Free Republic

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he would “not attend” a speech given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Republican and Democrat lawmakers invited Netanyahu to speak before a “Joint Meeting of Congress.” Sanders issued a press release on Saturday describing Netanyahu as a “war criminal” and stating that he “should not be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wrote a letter addressed to Netanyahu on Friday, inviting him to speak before a “Joint...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police said Saturday that they had 34 people in custody following a pro-Palestinian protest at the Brooklyn Museum, which reported damage to some artwork and harassment to security staff by demonstrators. Hundreds of protesters marched to the museum on Friday afternoon, set up tents in the lobby and unfurled a “Free Palestine” banner from the building’s roof before police moved in to make arrests. New York City police officers tackled and punched some protesters during scuffles that broke out in the crowd outside the museum while some demonstrators hurled plastic bottles at officers...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to speak before the United States Congress and Senate in a joint meeting. Johnson announced on Friday that he was “honored” to invite Netanyahu to “address a joint meeting of Congress.” In a letter addressed to Netanyahu, Johnson wrote that “last year” Congress had proudly hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit Washington, D.C., and that Netanyahu was invited to speak before a “Joint Meeting of Congress.”

The military said on Wednesday that it now had full operational control of the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. This effectively clamps down on any possible weapons flow to Hamas from the outside. Troops located 20 tunnels crossing into Egypt near the Philadelphi Corridor and 82 tunnel shafts. This information was passed on to Egypt. Egypt’s Al Qahera News denied the reports. “It doesn’t mean that we have boots on the ground across all of the corridors, but it means we can control and we have the ability to cut off the...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined an anti-Israel commentator this week in blaming the Abraham Accords peace deal and the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem for Hamas’s massive terror attack on Israel on October 7. “AOC” also agreed that Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights — which are not claimed by Palestinians, but were taken from Syria in a defensive war — was also “directly” responsible for October 7.

..... The Israeli proposal which was transmitted by Qatar to Hamas, Biden revealed, includes three phases, the first of which “would last for six weeks ... [and] would include a full and complete ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.” Phase two would see the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, Israeli forces, with withdrawal from Gaza. “As long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, a temporary ceasefire would become,...

The first rule in crisis communications is this: Protect the brand. When faced with a crisis that could explode in the media, crisis communicators work to minimize damage to the brand. But should Amazon be running the violent abduction of its employee, Alexander “Sasha” Troufanov, like a classic crisis communications scenario instead of exhausting all means and resources to free him? Shortly after the New York Post reported in November that Sasha, an Amazon employee in its Tel Aviv lab, had been kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, I did a round of pro bono media outreach to offer Sasha’s...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel would not accept a ceasefire deal that prevented it from destroying Hamas, after U.S. President Joe Biden presented a so-called Israeli “proposal” that allowed Hamas to survive. On Friday, Biden presented a proposal, which he claimed was made by Israel, for a ceasefire. The terms do not even mention Hamas, much less its disarmament, while they require Israel to withdraw and stop fighting.

Survey conducted in March finds only 19% of Israeli Jews believe peaceful coexistence possible with Palestinian state — lowest since Pew Institute began polling Israelis in 2013 Fifty percent of Israeli Jews support Israel maintaining control of the Gaza Strip after the war against the Hamas terror group ends, according to a Pew Research Center survey published Thursday. Asked who should govern the Palestinian enclave after the war, half of Jewish respondents said Israel; 15% said they didn’t know; 10% said the Palestinian Authority, but without its president, Mahmoud Abbas; 8% said people who live in Gaza should decide; 7%...

Randi Weingarten's American Federation of Teachers defends pro-Hamas campus occupations as 'peacefully demonstrating' The American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten claimed that anti-Israel protesters on college campuses were simply "peacefully demonstrating." The American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten claimed that anti-Israel protesters on college campuses were simply “peacefully demonstrating.” The Tuesday statement from the AFT came in response to a hearing last week from the House Education and the Workforce Committee where leaders of Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California, Los Angeles, were grilled regarding their response to campus anti-Israel encampments. ”AFT members...

Spokesman of the military arm of the Houthis: We carried out a combined missile attack against the American aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower in the Red Sea in response to last night's attacks in Yemen

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s brashness toward progressives has expanded beyond the topic of Israel. Fetterman was the topic of a lengthy feature article published by the New York Times on Saturday that highlighted how the senator, who had been on thin ice with progressives for his staunch and unconditional support for Israel in its war with Hamas, has shown that his willingness to make waves within his own party doesn’t stop at the Middle East. Fetterman was seen mocking environmentalist Stevie O’Hanlon, who was trying to speak to him about a Chester County pipeline, in a video that circulated online...

Former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan slammed the Biden administration on Wednesday over the news that the $320 million pier the U.S. built to transport aid into Gaza had fallen apart after only a few days. "Let's be clear: if this had happened on Trump's watch, we would all be mocking and denouncing him," Hasan wrote on X. "It's super-embarrassing that it happened on Biden's watch and the fact that it did shouldn't prevent us from saying: what a bloody s--tshow."

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday held an operational situation assessment and visited several command and control centers in the IDF’s Northern Command, together with Head of the Command, Maj. Gen. Uri Gordin. Upon completing the visit, Minister Gallant referred to Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah’s recent speech in which he claims that, “Israel’s Minister of Defense is inflating the numbers.” Minister Gallant presented a series of images of Hezbollah brigade commanders and emphasized that the IDF has eliminated over 300 terrorists and commanders in the terrorist organization. He explained, "I have just completed a situation assessment and tour of...

Pro-Hamas protestors were at it again, this time setting fire to the Israeli embassy in Mexico City, with some reports of injuries, puzzling quite a few observers. According to the Jewish Chronicle:Rioters on Tuesday set fire to the Israeli Embassy in Mexico during a protest ostensibly against the Israeli military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.Masked protesters threw stones at security forces who had created a barricade preventing access to the diplomatic mission in the Mexico City’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.Around 200 people participated in the “Urgent Action for Rafah” demonstration, dozens of whom attempted to break down...

Nikki Haley, a former GOP presidential candidate and United Nations ambassador, wrote “Finish them” on an artillery shell while on a trip to Israel this week. Haley was photographed signing the shell Tuesday in a social media post by Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the Israeli Parliament. The message on the shell read, “Finish them! America [heart] Israel always, Nikki Haley.” “This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote in a post...

Map of combat position in an UNRWA school in Rafah, May 30, 2024. (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT) IDF troops operating in southern Gaza uncovered a store of weapons stored in a UNRWA school complex, which also included a mosque and a medical clinic, the IDF announced on Thursday. During searches, a hidden explosive in a shaft underneath a civilian clinic exploded on IDF troops. The hidden explosive device killed the three IDF soldiers, St.-Sgt. Amir Galilove, St.-Sgt. Uri Bar Or and St.-Sgt Ido Appel that the IDF confirmed on Wednesday. Many weapons were discovered during the operation, including firearms,...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overtook war cabinet minister Benny Gantz as the public’s preferred choice for premier in a television survey aired Wednesday, marking the first time in a year that the incumbent rated higher than his best-polling rival. The Channel 12 news poll also found Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party gaining on Gantz’s centrist National Union, while indicating that a potential all-star slate of Netanyahu’s former right-wing allies could win a double-digit number of parliamentary seats, mainly at the expense of National Union. If elections were held today, according to the poll, National Union would pick up 25 of the...

An Israeli soldier walks next to items found inside a workshop which they claim was used for weapon production and located on the lower floors of a residential building in the northern Gaza Strip, November 8, 2023. (photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS) As Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza are cut off from their weapons supply due to the IDF’s operations on the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, the terrorist groups will go to ground and use their remaining weapons. Hamas has been stockpiling weapons for decades in Gaza. Almost every building has either weapons or other types of...

Gaza's 9 mile border with Egypt includes a buffer zone known in Israel as the Philadelphi corridor. Today Israel claimed it had gained tactical control over the corridor and located more than a dozen tunnels used to smuggle items into Gaza.Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said the zone was “Hamas’s oxygen tube” and had been used by the Palestinian armed group for “smuggling munitions into Gazan territory on a regular basis.” He said that Hamas had also built tunnels near the Egyptian border, calculating that Israel would not dare strike so close to Egyptian territory.Israeli officials have...