Free Republic

Officials at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Wednesday dismissed the significance of a letter written by the site’s Muslim keyholder in which he vowed not to receive US Vice President Mike Pence as irrelevant, since the man is not an official of the church and does not represent it. A spokeswoman for Pence, who is due next week, said the vice president has not reached out to plan a visit to the church at this stage, and a church official said no visit had yet been planned. Adeeb Jowdeh al-Husseini, the Custodian of the Keys to...

Breaking with years of courting the U.S., Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Wednesday for the United Nations to replace Washington as a Mideast mediator and suggested he might not cooperate with the Trump administration’s much-anticipated effort to hammer out an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. At a summit in Turkey, Arab and Muslim leaders “rejected and condemned” President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — the trigger for Abbas’ sharp policy pivot — but stopped short of backing his more combative approach toward Washington. A possible Palestinian refusal to engage with the U.S. and growing backlash against Trump’s shift on...

US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said, “We will continue to work through all our partners to try to stabilize the country.” Spokesperson Nauert commented on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russian soldiers will be pulled out of Syria and said, “If Russia chooses to pull out, certainly, that is its choice to do so, but we continue to work through all our partners to try to stabilize the country.” US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert answered questions about Syria in the daily press briefing. Nauert said the following on the question about Russian President Putin’s announcement that Russian...

The Afghan refugee, who is now on trial for the rape and murder of the medical student Maria Ladenburger in October 2016, is older than previously thought. Hussein Khavari entered Germany in November 2015 without identity papers. He told authorities that he was born in 1999 in Afghanistan and that his father was killed during the war. But it now appears that his father is still alive. According to German media his father said his son was born in 1984 and that he is 33-years-old. The Local Germany says about it: “Prosecutors were able to track down Hussein K.’s father...

The leaders of 57 Muslim nations have called on the world to recognise "the State of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital". An Organisation of Islamic Co-operation communique declares US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise the city as Israel's capital as "null and void". It also says the move has signalled Washington's withdrawal from its role in the Middle East peace process. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier said the UN should take over. In a speech to the OIC summit in Istanbul, Mr Abbas said it would be "unacceptable" for the US to be the mediator "since...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of an investigation in Turkey into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer has testified. The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, told a New York court on December 11 that the Turkish investigation that he led in 2012-2013 initially focused on Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who U.S. prosecutors have said was the mastermind behind the Iran sanctions evasion scheme, but later grew to include dozens of others. He called Erdogan the "No. 1" target in a group that also included...

Israeli army has denied carrying out a strike in Gaza on Tuesday that killed two members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Hamas-run enclave. According to Palestinian Maan News agency, sources close to Islamic Jihad said that the two men — 25 year old Hussein Ghazi Hussein Nasrallah and 29 year old Mustafa Sultan — were part of the group’s armed wing Saraya al-Quds and had been working for its northern brigade’s engineering unit. The group later posted a statement on its website saying that the two men were on a “jihadist...

President Donald Trump signed a military spending bill on Tuesday, promising a “strong military” with the best equipment during his presidency. “We need our military, its got to be ‘perfecto,’” Trump said, urging Congress to remove military sequester caps and pass a clean funding bill for the government next year. Trump called the military funding bill a “momentous“ occasion and a great step in funding the “greatest fighting force in the history of the world.” He said that the bill increased the size of the armed forces budget for the first time in seven years, and included the largest military...

A wealthy ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has placed a bounty on the heads of two former U.S. military and intelligence officials as part of what U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon is an effort by the Turkish government to threaten and intimidate Americans who they believe are working to undermine Erdogan. A bounty of three million Turkish lira, or nearly $800,000, was placed on the heads of former Pentagon official Michael Rubin and former top CIA official Graham Fuller for what Erdogan's allies claim is their role in a 2016 failed coup that nearly toppled Erdogan's...

Full Title: Here’s How Trump’s Pledge To Move The U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem Changes The Palestinian-Israel ‘Peace Process’ President Trump’s decision to have the United States recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was not taken in a vacuum. It was another step in changing the moribund Palestinian-Israel “peace process” into something else. What else is not clear, but the intention and the antecedents are. The intention is to disabuse the Palestinians of the notion that the U.S. is neutral between them and our democratic, pro-Western, tolerant, free-market ally Israel. Clarity will actually make the U.S. an honest broker in...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the European Union on Monday to back a new U.S. peace initiative in the Middle East, after President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital met with widespread condemnation and triggered clashes in the Palestinian territories. Netanyahu, making the first official visit by an Israeli premier to the EU’s Brussels headquarters in 22 years, told reporters that recognizing Jerusalem merely stated the reality on the ground. He said he expected many European countries to follow Trump’s lead. But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who chaired talks between Netanyahu and EU...

Following President Trump’s historic declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, West Bank and Gazan Arabs took to the streets in rage. They burned U.S. and Israeli flags. They cursed America, Israel and the Yahuds (Jews). Their imams cited verses from the Koran and the Hadiths about the usurpers and interlopers and the “descendants of apes and pigs.” In other words, it was business as usual for the Palestinians. Nothing had changed. At the State Department too, it was business as usual. In a transparent effort to placate the Arab bloc, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the process...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas' new leader in the Gaza Strip said Monday his group has repaired relations with Iran after a five-year rift and is using its newfound financial and military aid to gear up for new hostilities with Israel. The announcement by Yehiyeh Sinwar came as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was visiting Israel. At a meeting with the U.N. chief, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained about what he called rising anti-Israel activity by Iran and its allies in the region. Iran was once the top backer of Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel's...

Blair re-elected to Socialist International post amid protests SAO PAULO (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) was re-elected vice president of the Socialist International, drawing protests from delegates who said his support of the US-led war in Iraq (news - web sites) made him ineligible. Socialist parties in Argentina, Chile, Panama, Mexico and Nicaragua sought to derail the re-election of Britain's Labour Party leader. "It is necessary to make a distinction between the Labour party and its place in history and the leadership of Tony Blair, which has been so horrible for world peace," said Hernan...

The bell is tolling for Europe. All the warning signs are turned on red. A demographic catastrophe is in the making. If Europe fails to make a stand, its Judeo-Christian civilization is about to be blown away. Last week, the renowned Pew Research Center published updated figures about the growing Muslim population in the broader EU region (i.e. the 28 European Union member states plus Switzerland and Norway). The figures are truly dramatic. Unless there are radical changes to the present policies towards immigration, 30.6% of the population in Sweden will be Islamic by the middle of the century. Sweden...

Security Council became a kangaroo court, turning a perverted version of “international law” against the Trump administration for its just defense of the Jewish state of Israel and Israel's right to choose its own capital On December 6th, President Trump announced his decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to instruct the State Department to begin the process of relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Two days later, at a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the other 14 members of the Council, including U.S. allies such as France, the United...

After the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had warned that China was trying to recruit German informants for intelligence services via social media networks, Beijing denied these accusations on Monday. They are “baseless accusations” for which there is no evidence, said Lu Kang, a Chinese state department spokesman, adding that the relevant organizations and the German government should act “more responsibly.” The BfV had previously warned that Chinese intelligence were trying to infiltrate parliaments, ministries and authorities with informants, particularly via the professional social media network LinkedIn. […] The BfV added that the aim of Chinese...

U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley knew exactly how to respond to CNN anchor Jake Tapper's depressing assessment of the U.S. embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during their interview on Sunday. "President Trump is supposed to be a master negotiator," Tapper noted. "Isn't this just cashing in a chip and getting nothing for it? How does this move the peace process forward in any way?" Watch Video HereIn addition to leading questions like that, Tapper quoted the Arab League calling the move a "dangerous development," then played a clip of the PLO Secretary-General declaring that Trump had...

The EU foreign policy chief says Europe does “not see eye to eye” with the Trump administration on major issues such as trade, climate change and funding of U.N. agencies, but can “easily” work with the U.S. on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Federica Mogherini spoke Saturday during a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum. Mogherini warned that threatened U.S. cuts in funding U.N. agencies “would create a major security issue worldwide, including in Europe.” …

"I strongly condemn any attack on Jews anywhere in the world and on Israeli citizens," the EU foreign minister said...