Free Republic

The United States is intensifying its pressure on the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Al-Jazeera network reported on Sunday evening that the US administration has decided to immediately close all bank accounts linked to the PA or the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in banks across the United States. The US is not confirming the report at the moment, but the State Department hinted last week after the closure of the PLO’s mission in Washington that there would be further steps against the Palestinian Arabs. Earlier on Sunday, the Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen television reported that the US ordered the PLO envoy to the...

28-year-old Syrian national Ibrahim Ali, who came to Canada as a refugee, has been accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl in Burnaby, British Colombia, whose body was found last year. The Syrian refugee, who came to Canada through a private sponsorship programme, was arrested last week by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) after a large-scale investigation into the death of the 13-year-old, who was found in Burnaby’s Central Park in July 2017. In court, the 28-year-old was charged with first-degree murder. He required an Arabic interpreter, with proceedings delayed as the court waited for the interpreter to arrive.

Several people have been taken to hospital with stab wounds after a reported mass brawl in a residential street in the southeastern English town of Luton on Sunday, police said. …

Ari Fuld, a U.S.-born activist who was popular in the local community and an outspoken Israel advocate on social media platforms. The military said the attacker arrived at the mall near a major junction in the southern West Bank, close to the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, and stabbed the Fuld before fleeing. Video footage showed Fuld giving chase and firing at his assailant before collapsing. Other civilians shot the attacker, whom Israeli media identified as a 17-year-old from a nearby Palestinian village. His condition was unclear. Fuld, a 40-year-old father of four who lived in the nearby settlement of Efrat,...

London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for another referendum on Britain’s European Union membership, saying the prime minister’s handling of Brexit negotiations had become “mired in confusion and deadlock” and was leading the country down a damaging path. […] The backing of Khan, a member of the main opposition Labour party, for a second referendum will put more pressure on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to change his opposition to the idea when the party meets for its annual conference in a week’s time. A second referendum, dubbed a “people’s vote” by its proponents, is not Labour party policy, although finance...

Sarah's haunted face stares out under a red Islamic head-dress in her wedding photo. Beside her, guests eat cake while celebrating the marriage, conducted by the local mosque's imam at a terraced house in the Home Counties. Yet Sarah is not a willing bride. She is being made to marry a member of the gang that effectively forced her into sex slavery after abducting her in a Tesco car park in the English suburbs one autumn afternoon. Her captivity lasted for 12 long years. Within minutes of her wedding picture being taken, the white English girl was pushed upstairs into...

Former Minneapolis cop's behavior before shooting death of Australian woman raised concerns, court filings say. (Full title). ... The former Minneapolis police officer charged in the shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond once put a gun to a driver’s head during a traffic stop and sometimes ignored calls, according to court filings indicating that psychiatrists and training officers voiced concerns about his fitness for duty. The revelations surfaced after defense attorneys filed a motion Wednesday seeking to dismiss murder and manslaughter charges against Mohamed Noor, who is accused of shooting Damond in July 2017 after she dialed 911 to report...

Organizers of a music festival in Düsseldorf, Germany, withdrew their invitation to composer and singer Brian Eno over his longtime involvement in attempts to boycott Israel, JTA reported on Friday. Eno was slated to appear at the Electricity Conference festival in October, but last week he was among a group of artists who signed a letter urging a boycott of the Eurovision Song Contest that will be held next year in Israel. Festival organizer Rüdiger Esch told the Westdeutsche Zeitung that it “was the only right decision” to disinvite Eno because “we don’t want to invite anyone who supports activities...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday blasted former Secretary of State John Kerry’s meetings with Iranian officials since leaving office. "What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented," Pompeo told reporters at the State Department, according to CNN. "This is a former secretary of state engaged with the world's largest state sponsor of terror and according to him, he was talking to them, he was telling them to wait out this administration," Pompeo added. "You can't find precedent for this in US history and the secretary ought not engage in this kind of behavior," Pompeo continued. "It's...

The State could face infringement proceedings by the EU or a third party if a Bill that would ban imports from Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories is passed, the European Commission has warned. A Government official privately sought the advice of the Commission’s trade directorate last week on the proposed legislation, which is sponsored by Independent Senator Frances Black and passed its first vote in the Seanad in July with the support of Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, Labour and some independents. Fine Gael opposes the passage of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 on the basis...

The United States’ decision to close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) office in Washington will make it harder to reach a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry said on Friday. […] The U.S. administration on Monday said the PLO’s office in Washington would be closed out of concern about Palestinian attempts to prompt an International Criminal Court investigation of Israel. …

Former Secretary of State John Kerry is being slammed for conducting shadow diplomacy with Iran after admitting to multiple meetings with Iranian officials behind the backs of Trump administration officials -- including over the scrapped nuclear deal. An administration official on Thursday told Fox News Kerry’s meetings are "shameful," pointing out what Iranian-backed militias are doing to kill and injure people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Other Republicans suggested it may not even be legal. “John Kerry is out giving advice to Iran about how to maneuver around what Donald Trump is doing; it's insidious,” Ari Fleischer, the former White...

France is famously America’s oldest ally, but more than half of French people no longer consider the United States a reliable partner, according to a survey released Wednesday. Just 44 percent said the US was a “trusted ally” under President Donald Trump — a 33-point plunge since the same survey was done in May 2014, when Barack Obama was in the White House. Only 17 percent said they had a positive opinion of Trump in the IFOP poll, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee advocacy group, France’s Foundation for Political Innovation and the Sursaut think-tank collective. Some 54 percent said...

National security adviser John Bolton is expected to announced Monday that the U.S. will shutter the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) office in Washington, D.C., The Wall Street Journal reported. “The Trump administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” Bolton is expected to say, according to a draft of his speech reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Bolton will reportedly threaten the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it carries out investigations into the U.S. and Israel. ADVERTISEMENT The action against the PLO, which serves as the main entity...

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered that $25 million earmarked for the care of Palestinians in East Jerusalem hospitals be directed elsewhere as part of a review of aid, a State Department official said on Saturday. Trump called for a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinians earlier this year to ensure that the funds were being spent in accordance with national interests and were providing value to taxpayers. “As a result of that review, at the direction of the President, we will be redirecting approximately $25 million originally planned for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network,” the State Department official...

Sweden’s prime minister denounced an increasingly popular far-right party as racist and a threat to the nation’s European values Saturday as political candidates made their final pre-election pitches to voters. The parliamentary election being held Sunday will be Sweden’s first since the government in 2015 allowed 163,000 migrants into the country of 10 million. While far less than what Germany took in that year, it was the most per capita of any European nation. […] The Sweden Democrats, a party rooted in a neo-Nazi movement that has worked to soften its image, has played a role in breaking down longstanding...

Senior officials from the United Nations and a number of European nations visited an exhibition hosted by the Palestinian Authority featuring explicitly anti-Semitic images last month. According to a report by Makor Rishon on Friday, early last month, a number of foreign representatives visited an exhibition set up by the Palestinian Authority in the illegal Bedouin outpost of Khan al-Ahmar. Built in the 1990s, the illegal encampment today houses some 170 Bedouin squatters just outside of the Israeli town of Kfar Adumim, east of Jerusalem. The encampment was never authorized, and is slated for demolition, after the Supreme Court rejected...

US Senator James Lankford (R-OH) has proposed legislation that would permanently sever Washington’s funding to UNRWA if it does not change its definition of “legitimate Palestinian refugees”, reports i24news. Lankford said Thursday he was introducing a bill that would enshrine President Donald Trump’s decision to end US funding to UNRWA in law and open the door to a resumption of funding if UNRWA stops bestowing refugee status on descendants of male Palestinian Arab refugees who fled what is now Israel in 1948 or the 1967 Six Day War. “We are currently funding an entity that has ensured that a refugee...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled on Thursday that it has jurisdiction over alleged deportations of Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh as a possible crime against humanity. The decision at the Hague-based court paves the way for prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to further examine whether there is sufficient evidence to file charges in the case, although she has not done so yet. Bensouda’s representatives were not immediately available for comment. Although Myanmar is not a member of the Hague-based court, Bangladesh is, and the cross-border nature of deportation was sufficient for jurisdiction, the court said. […] The office of government...

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has recorded an increase of closed murder cases in 2017 involving at least one “non-German” suspect, reported Welt Am Sonntag on Sunday. The number rose to 83 last year, up from 62 the year before, marking a 33 percent increase. In total, 731 people died as a result of murder or manslaughter in 2017. The figures solely comprise closed cases. The BKA’s 2017 report did not specify nationality or whether a suspect was an EU citizen. […] A debate about the link between foreign nationals and murder in Germany was triggered by riots in...