Free Republic

Though the mainstream media loves to poke fun at US President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, his 280-character tweets often contain far more perspicacity than the entire contents of the editorial pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. The cleverness of Trump’s strategy. By bypassing traditional outlets of diplomacy and taking to Twitter, the president is able to get his message across in a direct and undiluted fashion, which is the most effective way of letting his intended audience know that he means business. He has put the ball in the court of those who receive American aid, challenging...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Dozens of Palestinians in Bethlehem are protesting the arrival of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of the Holy Land to celebrate Orthodox Christmas. The protesters scuffled with Palestinian police and church supporters Saturday as Theophilos III made his way toward the Church of the Nativity, revered as Jesus’ birthplace. Palestinians have been demanding his resignation for allegedly selling church land to Israelis in sweetheart deals. …

The United States administration froze a $125 million grant to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN’s agency for “Palestinian refugees”, which was supposed to be delivered on January 1, Channel 10 News reported on Friday, citing three Western diplomats. The amount frozen is one-third of the annual funding the United States provides the organization, according to the report. The three diplomats, who asked to remain anonymous because of the political sensitivity of the issue, told Channel 10 the grant had been frozen until the end of the reexamination of U.S. aid to the Palestinians, which began...

Calling out the tyrants and dictators who abuse their people while threatening international peace and security U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued some stark warnings during a press briefing she held at UN headquarters on January 2nd. Her bluntness and moral clarity are welcome changes from the doublespeak and moral relativism we heard so often from her Obama-era predecessors, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Demonstrating U.S. support for the Iranian people in their struggle against the regime, for example, Ambassador Haley told reporters that she intended to call for emergency meetings of the UN Security Council and...

The European Union slammed Israel Wednesday, hours after a bill aimed at encouraging prosecutors to seek the death penalty for terrorist murderers passed its first hurdle in the Knesset. The Knesset voted 52 to 49 Wednesday in favor of a bill pushed by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party which would ease the conditions under which terrorists convicted of murder could be sentenced to death. […] Hours later, however, the European Union criticized the move and reiterated its opposition to the death penalty. “The death penalty is incompatible with human dignity,” a statement released by the EU read. “It...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said in tweets on Tuesday that the United States may withhold future aid payments to Palestinians, accusing them of being “no longer willing to talk peace” with Israel. Trump said that Washington gives Palestinians “HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel ... with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” The President’s tweets follow plans disclosed by his U.N. ambassador...

Israel’s parliament has passed a law requiring a supermajority to relinquish control over any part of Jerusalem, a move that could hamstring the city’s division as part of a peace plan. The amendment passed on Tuesday bars the government from ceding Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem without approval of at least 80 of the legislature’s 120 members. The law itself can be overturned with a simple majority, however, making it largely symbolic. …

The Palestinian envoy to the United States says he is returning to Washington after just one day of "consultations" over President Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Husam Zomlot said he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas privately. He was instructed to return to Washington "immediately", he said. On Sunday, Mr Abbas said he would not accept any US peace plan following Mr Trump's announcement. The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the US announcement on 6 December led to protests and clashes in the Gaza Strip. A UN resolution calling on the...

US Middle East envoy William Burns yesterday lamented what he said were the worsening "daily humiliations" Palestinians suffer under Israeli occupation, while saying there has been too much death on both sides. Burns was speaking here on the first stop of a mission to help launch President George W Bush's three-track strategy to end 20 months of Palestinian-Israeli violence and revive negotiations for a final settlement. Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, said after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, that "there has been too much suffering and too much death". "The humanitarian problem, the daily humiliations that...

The Palestinians have announced they are recalling their envoy to the United States for “consultations”, weeks after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would not accept any US peace plan in the wake of Mr. Trump’s move. Protests and clashes broke out in the Gaza Strip after the announcement. A UN resolution calling on the US to cancel the decision was backed overwhelmingly by the General Assembly. …

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Justin G. Liverman, 24, of Morehead City, North Carolina, pleaded guilty today for his role in a harassment scheme that targeted senior U.S. government officials. Liverman’s plea admits guilt to a conspiracy to commit unauthorized computer intrusions, identity theft, and telephone harassment. According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, beginning in November 2015, Liverman conspired to attempt to intimidate and harass U.S. officials and their families by gaining unauthorized access to victims’ online accounts, among other things. For example, Liverman publicly posted online documents and personal information unlawfully obtained from a victim’s personal...

It’s about time that Americans stop paying so much to subsidize the dysfunctional UNRWA, especially while the Palestinians turn around and threaten to use their “weapons in the UN” against the United States The United States currently pays a mandated assessment of 22% of the United Nations’ “regular” budget and about 28.5% of its peacekeeping budget. Together, the mandated assessments the U.S. pays add up to over $3 billion annually. Moreover, the U.S. has contributed billions of dollars in voluntary donations to various UN agencies and programs, such as the UN Development Program (UNDP), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the...

The Palestinian health ministry in the Gaza Strip has said two men have died from wounds sustained in earlier clashes with Israeli troops along the border with Israel. It identified them as Mohammed Dahdouh, 20, who died on Sunday, and Sharif Shalash, 28, who died on Saturday. Their deaths raise to 12 the number of Palestinians killed in violence in Gaza and the West Bank since Donald Trump announced the unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on 6 December.

The disconnect between the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas and the US administration of President Donald Trump has widened still further, Israeli TV reports claimed Sunday night. Abbas is said to have told all PA officials that Trump is “a lost cause” and to have ordered the PA to sever all contacts with US diplomatic officials, including those of the US consulate in East Jerusalem responsible for Palestinian affairs. The US administration, for its part, was reported to have indicated that it is seeking a Palestinian interlocutor other than Abbas with whom it might be able to do business....

The White House has decided to quietly withdraw from all its ties with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas. DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report that the Trump administration has resolved to scrap all ties with the Palestinian leadership in retaliation for its campaign against US President Donald Trump and his Jerusalem policy. Several warnings to Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of what was in store if he did not desist from castigating the US president fell on death ears. Last week, two Arab crown princes, Saudi Muhammed bin Salman and UAE Sheikh Muhammed bin Zayed, summoned Abbas to their capitals and...

Israel has announced it is leaving UNESCO citing the U.N. cultural agency’s “systematic attacks” on the Jewish state. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Friday that the decision was based on the organization’s “attempts to disconnect Jewish history from the land of Israel.” He said the official letter of departure will be submitted before the year’s end and that Israel will leave the organization by the end of 2018. Earlier this year the U.S said it will withdraw from UNESCO, also at that time, citing similar reasons. …

The History and Meaning Of "Palestine" and "Palestinians""There is no such thing as a Palestinian Arab nation . . . Palestine is a name the Romans gave to Eretz Yisrael with the express purpose of infuriating the Jews . . . . Why should we use the spiteful name meant to humiliate us? "The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastin a fictional entity."--- Golda Meir quoted by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, 25 November...

Speaking to diplomats of more than 30 countries on Wednesday, Bennett stressed that “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and nothing can change that reality.” Bennett said that the UN vote is “meaningless. Another empty UN vote”. Bennett also told the assembled diplomats that rejecting Jerusalem as Israel’s capital gave a tailwind to terrorism. “Your decision not to vote for Jerusalem as being the capital of Israel shows that all those who use violence against Israel are succeeding,” said Bennett. “It gives them the feeling like their actions are justified.” …

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday blasted the United States for threatening to cut aid to countries that vote at the UN General Assembly to reject President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. “Trump regime exposes contempt for democracy through its threats against those who dare resist its thuggish demands at the UN—all while Trump insults Iran crudely as ‘dictatorship,’” Zarif tweeted. “US version of democracy stops at rhetoric of ‘either with us or against us,’" he added. .....

President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to cut off U.S. funding to countries that support a resolution criticizing his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” he said, alluding to U.S. aid. The president strongly supported U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley who said Tuesday that the United States “will be taking names” of countries that vote in favor of a General Assembly resolution Thursday declaring that Jerusalem’s status can be changed only by direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. “For all these nations, they take our money and then vote against us. They take hundreds of millions of...