Free Republic

After Barack Obama, America's first African American president, is America now prepared to vote its first black president into office? This week, the Republicans' best shot for a presidential win, staunch conservative Herman Cain, takes to the campaign trail. After an impressive showing in the first debate amongst GOP hopefuls, Cain, rather than Romney or Gingrich, could be the one to beat in 2012 -- a true black man. To clarify, being black in America is not about the color of one's skin or the curl of one's natural hair, though part of it. It is about a shared history...

Herman Cain appeared Thursday on Fox & Friends, and spoke strongly in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial proposal to privatize Medicare. And Cain quite proudly called the proposal a "voucher" program -- a word that Republicans are trying to avoid. Fox host Gretchen Carlson asked Cain what he thought of the fact that none of the various budgets in Congress can pass. "Well what's going on is, they're not being honest with the American people," said Cain. "The fact of the matter is, Ryan's plan represents giving people a choice -- but if you're 55 years of age...

Herman Cain doesn’t just complain about the weather. He does something about it. When Godfather Pizza was going broke, Herman Cain told the pizza to start tasting better, and it did. Herman Cain is the reason that clouds have silver linings. One day a liberal heckler called Herman Cain’s radio show. His phone melted. Herman Cain knows who let the dogs out, and has punished him appropriately. Herman Cain did not grow up in the south. Herman Cain has always been grown up. One day Superman asked Herman Cain for an autograph, but Herman Cain was too busy saving the...

To know Herman Cain is to love Herman Cain. His “positive intensity” score — in other words, the people who like him — is nearly twice as high as the average for the rest of his likely rivals.

THE MATHEMATICS OF A SECOND JEWISH HOLOCAUST? Palestinians and many of their advocates around the world claim that the “refugees” of 1948 have a “right to return” to Israel, and that such “right” is guaranteed by international law. Nonsense. No such guarantee exists, nor should it. UN Resolution 194, which is often cited as the basis for this “right of return” is a resolution of the United Nations - nothing less, nothing more. Notwithstanding the fact that UN resolutions aren’t worth the paper on which they’re printed, if said resolution were bound by anything, let alone international law, Israel would...

US presidential candidate Herman Cain is trying to recover from an embarassing stumble over the question of the Palestinian Right of Return on Sunday. “Right of Return?,” Cain blankly asked twice in response to being questioned about his position on the vital issue on FOX News Sunday. The second or two of deafening silence that lasted before host Chris Wallace repeated “The Palestinian Right of Return” to the Republican hopeful seemed to last forever.

Thousands rallied in support of Palestinians on Friday, with demonstrators in Jordan's capital heeding a call by Facebook organizers to demand a sovereign Palestinian state, others near the Jordanian-Israeli border chanting "Death to Israel," and still more activists filling Cairo's Tahrir Square. Palestinian youth groups called for protests in the West Bank and nearby Arab countries to mark the anniversary of the May 15, 1948, creation of the Jewish state. Palestinians call the anniversary the "day of catastrophe" because of the refugee crisis and loss of land that accompanied the creation of Israel. About 500 protesters, demanding a sovereign Palestinian...

The crisis in the Ivory Coast has important lessons for Europe, Israel and the United States. And none of these lessons is being conveyed by the Western media. The most important aspects of the crisis in the Ivory Coast are being overlooked or deliberately disguised by the Western media. One can read media report after media report without discovering the basic fact that the Northern Ivory Coast “rebels” are Muslims. Indeed they are Muslims who by and large entered the Ivory Coast as infiltrators, through borders that are poorly patrolled, from neighboring countries. A better advertisement for stronger border control...

Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, has announced that he has launched a lawsuit against Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, for allegedly facilitating jihad against Israel. It seeks damages of up to $1 billion. WND reported earlier this week on strategies that were being developed on Facebook pages for thousands of people worldwide to "return" to the original homes of their families in "Palestine" on May 15. It was explained in an in-depth report by L. Barkan, a research fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and analyzes media reports throughout the Middle East. He reported...

Calls on Facebook for Palestinian Millions to Return to Their Homes in Israel on May 15, 2011 By: L. Barkan* IntroductionOver the past weeks, a number of Facebook pages have been launched calling on the Palestinians in Israel and abroad to hold mass demonstrations on May 15, 2011, the 63rd anniversary of Nakba Day (the establishment of the State of Israel).  The plan is for millions of Palestinian refugees to march en masse in return to the original homes of their families in Israel. The campaign is being referred to as "The 2011 March of Return," "The Palestinian Refugees'...

Arafat’s Dream by Ari Bussel Once, about a generation ago, there was no entity called “Palestine,” no people called “Palestinians.” There was an “Arab-Israeli Conflict,” a continuing attempt over decades by the Arabs to eliminate the Jewish state and drive the Jews into the sea. This approach was unsuccessful. In 1948 and in 1967 Israel prevailed, although outnumbered and tiny relative to her enemies. Then in 1973, despite all odds she survived an attack on her holiest day. It was not due only to military might, but something greater protecting the Israelis. A very smart man looked around trying to...

A number of years ago, we had a bit of a motley crew over for Shabbat lunch. I remember that my brother was in town, visiting from New York. Another friend, a significant player in the Federation world was also there, as was a high school friend of one of our kids. And we were joined by one more friend, an Israeli Arab woman whom we’d initially met through my work. It was an interesting, though hardly relaxed, Shabbat afternoon. (The conversation took place in English ironically, since even though the Arab woman spoke a mellifluous Hebrew, our American Jewish...

Palestinians residing in Europe gather for mass event in Denmark; Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Salah tells participants their homes in Israel await them Sharon Roffe-Ofir Published: 05.04.08, 16:08 / Israel News Thousands of Palestinians residing in Europe attended a rally in the Danish capital of Copenhagen Saturday marking 60 years since a large part of the Palestinian population was expelled from, or left the newly-founded Israel during the war between Israel and the Arabs in 1948. The event, which was held in Europe for the sixth consecutive year, was organized by the Palestinian Committee in Europe and al-Awda, The Palestine...

SlantRight: Neuwirth on the ‘Arab Right of Return’ The only real racial supremacism practiced in the Middle East is associated with Islam. In Israel there are Arab and non-Jewish voters with equal rights, ...

During his recent trip to Israel, President Bush visited several places that re-affirmed his faith, including Bethlehem and the Sea of Galilee. Then exhibiting far greater faith than believing Jesus could walk on water, he asserted that "peace" could be had between Israel, the Palestinians and her Arab neighbors. One exhibition of faith has some historic roots and witnesses; the other is rooted in fantasy. As the president's visit neared, one might have expected the Palestinians, were they interested in peace, to at least tone down anti-Israel_rants. According to Palestinian Media Watch, the government-controlled_television station instead "intensified its rhetoric calling...

(IsraelNN.com) The issue of "Arab refugees" has long been a matter of widespread consensus in Israel, with even left-wing parties declaring that allowing them into Israel would endanger its very existence as a Jewish state. Nevertheless, the subject does not appear to be going away. Reports are that Prime Minister Olmert has now agreed to allow 50,000 Arabs who left Israel in 1948 - or are descendants of those who did - to enter and live in Israel. Channel Ten reported Thursday night that in a private meeting between Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen, the two agreed that...

The Phony "Right of Return" Under international law, there is no such thing as a right of return. If your ancestors left France, or Russia, or anywhere else (regardless of whether they were forced out, or they just wanted to live somewhere else), then you have no right of return to France or Russia. Nor do your grandchildren. Nevertheless, UNRWA tells the "refugees" that they have a "right of return"” to Israel—that the grandchild of someone who moved to Tel Aviv to work as a janitor from 1946 to 1948 has a right to live in Israel, and to take...

http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/blog/lel66/2007/jan/21/the_right_of_return_myth http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/where-the-iraq- study-group-had-it-all-wrong/...Thus, the accusations that the creation of the State of Israel led to the eradication and dispossession of a Palestinian ‘nation,’ and that Israel continues to obstruct and deny the Palestinian’s right of self-determination, are spurious at best, since, as Robert Spencer, scholar of Islamic history, notes, before the 1967 war when Israel took control of Gaza and the West Bank, no one — including the Palestinians themselves — thought of themselves as a nation, that this “supposed national identity was invented in the 1960s in what turned about to be an extraordinarily successful ploy to adjust the...

What Right of Return, Mr. Baker? http://hnn.us/articles/33928.html By Richard L. Cravatts Mr. Cravatts, PhD, director of Boston University’s Program in Book & Magazine Publishing at the Center for Professional Education, writes frequently on law, politics, religion, housing, and culture. President Bush’s January 10th speech about a strategy for the Iraqi war going forward did ignore two key suggestions found last month in Jim Baker and company’s meretricious Iraqi Study Group report: that, first, the U.S. should initiate diplomatic conversations with Syria and Iran, and, second, that it should withdraw its troops in 2008. Thankfully, another specious suggestion from the report...

Well, the ISG -- the Illustrious Seniors' Group -- has released its 79-point plan. How unprecedented is it? Well, it seems Iraq is to come under something called the "Iraq International Support Group." If only Neville Chamberlain had thought to propose a "support group" for Czechoslovakia, he might still be in office. Or guest-hosting for Oprah. But, alas, such flashes of originality are few and far between in what's otherwise a testament to conventional wisdom. How conventional is the ISG's conventional wisdom? Try page 49: "RECOMMENDATION 5: The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq,...