Free Republic

A school and convent in a Gaza Catholic compound were ransacked before being torched as fears rise among Christians over their future in the Hamas-ruled territory. The school and convent were ransacked, burned and looted during clashes around a major security headquarters, the head of the community said yesterday, according to a report in the UK Guardian. Crosses were broken, a statue of Jesus was damaged, and prayer books were burnt at the Rosary Sisters School and nearby convent, said Fr Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Latin church. The damage took place on Thursday, but wasn't reported until days later...

The Sopranos of Gaza City The outlaw Daghmash family seek revenge against Hamas gaza city—Ahmed Daghmash doesn’t carry himself with the bravado of a typical Gaza militant. His soft eyes and casual manner make it easy to believe he is, as he says, a Russian-educated engineer who once ran a business he hoped would help reopen Gaza City’s port. But since his brother Mahmoud and cousin Ashraf were shot dead by Hamas gunmen on December 19, his equanimity has concealed a cool fury and a dedication to violent revenge. From the moment Hamas defeated Fatah in last year’s legislative elections,...

Radical and militant Islamist organizations have existed as an opposing force to Bangladesh’s secular and democratic system since Bangladeshi independence 1971. Once a surreptitious force in Bangladesh, these organizations are now operating overtly, as is witnessed by a steady increase in Islamist TERROR attacks across the country; (Bangladesh saw over 500 Explosions in 2005, all carried out by militant Islamists). Membership of Bangladeshi Radical- militant Islamist organizations is RAPIDLY INCREASING because of two key factors: deep economic turmoil-severe political instability. ...A consequence of the ongoing political rivalry between the country's two main political parties, the Bangladeshi National Party and Awami...

At least nine of the large-scale attacks in Iraq since the beginning of the year have involved the use of chlorine. These bombs strike a particular fear because if people are not killed by the blast, they may easily die an agonizing death when the chlorine is dispersed and inhaled. [...] We turn away, taking a perhaps rather ODD REFUGE in the certainty that this is all the fault of the Neoconservatives, of the Arrogance of Bush and Blair and what is strangely called a policy of “liberal intervention.” A majority were against the war in 2003 and almost everyone...

"...Whereas the story of ‘Billy the Kid’ of the ‘Wild Wild West’ is somewhat fictitious, the Battle of Badr is a historical fact compiled in the Quran, Hadith and many Islamic books. Muslims always brag about the victory of Mohammad in this battle, assuming he fought against injustice to establish Islam. In reality, this raid had nothing to do with revenge for persecution, as claimed in the Quran. This war was not between oppressed and oppressor, or between good and evil. It was not a defensive war. It even should not be called a war or a battle because the...

RADICAL Islamic literature, DVDs and websites are proliferating across Melbourne while authorities are seemingly helpless to stop the underground trade in hate talk.- In tucked away Melbourne bookshops and prayer rooms, as well as online, text and recordings commonly slur Jews and urge followers to Islamise the world. The faithful are told to obey only Sharia law.- A Sunday Herald Sun audit of Islamic bookshops found dozens of books, pamphlets, DVDs and CDs with radical and sometimes violent messages.- One book, Man-Made Laws Vs. Shari'ah, urges Muslims not to "accept anything from their governments and rulers except sharia", stating any...

Riyadh - A Saudi Arabian court has convicted and sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison for attending a party where alcoholic drinks were served and men and women danced, a Saudi newspaper reported on Sunday. The kingdom's religious police arrested 433 foreigners, including more than 240 women, for attending the "impudent" party in Jiddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz reported. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place. Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to three to four month in prison and ordered them to receive an...

After 19 years on the run, German police arrest members of RZ group, which was involved in hijacking Air France plane with dozens of Israelis on board in 1976 Two suspected members of a German left-wing terror group which took part in some of the most notorious hostage dramas of the 1970s have surrendered to authorities after 19 years on the run. Federal state prosecutors in Karlsruhe said on Sunday that the two suspected members of the "Revolutionaere Zellen" (RZ), or Revolutionary Cells, had given themselves up in December. RZ members helped Carlos the Jackal take ministers hostage at an...

""....On 9 January 1976, three days after Epiphany, the priest of Damour Father Mansour Labaky, was carrying out a Maronite custom of blessing the houses with holy water. As he stood in front of a house on the side of the town next to the Muslim village of Harat Na’ami, a bullet whistled past his ear and hit the house. Then he heard the rattle of machine-guns. He went inside the house, and soon learned that the town was surrounded. Later he found out by whom and how many — the forces of Sa’iqa, consisting of 16,000 Palestinians and Syrians,...

The Episcopal Church has approximately 2 million members and 7,200 churches in the U.S. and is part of the 77-million member Anglican Communion. Because of its presence in the U.S., the relative wealth of its members, and its connections to Anglicans throughout the world, the Episcopal Church is in a strategic position to influence attitudes toward Israel on both a national and global scale. - Sadly, the Episcopal Church is Not a trustworthy observer of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The church's leaders and constitutive bodies routinely issue one-sided statements about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its publications portray Israel as exclusively responsible...

We note Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent discussion of his "solution" to the Mideast crisis: Destroy Israel. - In a speech calling for an immediate cease-fire in Israel's war against the Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon, he declared, "(T)he main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime." - It is the world's responsibility to take the Iranian leader at his word until he proves he does not mean it. His country has supplied Hezbollah with weapons and money to carry on a proxy war against Israel. And Iran is racing to develop nuclear weapons and otherwise emerge as...

In a letter to the editor of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel a Lebanese Shia explains how after Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon, Hezbollah stored rockets in bunkers in his town and built a school and residence over it. ""I lived until 2002 in a small southern village near Mardshajun that is inhabited by a majority of Shias like me. After Israel left Lebanon, it did not take long for Hezbollah to have the say in our town and all other towns. Received as successful resistance fighters, they appeared armed to the teeth and dug rocket depots in bunkers in...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali renounced Islam and fled Somalia. Now her adopted nation is sacrificing her to the hate-mongers. - THE UPROAR IN the Netherlands over its Somali-born member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is much more than a national controversy. It goes to the heart of the culture of Appeasement that currently grips Europe, and that is undermining the defense of the West against Islamist terror.- Hirsi Ali, who says she fled an arranged marriage in Somalia and who has renounced her Muslim faith, has spoken out against both the oppression of women under Islam and unrestricted Muslim immigration into...

Holland has for decades been celebrated, or notorious, as a land where anything goes, but now the Dutch have finally discovered that there are limits. - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the courageous Dutch Parliamentarian who has drawn death threats for her outspoken criticism of women’s rights in Islam and unrestricted Muslim immigration into Europe, has resigned from Parliament and will leave the Netherlands. - Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk has brought this about by suddenly deciding to press the fact that the Somalia-born Hirsi Ali lied in her request for asylum in the Netherlands was grounds to strip her of her...

On September 1, Al Jazeera broadcast footage of one of the suicide bombers involved in the London attacks admitting his actions and providing a distorted rationale. Two weeks later, Aiman Al Zawahiri could also be seen in a similar video accepting responsibility and congratulating the bombers. -- Yet, despite numerous such videos from various Al Qaeda outfits acknowledging their involvement in terror attacks, there is a persistent denial of these linkages in Islamic countries. As a practising Muslim, I am often alarmed and amused by my brethren succumbing to fanciful accounts of Western designs against Islam which explain attacks like...

President Jacques Chirac was further drawn into a dirty tricks scandal rocking the French government on Thursday, with the publication of leaked evidence showing he knew of a secret enquiry into his political rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. - Le Monde newspaper printed excerpts of hand-written notes kept by spy-master Philippe Rondot, which it said "Demolish" denials by Chirac and his ally, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, that they ordered an investigation into Sarkozy's alleged secret bank accounts...." "...But De Villepin's political future remains on a knife-edge after he was accused of Lying before Parliament over the affair and the...

The Venezuelan President aligns himself with dictators, human rights abusers, notorious narcoterrorists- WHICH INTERNATIONAL leader publicly threatens to blow up his country’s oilfields, supports Iran’s nuclear programme, says that the Falklands belong to Argentina and believes that Robert Mugabe is a “true freedom-fighter”? The answer is none other than Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, who readily antagonises and hurls insults at the leaders of other nations, including Tony Blair, whom he called an “ally of Hitler”. Next week London will have the dubious honour of a visit by Señor Chávez, hosted by none other than its mayor, Ken Livingstone....

Fr Ibrahim, parish priest of Ramallah, told AsiaNews that classrooms have been burned, church window panes destroyed, bible study halls set on fire and Catholic youth are being threatened by Muslims. The cleric said suspicion is falling on “Palestinians against the Hamas government”. Ramallah (AsiaNews) – Burned school rooms, church window panes destroyed, bible study halls set on fire and Catholic youth threatened by Muslims: thus runs a list of escalating violent attacks against Christians in Ramallah since Hamas won the election. The parish priest, Fr Ibrahim Hijazin, 55 years, reported the violence to AsiaNews. Fr Ibrahim has been the...

It brings no joy to issue a public rebuttal against a valued colleague, but there are moments that demand no less. The occasion is the publication of an essay titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," written by two professors, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, the academic dean and my colleague at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In essence, their 82-page piece argues that U.S. policy in the Middle East has been hijacked by a pro-Israel "Lobby." "The core of the Lobby," they say, "is comprised of American Jews who make a significant effort...

WASHINGTON - A prominent Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, is alleging that the authors of a Harvard Kennedy School paper about the "Israel lobby," one of which is the Kennedy School's academic dean, culled sections of the paper from neo-Nazi and other anti-Israel hate Web sites. "What we're discovering first of all is that the quotes that they use are not only wrenched out of context, but they are the common quotes that appear on hate sites," Mr. Dershowitz, who is identified in the paper as part of the "lobby," told The New York Sun yesterday. "The wrenching out of...