Free Republic

The departure of national security adviser H.R. McMaster and his replacement by former U.N. ambassador John Bolton are both significant and welcome. Bolton will be a team player on Team Trump and not someone with his own agenda who seeks the advice and counsel of those trying to undermine the Trump administration. Leaks such as the one of the memo warning President Trump not to congratulate Vladimir Putin on Putin's re-election will undoubtedly stop, as McMaster and his staff were viewed as the source for many of them.

Time to call out the phony militant racists Arab Muslims who cry "racism"... Some pose as "leftists socialists", only to jump on their hate wagon. latest, Fresno State professor stirs outrage, calls Barbara Bush an 'amazing racist' BY BRYANT-JON ANTEOLA bjanteola@fresnobee.com April 17, 2018 09:13 PM Updated April 18, 2018 04:05 PM A Fresno State professor called former first lady Barbara Bush an “amazing racist” who raised a “war criminal,” and expressed no concern that she could be fired or reprimanded for her outspokenness on social media. Randa Jarrar, who in her Twitter messages describes herself as an Arab-American and...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has called on the Israeli government to show "restraint" amid what has now been weeks of protests by Hamas terrorists who have swarmed the Israeli border and stoked violence. "I am deeply concerned about the deaths and injuries in Gaza," Warren was quoted as saying. "As additional protests are planned for the coming days, the Israel Defense Forces should exercise restraint and respect the rights of Palestinians to peacefully protest." The quote is likely to rankle the pro-Israel community, which has become increasingly strained with the Democratic Party as lawmakers such as Warren adopt a...

Classified report will bust myth that millions of Palestinians need UNRWA, sources say Congress is pressuring the State Department to release a long classified report on Palestinian refugees that insiders say could change the calculus on how the United States approaches the situation and allocates millions in taxpayer funds to a key United Nations agency, according to sources and a congressional letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Dozens of members of Congress have already signed on to an effort to force the release of this State Department publication, which sources say was originally classified by the Obama administration in...

On Tuesday's 'Morning Joe' on MSNBC, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine warned that Democrats would view any attempt by the president to fire Robert Mueller or signal plans to issue pardons "as the president pushing the nation into a constitutional crisis." (snip) BRZEZINSKI: So the president calls this a witch hunt. He says they didn't find anything. And he really was quite defensive yesterday about -- that this was a sad situation and he's not sure whether or not Mueller will be fired. Are you concerned that this investigation could be thwarted? KAINE: Yes. I think the president is clearly panicked....

France on Saturday condemned “indiscriminate fire” by the Israeli army in the latest border clashes that left nine Palestinians dead in the Gaza strip. “France reiterates its strong disapproval of the indiscriminate fire of the Israeli army. All possible light must be shed on these serious events,” Agnes von der Muhll, spokeswoman for the French foreign ministry, said in a statement. […] “France calls on the authorities concerned to exercise the utmost restraint and stresses that the use of force must be proportionate, in accordance with international humanitarian law to prevent further victims,” the statement added. …

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the IDF head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, wrote a letter to Tedros Adhanom, the head of the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations concerned with international public health, warning that Hamas’ plan to burn a massive amounts of tires on the border with Israel on Friday would be an “ecologic catastrophe.” “The Hamas terrorist organization, which controls the Gaza Strip, has issued an order to burn about 10,000 tires this Friday along the border with Israel,” Mordechai wrote. “The burning of tires in such a huge quantity will...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, in his Easter address on Sunday, called for peace in the Holy Land two days after 15 Palestinians were killed on the Israeli-Gaza border, saying the conflict there "does not spare the defenseless". The pope made his appeal in his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to tens of thousands of people in the flower-bedecked square below where he earlier celebrated a Mass. He also appealed for an end to the "carnage" in Syria, calling for humanitarian aid to be allowed to enter,...

The Israel Defense Forces estimated that 17,000 Palestinians were taking part in “March of Return” demonstrations along the Gaza border, focused at five main protest sites where rioters threw petrol bombs and stones at troops, and burned tires.

AT LEAST twelve people, including a 16-year-old boy, have been killed as Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli forces at the Gaza border. More than 550 were injured as large crowds of flag-waving Palestinians marched toward the boundary, some of them throwing stones and drawing Israeli fire. Participants were seen burning posters of Donald Trump, who ordered the embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. An estimated 17,000 people gathered in tent encampments at five sites near the border, in what were supposed to be peaceful protests. But it turned into the deadliest day in Gaza in several months. Israel's military...

The Hamas-affiliated newspaper Felesteen reported that the head of the UNRWA workers’ union in Gaza, Amir al-Mishal, said in his speech to the demonstrators that “the people who gathered here came to express their right to return.” He added that “rights are not received with supplication, but must be obtained by force.” Mishal called on the international community to assume its legal, moral and humanitarian responsibility for UNRWA until the return of refugees to their land, homeland and homes. He praised the Palestinian Arabs who will participate in “peaceful” demonstrations on Friday and in the so-called large-scale “March of the...

Germany’s new foreign minister has urged the Palestinians “not to tear down bridges,” an apparent reference President Mahmoud Abbas’ contentious relationship with the U.S. and political rival Hamas. Heiko Maas spoke Monday, after meeting with Abbas and the Palestinian foreign minister. Maas says the new German government remains committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Trump administration has refused to make such a commitment. …

"The IDF warns against incidents in which civilians are called to 'demonstrations' that serve as cover for damage to security infrastructures and attempts to harm Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers. The Israel Air Force struck a terror target in the southern Gaza Strip late Saturday night in response to several Palestinians infiltrating Israel to damage an engineering vehicle building Israel’s underground barrier with the Hamas-run enclave. “The incident that took place last night, damaging the security fence and an attempt to set fire to engineering vehicles, is another serious incident in a sequence of events in the fence area,” the...

A Palestinian teenager arrested after slapping an Israeli soldier has accepted a plea deal that will see her serve eight months in prison. Ahed Tamimi had agreed to plead guilty to four of the 12 charges she faced, including assault, her lawyer said. She will also pay a fine of 5,000 shekels ($1,440) and accept a further eight-month jail term, suspended. The 17 year old was detained after being filmed confronting two armed soldiers outside her home in December. The court's decision means she will be released this summer because the sentence includes time served, her lawyer Gaby Lasky was...

The Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit urged Guatemala to cancel its decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem on Thursday, according to the official Palestinian Authority news site Wafa. In an urgent letter to Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, Aboul-Gheit expressed his dissatisfaction with the president's decision to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Spokesman for the Secretary-General Mahmoud Afifi said in a statement. Guatemala was one of a handful of countries that backed a UN vote on US President Donald Trump's December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Last Sunday, President Morales confirmed at AIPAC...

Actor and former Obama staffer Kal Penn (Kumar of Harold and Kumar fame) ripped into Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for his support for the state of Israel. Standing before this week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Schumer not only came out in strong defense of Israel but spoke the truth about Arabs not wanting peace with the Jewish state: Now, let me tell you why – my view – why we don’t have peace, because the fact of the matter is that too many Palestinians and too many Arabs do not want any Jewish state in the Middle East....

Cape Town, South Africa, July 9 “Day Zero.” That’s when water taps throughout the city are expected to go dry before Israel declared statehood in 1948, its leaders focused on water security as closely as they did military preparedness. Israel is in the fifth year of drought, today citizens can reliably count on abundant water. Cape Town another story. reservoirs began receding more than two years ago. This problem turned into a crisis because of subsidy-distorted water pricing, inefficient irrigation, and a lack of desalination facilities and a long-term plan. In 2016 officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry recognized the problem...

In this week's update, entitled "On the Brink", John looks at the UN Security Council, in particular, the lies and deceit spewed by Abbas in regards to a Palestinian State, the increasing pressure on Israel from Lebanon to the north, the recent revelation that the Russians are testing new equipment in Syria, including their new stealth fighter the SU-57, plus the gathering of forces that have Israel in her sights for eventual destruction. John ends his message with a stunning revelation of a recent discovery in Israel, which further substantiates the accuracy and dependability of God's Word.

Saleh Ra'fat of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, said on Sunday that the committee would convene in the coming days to discuss the latest developments and to follow the implementation of PLO Central Council decisions, which called for severing ties with Israel. Interviewed by Voice of Palestine Radio, he sided with applying to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, demanding that a legal investigation be launched against Israel for its "crimes" against the Palestinian people and the joining of "the State of Palestine" to 22 other international organizations. Saleh also called on Arab countries not to agree to...

A few miles down the road from Israel’s gated embassy, the Palestinian envoy to Washington sits in his office wrestling with a unique diplomatic dilemma: how to advance his people’s cause when relations with the United States are so distant that he hasn’t even spoken to the White House in months. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has written off President Donald Trump, cursing him and declaring him an illegitimate broker for peace. Trump has reacted angrily, threatening to cut off all U.S. aid and dismissing Palestinian claims that he blew up any semblance of impartiality by declaring Jerusalem to be Israel’s...