in Iraq contained pollen, but subsequent research revealed that...

Brian Godawa has been writing a fascinating fantasy series that takes place in the ancient Near East. It began with Noah Primeval which was rooted in the question, “What was going on in the world that was so horrible that mankind needed destroyed?” The series continued with Enoch Primordial (actually a prequel), which centered around the enigmatic Enoch. A man barely mentioned in the biblical accounts, but because he never died, and the other books attributed to him recount many a strange event, he has long been a person of high speculation. Godawa now steps out from filling in between...

A British think tank has released a lengthy report claiming that militant Islam is the greatest existential threat to Middle Eastern Christianity, bringing Christian communities in the region "close to extinction." The London-based Civitas, also known as the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, published the report in December. "Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression," reads a statement from the group issued Sunday. "But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they...

It would be tempting to attribute the disaster spreading across the Middle East to a brief flirtation with democracy snake oil, but for the better part of the last century the political class of the United States could talk of nothing else. Nearly every war was fought to spread democracy, protect democracy or worship at the altar of democracy. For much of the 20th century it was the working assumption of the sort of men who got up to give speeches in crowded halls that it was democracy that made America special. But it is not so much that democracy...

True democracy can no more take hold in Islamic soil than a rose can grow in a glass vase ... no matter how much water it contains. This is a true statement and many Islamists know that this is a true statement. Tell that to the politically correct segment of our society. This segment, whether it is the mainstream media or foreign policy makers, is afflicted with "opposite disorder ' or better described as "Islamophilia." "What is Islamophilia?," you ask. It is the irrational and self-destructive desire to show how enlightened and morally superior you are by bending over backwards...

This week, in Oakland, Calif., America saw yet another stellar example of the glories of diversity. At a taping of a rap music video in that fair city, eight people, including a one-year-old child, were shot. When a classical music video goes wrong, somebody busts a string. When a rap music video goes wrong, somebody busts a cap. Such observations, however, are now taboo. We're not supposed to suggest that the rap culture is any different from the classical music culture or that one is better than another. As white guy John Kerry put it, "I think there's a lot...

Dozens of Iranian students have stormed the UK embassy in Tehran, chanting “death to England.” Before police intervened, protesters pelted the embassy with stones and petrol bombs, brought down the flag, and destroyed a pile of classified documents. Reports by the Mehr news agency that six UK staff had been taken hostage when students raided a north Tehran diplomatic compound were withdrawn shortly after they were posted. No explanation was given for the report, nor its removal.

Revolutions are known to devour their children, and popular uprisings driven by the promise of change for the better have been notorious for turning into nightmares. The so-called Arab Spring is another dark night unfolding across the Middle East. This was predictable, and inevitable. The Tunisian fruit-seller who sparked this Arab Spring by self-immolating was a man driven to despair by the very culture into which he was born, and from which he knew there was no escape. The act of self-immolation was a terrible display of despair of a desperate man. And so is the political drama in Arab...