Free Republic

In hindsight, it was clear all along that President Trump didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet in being snubbed, he nonetheless proved something extremely important.His rejection reveals that the official claim of the award is false when it says the prize goes to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”That standard describes exactly the peace Trump has achieved this year by settling conflicts around the world,...

President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the Gaza war has not only won support from Israel, but also from the Arab and Muslim world — and from the Palestinian Authority, which has opposed his plans in the past. The 20-point plan, as Breitbart News has noted, would fulfill Israel’s goals of freeing the remaining hostages, as well as disarming Hamas and removing it from power. It also offers the prospect of a Palestinian state — if Hamas complies with the plan and the Palestinian Authority agrees to sweeping reforms of its policies and anti-Israel culture. If Hamas does not agree,...

The Arab states that screamed “genocide” at Israel were simultaneously deepening security ties with the IDF — because they all knew it was a lie. WASH POST Arab states expanded cooperation with Israeli military during Gaza war, files show David Kenner October 11, 2025 Even as key Arab states condemned the war in the Gaza Strip, they quietly expanded security cooperation with the Israeli military, leaked U.S. documents reveal. Those military ties were thrown into crisis after Israel’s September airstrike in Qatar, but could now play a key role in overseeing the nascent ceasefire in Gaza. Over the past three...

The Biden administration is urging Arab states to join a "peacekeeping" force which would control Gaza once the war ends, the Financial Times reported. The initiative aims to fill the vacuum which would be created in Gaza once Hamas is toppled and until a "credible Palestinian security apparatus" could be established. Among the countries the US has been discussing its plans with are Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco, all of which are "considering" the initiative. The US has also spoken to Saudi Arabia about the plan, but the Saudis are unwilling to deploy their own forces to the...

The UN Human Rights Council has released a report detailing a “black list” of international companies operating in Judea and Samaria. The council listed 112 companies which it claims violate international law by continuing to operate in the Jewish communities in the area, including Airbnb, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz responded to the black List, saying that “the UN Human Rights Council’s announcement of the “black list” of business companies is a shameful surrender to the pressures of countries and organizations interested in hurting Israel, even though most countries in the world have refused to join this political...

Getting other Arab interlocutors to replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel remains Trump's crucial starting point to ending the Arab-Jewish conflict Nabil Abu Rudeineh - spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas—has angrily reacted to President Trump’s intensive diplomatic efforts seeking to enlist Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in advancing Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century” to end the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Refugees arrive in some of Europe's poorest states, mainly Greece, Italy and Hungary, but insist that they have a right to head for more prosperous nations where welfare benefits are higher and healthcare freely available. "Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. ... It's too costly to relocate them here. Kuwait is too expensive for them anyway, as opposed to Lebanon and Turkey, which are cheap. They are better suited for the Syrian refugees. ... it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us. We don't...

The major Arab powers once deemed essential to the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have largely pulled back from the U.S.-led military campaign, undercutting the Obama administration's claims about the depth and reach of the coalition it has built with allies in the region. The Obama administration consistently touts the "65-nation coalition" it has assembled to fight the group also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh -- but critics say the fewer than a dozen nations today are contributing anything significant to the campaign. And behind closed doors, administration and military officials admit that air support...

Analysis: The Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and Gulf state rulers trust Israel's re-elected prime minister to handle the Iranian issue, and the Americans to pressure him on the Palestinian issue. The Arab world, just like officials in Jerusalem and in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, is monitoring the steps of the American dance which is casting a shadow on the elections results here. One can definitely say that the roof did not collapse on the Arab leaders' heads when Netanyahu won. The elections here appeared odd, and if there was any attention, it focused on the joint Arab list, and...

Arab governments are privately expressing their concern to Washington about the emerging terms of a potential deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program, according to Arab and U.S. officials involved in the deliberations. The direction of U.S. diplomacy with Tehran has added fuel to fears in some Arab states of a nuclear-arms race in the region, as well as reviving talk about possibly extending a U.S. nuclear umbrella to Middle East allies to counter any Iranian threat. The major Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have said that a final agreement could allow Shiite-dominated...

Arab states “will never recognize Israel”, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) foreign minister stated on Monday, according to NRG/Maariv. Riyad al-Malki was speaking to Radio Palestine after participating in a weekend meeting in Paris between U.S. Secretary State of John Kerry and foreign ministers of the Arab League. …

The Arab world received the news of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s death with relative schadenfreude, publicly criticizing him for his role in the Sabra and Shatila Massacre during the First Lebanon War. From Cairo and Beirut to Dubai and the Gaza Strip, there were competitions of who could insult him more, while others were satisfied with celebrating outside turning local streets into a pocket of bedlam. […] Brazilian caricaturist Carlos Latuff depicted Sharon as carrying his sins—Sabra, Shatila, Qibya and Jenin—to hell. An Egyptian caricature showed Sharon being thrown into the garbage can of history. …

PHILADELPHIA – Is the reported willingness of Arab Gulf states to fund a U.S. military campaign in Syria really about major oil and gas interests that run through the country? The potential for trillions of dollars of energy revenue in deals that snake through Syrian territory may be a motivating factor for the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Arab states in the current Syria crisis.

Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;(Joel 3:4) As we stated earlier, an interesting exercise for Bible readers is to take the geographical predictions of the Hebrew prophets and transpose the ancient place names with modern place names, For example, Amman, would be Jordan, so would Moab and Edom, Elam would be Iran, Persia also is Iran, Assyria would be part of Iran and part...

<p>Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul said Wednesday night that he is not anti-Semitic, and that he is pro-Israel, despite remarks made earlier this week by his former aide by which Paul would have preferred it if Israel did not exist.</p>

Even Islamists have to eat. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt will survive, or whether his nationalist regime will be replaced by an Islamist, democratic, or authoritarian state. What is certain is that it will be a failed state. Amid the speculation about the shape of Arab politics to come, a handful of observers, for example economist Nourel Roubini, have pointed to the obvious: Wheat prices have almost doubled in the past year. Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer, beholden to foreign providers for nearly half its total food consumption. Half of Egyptians live on less...

It was hardly noticed at the time, but its consequences could be catastrophic. Late last September, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which assigns internet domain names, approved a huge change in the way it operates. Europe and North America will now have five seats on its Board of Directors, instead of ten, and a new "Arab States" region will have five seats as well. How big a deal is this? ICANN at the same time took a reference to "terrorism" out of its Draft Applicant Guidebook. Why? Because Arab groups complained. And so now jihad terror...

Regional cooperation begins with resuming negotiations with the Palestinians. In the interests of achieving a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace, Israel sees the economic domain as one of the cornerstones of good relations. Political dialogue with our Palestinian partners is critical, but it will not be furthered by allowing a settlement freeze to be imposed as a precondition to negotiation. Nor will it be advanced by a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood. Beyond the Palestinian question, the largest obstacle to regional peace is the current Iranian regime, which continues to do everything in its power to undermine the moderate regimes...

If you wanted to find a single story that summed up everything wrong about the politics of the Arab and Islamic world, it is this little item from the New York Times about the Arab summit meeting in Doha, Qatar. As the Times puts it, the Arabs are divided about everything … except their support for Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the architect of a campaign of rape and murder in Darfur that earned him an indictment from the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There may be a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest sitting in...

....The demise of the edifice of Soviet communism in the early 1990s led to a conceptual swing in Arab societies. Not only was the West restored to its post-World War I status as an unrivaled military and economic force in the Middle East, but so, too, did liberal democracy revert to what it was at the beginning of the century in the region: A form of government with universal pretensions. The significance of these developments was not lost on many Arab intellectuals. At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, discussions on the universality of liberal democracy...