Free Republic

Egypt girded for a day of massive protest Friday, firming up army positions around demonstrators occupying central Cairo's Tahrir Square and slapping new restrictions on journalists.

Wednesday, Feb. 2, President Barack Obama delivered an ultimatum to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman and the army and security chiefs: Mubarak must be removed in the coming hours or else US aid to Egypt will be cut off, debkafile's Washington sources exclusively report. Pressure on the Egyptian armed forces to oust the president forthwith was further applied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who called Vice President Omar Suleiman, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates who called Egyptian defense minister Mohamed Tantawi, and US armed forces chief Adm. Mike Mullen in a telephone call to the Egyptian chief of staff...

For the first time, a U.S. government supports granting a government role to an extremist Islamic organization: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. snip This caveat does not significantly alter the new American approach, which is very different than that of the previous Administration, in which George W. Bush pushed Mubarak for democratic reforms but never publicly accepted a role for Islamists.

President Obama is signaling the Egyptian opposition that their time has come. In a terse statement last night, Mr. Obama announced a “moment of transformation” had arrived in Egypt, “the status quo is not sustainable” and a new government must begin to form “now.” An administration official later reiterated, “the key part of the statement was ‘now.’ ” Today the formerly peaceful protests in Egypt turned violent. It turns out that words do have consequences. Egypt is at a crossroads, a time of suspense when change could come gradually and peacefully, or quickly with maximum instability. The White House has...

Welcome to the new reality of cold, hard choices in Egypt, and the consequences of democracy in regions where radicalism thrives. In order to stay ahead of the crisis in Egypt, the Obama administration yesterday signaled that it supports the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics as long as they renounce violence and commit to democracy: The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government. The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is...

Tighe Barry, left, and Medea Benjamin of Code Pink protest in Washington, D.C. On the heels of a Big Government article asking whether the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Mubarak organizations in Egypt have been learning their tactics from Obama allies Bill Ayers and Code Pink (as a result of connections made in Egypt one year ago) comes news that Code Pink is in Cairo and is involved in the protests. An audio file of a phone call by leftist activist David Swanson that day to Code Pink agitator Tighe Barry in Cairo was posted late Friday. Barry, in Egypt...

The Barack Obama administration has decided to lift a ban preventing Muslim Scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States. Ramadan, an Egyptian currently living in Switzerland, is a leading member of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood branch and the grandson of the movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization for Hamas and some of the groups that recently merged into al-Qaeda, including Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 but the George W. Bush administration revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to...

Two of the nine mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel on Tuesday were actually phosphorous bombs, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed. Militants in the coastal territory also fired two Qassam rockets into Israel, yielding an Israel Air Force strike in response that led to the death of one Palestinian working in a smuggling tunnel on the border with Egypt.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon says that while PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) talks peace in Washington, his men encourage terrorism back at home – and Gazans celebrate terrorism by giving out candy. Ayalon decried the fact that the PA minister for prisoner affairs recently visited the Abu Hamid family, four sons of which have been sentenced to life for murdering Israelis. The official, Isa Karaka, shared the Ramadan break-fast meal with the family, and praised the mother for the way in which she has contributed to the struggle for independence. Karaka also visited the home of suicide terrorist...

Processions of joy took place at a number of locations in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, after the shooting attack near Hebron, which left four Israelis dead.

I've come to the realization that Obama likes War. He is not a peacenik like Jimmy Carter. Instead, he is at war with our values, religious, moral and constitutional. He is at war with our healthcare. He is at war with our capitalism. He is at war with our children as he shreds their future piling up debt. He is stirring up war between races, between poor and rich, between muslim and others, between blue states and red states. There is no respect in this man. He talks down to Americans, telling them what he wants them to do, lecturing...

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – Jordan said it had evidence that the rockets that hit Aqaba came from the Sinai. Egypt yesterday said that that was “Impossible”. Israel has more or less openly accused Hamas, which has denied any involvement. Without any definitive explanation for the incident, accusations and counteraccusations are flying all over the place after several ‘Grad’ rockets hit the Israeli town of Eilat and its close neighbour, Aqaba, in Jordan, where it killed one person, injuring five. "We can now say without hesitation that the Grad rocket was launched from Sinai," said a Jordanian official close to the investigation...

SNIPPET: "Police are working to figure out the origin of the rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip Saturday evening and exploded near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, without causing damage or injures. A total of four rockets and two mortar shells were fired at Israel on Saturday, causing no injuries. An initial examination revealed that the rocket fired at Nahal Oz was manufactured using professional means, most likely outside of the borders of the Gaza Strip. The rocket had a diameter of 115 millimeters, and police sappers were working to locate fragments of it to be tested."

'Son of Hamas' says he is still in 'shock' at the news SAN DIEGO, CA - (ANS)- Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of the best-selling, "Son of Hamas" who, on Wednesday, June 30, 2010, won the right to stay in the Unites States after a huge campaign by both Christians and Jews had called for him to be granted U.S. asylum, says he is still in "shock" at the news. With his friends in court to support him, Yousef got the information during a 15-minute deportation hearing in San Diego, California, after a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorney said...

Lost amid the hand-wringing over Israel's botched flotilla raid last month and speculation about the diplomatic fallout for the Jewish state has been perhaps the most significant development, namely the resurgence of Hamas. On political and financial life support not even a month ago, Hamas has become the face of the Muslim world's newest cause celebre: ending the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza. This newfound determination cannot end a "humanitarian crisis" that didn't exist in the first place, but it just might end the political and economic crises that had been besetting Hamas over the past year. While understandable on the...

Hamas rises in the West  By CAROLINE GLICK 06/15/2010 06:34 By backing the terrorist group against Israel, western countries are backing Hamas against Fatah and Islamist states against ME moderates.   Since the navy’s May 31 takeover of the Turkish-Hamas flotilla, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his advisers have deliberated around the clock about how to contend with the US-led international stampede against Israel. But their ultimate decision to form an investigatory committee led by a retired Supreme Court justice and overseen by foreign observers indicates that they failed to recognize the nature of the international campaign facing us today....

We are $13 trillion in debt. We will be $19.6 trillion in debt come 2015. Yet, the President wants to send $400 million for “humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an area controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas. As well intentioned as this offer may be, how can we be sure our money will not be used to fund terrorist activities? Well, we can’t. If the money given to the late PLO chief Yasser Arafat is any indication, our dollars will be used to fund more terrorist activities and line the pockets of those in charge. Moreover,...

SNIPPET: "The navy will operate under the assumption that groups of provocateurs are aboard any future ships that try to break the Israel-imposed sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, Deputy Commander of the Navy Rear-Admiral Rani Ben-Yehuda told The Jerusalem Post on Monday."

Led by US President Barack Obama, the West has cast its lot with Hamas. It is not surprising that Obama is siding with Hamas. His close associates are leading members of the pro-Hamas Free Gaza outfit. Obama’s friends, former Weather Underground terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres participated in a Free Gaza trip to Egypt in January. Their aim was to force the Egyptians to allow them into Gaza with 1,300 fellow Hamas supporters. Their mission was led by Code Pink leader and Obama fund-raiser Jodie Evans. Another leading member of Free Gaza is James Abourezk, a former US senator...