Free Republic

For the last five weeks I have been traveling through the Middle East, meeting diplomats, officials, policy experts, military leaders, students and ordinary citizens. I learned something very important: the greatest single cause of anti-Americanism in the Middle East today is not the war in Iraq; more surprisingly, it is not even American support for Israel, per se. Rather, it is a widespread belief that the United States simply does not care about the rights or needs of the Palestinian people. "The Palestinian issue is really what discredits the United States throughout the region," a senior Western diplomat with years...

1204: What really happened? When Saladin retook the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem for Islam in 1187,Pope Innocent III declared a new crusade to recapture it. But the crusaders ran into financial difficulties and took advantage of Greek imperial in fighting to raise money. The scheme was a disaster, laying Constantinople to waste, gutting its churches and sending many of its citizens into slavery in Europe. The crusaders never went on to Jerusalem, but calcified the mistrust between eastern and western Christendom IN THE history of crusading, the idea that Christians should unite against Muslims for the defence of the Holy...

So how far did the Phoenicians really go in the region?In one of the early adventures of Asterix and Obelix, a Phoenician trade ship takes the world’s funniest Celtic warriors from the Gaul’s last village free from Roman rule to Queen Cleopatra in the land of the Nile. Now, of course this is but an image in a comic book, but still, is it possible that the Phoenicians, generally known as the greatest seafarers of antiquity, actually reached Brittany, or even further? There’s no doubt that Phoenicians were well established all over the Mediterranean. Archeological remains prove they lived in...

<p>WHAT THE MEDIA observe firsthand during political wars, but often clean up when they report the news for public consumption, continually bemuses me.</p> <p>Everything the opposing campaigns do from this moment forward will be in order to influence the polls as Gov. Gray Davis hurtles toward the first recall vote against a U.S. governor since the 1920s.</p>

LONDON Dec. 23 — More than two-thirds of British Muslims surveyed consider the war on terrorism a war against Islam, a poll conducted for the British Broadcasting Corp. showed Monday.The ICM survey of 500 people also revealed that more than half of British Muslims believe Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network should not have been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.However, 11 percent said they believed further attacks against the United States by al-Qaida or similar groups would be justified, and 8 percent said such attacks would be justified against Britain.In the survey, people were asked:...

Who Really Discovered America? Did ancient Hebrews reach the shores of the North and South American continents thousands of years before Christopher Columbus? What evidence is there for Hebrew and Israelite occupation of the Western Hemisphere even a thousand years before Christ? Was trans-Atlantic commerce and travel fairly routine in the days of king Solomon of Israel? Read here the intriguing, fascinating saga of the TRUE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA! William F. Dankenbring A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western...

Security Screeners Get FAA Bonuses The Associated Press May 26 2002 5:35PM WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is dangling $500 bonuses as incentives to stay on a bit longer to many of the tens of thousands of privately hired airport security screeners it wants to eventually replace. The Transportation Security Administration authorized the incentive pay earlier this year to ensure a smooth and safe transition at airports. The extra pay is aimed at boosting morale and preventing screeners from bailing out of their jobs months or weeks before federally trained workers replace them. It is also aimed at encouraging the...