Free Republic

With its Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, France emancipated its Jews. But there was a price: Jews were immediately tormented by the dilemma of divided loyalty. “Must one admit into the family,” inquired the Bishop of Nancy in the French National Assembly during the debate on the eligibility of Jews for citizenship, “a tribe that is a stranger to oneself that constantly turns its eyes toward [another] homeland”? One answer came a century later, when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an assimilated Jew, was tried, found guilty of espionage and dispatched to Devil’s Island. For many assimilated...

Could this argument be any dumber? The Obama administration has forced America and much of the world into a debate no one wanted or needed. Namely, does Islamic terrorism have anything to do with Islam. This debate is different than the much-coveted "national conversation on race" that politicians so often call for (usually as a way to duck having it), because that is a conversation at least some people want. The White House doesn't want a conversation about Islam and terrorism. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says, "We have chosen not to use that label [of radical Islam] because it...

A seemingly simple question actually carries some complexity. As our enemies shout gleefully to their God as they kill the infidels among us, the easy conclusion is that America has been in a religious war since 9/11, and perhaps longer. I have spent a lot of that time suggesting that while the enemy is fighting a religious war against us, we seek only to defeat the portion of the Islamic faith that wants to kill us. The message: Stop with the killing, and you may believe what you wish. Through that lens, we are not fighting a religious war...

After last week's Paris shootings that targeted an irreverent political magazine and Jews in a kosher grocery store, there's been a flood of stories about the dangers of Muslim radicalization and how it happens. What about people who go the other way, from extremist to moderate? These people exist; the U-turn happens. When I meet Mansour al-Nogaidan at the Al Mesbar Research and Studies Center in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, he starts off by telling a story about his young son. Nogaidan says his kid is obsessed with an animated video, "Joseph: King of Dreams," a musical based...

“Homeland,” the much-acclaimed television series about American intelligence agents who root out terror threats, is mulling a departure from its ordinary plot, which focuses on Middle Eastern Muslims, and considering — post Charlie Hebdo attacks — a new storyline that does not involve the radical Islamic element. The show might go with a new type of threat “for creative reasons,” the show’s representatives said, the Daily Mail reported.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained that the Obama administration would not be using the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the ideology motivating the Charlie Hebdo terrorists.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained today why the U.S. won’t join France in declaring war on radical Islamists. He also elaborated a bit on what the February summit on violent extremism will cover other than Islamic extremism. “James von Brunn is somebody who in 2009, June of 2009, less than a mile from where we stand right now, went to the Holocaust Museum and shot a security guard in pursuit of some radical violent ideology,” Earnest told reporters at the daily briefing. “Back in 2012, an individual, Wade Michael Page, carried out an assault against a Sikh temple...

Imam Malik Mujahid, producer of the “Stand with the Prophet” conference, which is designed to help “lead the effort against Islamophobia” defended inviting Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, and according to the Wall Street Journal “has proclaimed that the ‘real terrorists’ are the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency” on Tuesday’s “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel.

I never really thought IÂ’d live long enough to see it.But I was wrong.Europe now understands what the rest of us have known for a long time: Obama is essentially a silly man, who in the grand scheme doesnÂ’t understand the role of an American president. But thatÂ’s not all. We here in America understand now just exactly how far we have to go to get the White House to admit they are wrong about something, anything. That distance apparently is measured between here and somewhere, anywhere, in Europe.Yes, where the voters here in the US have tried and failed...

It's not enough to read the transcript. You really need to view the video to appreciate the depths of Christopher Dickey's world-weary, dismissive, preening political correctness. Asked on today's Morning Joe to comment on Muslim preachers inciting violence from their pulpits, Dickey of The Daily Beast sniffed that the problem is "exaggerated," claimed that the number of violent Muslims is "infinitesimally small" [down even from the "minuscule" number he cited last week], and engaged in the most fraudulent form of moral equivalency, saying that there are also crazy Christian, Jewish and Hindu preachers who incite their congregations. View the video...

Obama and America shamefully skip Paris march against terror The U.S. fails to join the whole world in standing by France NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, January 11, 2015, 7:42 PM Displaying powerful symbolic unity, in fitting and proper testament to the defense of civilization, more than 40 world leaders linked arms to lead the mass march in Paris in resolve against Islamist terror. The United States of America, Barack Obama, President, was inexcusably absent from one of the most critical turning points in the war between radical Islam and the West since 9/11. No Obama. No Joe Biden. No...

Human rights activist, Harvard Kennedy School Fellow and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali is on Al Qaeda's hitlist for producing a film in 2004 about life for women under Shariah Law. The director of that film, called Submission, was shot in the street and his Jihadist killers pinned a note to his chest with a knife naming Hirsi Ali as "next." Regardless of the fatwa put on her head by Islamists, Hirsi Ali still boldly speaks out and recently made an appearance on The Kelly File to discuss the horrific murders of Charlie Hebdo editors last week. "It could have been...

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks and related hostage-taking and murder at a Kosher meat market, the Left, the media, and much of the world is pretending they can beat the Kobayashi Maru.  They gathered in a giant show of solidarity Sunday in Paris with the slogan “je suis Charlie”—over 1.6 million people. The world leaders — including President François Hollande of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain — joined the march in a solemn line. They moved...

After radical jihadists murdered their way through Paris in a three-day rampage that left 17 dead, France has declared its own war on terror. Appearing on Saturday in Evry, a town just south of Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the country is at war against radical Islam. “We are at war — not a war against a religion, not a war against a civilization, but to defend our values, which are universal,” he proclaimed. “It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity,” Valls continued. “We...

Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States is at war with terrorists who pervert the Muslim faith in order to justify violence. Asked on ABC's "This Week" if the U.S. is at war with "radical Islam," Holder said the country is at war "with those who would commit terrorist attacks and who would corrupt the Islamic faith … to try to justify their terrorist actions." "That's who we are at war with," Holder said. "We are determined to take the fight to them to prevent them from engaging in these kinds of activities." The exchange with "This Week" host...

He did stop short of claiming his approach would lead to "peace in our time." But Zbigniew Brzezinski has otherwise clearly argued for the appeasement of radical Islam. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser criticized some of the satire directed at Islam as "unnecessarily nasty" and "extraordinarily provocative." He said that it was very important "to avoid becoming the number one enemy of the fanatics." Brzezinski argued that we must not be engaged "in anything that appears to be a struggle against Islam," and he criticized President George W. Bush for speaking of a war...

Unbeknownst to many Christians, anti-Christian apologetics and propaganda are prominent fixtures of Islamist recruiting sites and social media. On October 20, a 25-year-old convert to Islam named Martin Couture-Rouleau ran down two Canadian soldiers, killing one and injuring the other. In the chase that followed, his car ran into a ditch and he was fatally shot by police as he came at them with a knife. Rouleau’s story is similar to that of other homegrown jihadists, including Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the 32-year-old Canadian citizen who, just two days after Rouleau’s attack, shot and killed a soldier before running into Canada’s parliament...

Michael Bloomberg, in addition to having been Mayor of New York City and currently being a wealthy elitist Leftist, has ongoing ties to the Islamic world and Qatar. In fact, many of his regulatory moves and his philanthropy efforts are connected to one degree or another with Qatar and Islamic nations, causes and endeavors. Qatar, the reader should be reminded, is the host country of the Muslim Brotherhood and is the primary supporter of the Arab Spring, including the genocidal Islamic State. Common Core is a huge, Progressive educational implementation in New York City which benefits Microsoft and a host...

Canadian authorities identified the gunman in the deadly shooting Wednesday of a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian born in 1982. The episode was the latest in a growing list of attacks in the West by individuals who have professed their affinity for radical Islam or sympathy to militant ideology. Oct. 20, 2014: Hit-and-Run Kills Canadian Soldier Sept. 25, 2014: Woman Is Beheaded in Oklahoma Sept. 26, 2014: ISIS Lieutenant Tries to Coordinate Attacks in Australia May 24, 2014: 3 Shot Dead at Jewish Museum in Brussels May 22, 2013: Attack Near Military...

In an email to Global Okanagan, the Islamic Centre of Kelowna condemns the attack saying the incident has nothing to do with the Muslim faith. “I can understand and appreciate often people’s feelings that: ‘Oh we need to defend Islam again’ whereas I would rather express my feelings a bit differently,” says spokesman, Hamid Butt. “We don’t have to defend Islam rather our focus should be to educate (the) community at large that these types of incidents are sad indeed and has nothing to do with Islam.” Butt says he feels that Muslims are being singled out and misrepresented in...