Free Republic

Over the Christmas weekend, Chicago surpassed the 750-murder mark for 2016. But as blacks lay dying on the streets of Chicago’s South and West Sides, a Black Lives Matter offshoot is more interested in traveling overseas to learn “resistance” from terrorists. The Dream Defenders bills itself as “an uprising of communities in struggle, shifting culture through transformational organizing.” But an investigation conducted by the Haym Salomon Center reveals the group’s embrace of anti-Semitism and collaboration with a State Department-designated terror group. In August, Black Lives Matter singled out Israel for condemnation, declaring it an “apartheid” state engaged in “genocide.” These...

Israel’s opposition leader and contender for next prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and urged him to reconsider, in his most direct criticism yet of the war. Netanyahu said in an interview with USA Today that he thought Putin’s decision to go to war in Ukraine was “guided by his vision of reconstituting a great Russian realm,” adding, “I hope he’s having second thoughts about it.” “We all have sympathy to Ukraine, it’s not even a question, and I’m no different,” he said. Israel has sought not to antagonize Russia in the conflict,...

The family entered the Beit Hanina neighborhood in the east of the city with their car and 3 toddlers in it and were pelted with stones. "A mob of Arabs blocked our road and started pelting us with rocks." The event ended without casualties. Meanwhile, during a night of severe riots in East Jerusalem, Molotov cocktails were thrown at police vehicles in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The Jerusalem sector continues to heat up: a Jewish family was saved this evening (Wednesday) from a lynching attempt that took place in the Beit Hanina neighborhood in the east of the capital....

Israeli police on Friday moved in on a crowd of mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, beating demonstrators with batons and causing pallbearers to briefly drop the casket. The crackdown came during a rare show of Palestinian nationalism in east Jerusalem — the part of the holy city that Israel captured in 1967 and that the Palestinians claim as their capital. Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and has annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. Israel routinely clamps down on any displays of support for Palestinian statehood.

Beit Ummar: Arabs waved a large Nazi flag. The video shows an IDF soldier removing him by shooting it down.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the death of a Hamas commander is "just the beginning" of attacks against the militant group, as the conflict between the two groups continues to escalate.Netanyahu said, "We'll hit them like they've never dreamed possible," Reuters reported.Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 56 people - including 14 children and several Hamas members - in Gaza since the violence began, the Palestinian Ministry of Health told Ragip Soylu, the Turkey correspondent for the Middle East Eye.At least 6 Israelis have been killed by Hamas rocket fire, Reuters reported.

Gal Gadot‘s message of unity amid ongoing rocket attacks in the West Bank created a firestorm from online critics, who contend the former Israeli Defense Forces fighter is a “propaganda” tool for the Israeli military. The 36-year-old “Wonder Woman” actress took to Twitter to express how her “heart breaks,” because her “country is at war,” as tensions over a disputed Jerusalem region led to deadly exchanges of rocket fire attacks between Israel and Hamas militants. “This is a vicious cycle that has been going on for far too long,” the Israeli native tweeted Wednesday. Israel deserves to live as a...

It is 'critical for Israel' not to 'exacerbate tensions or take us further away from peace,' said spokeswoman Jalina Porter The State Department walked back comments from controversy-prone deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter, who last week singled out Israel for criticism and blamed the Jewish State for inflaming tensions with the Palestinians. The State Department distanced itself Friday from Porter's remarks, noting that "we have consistently called on both Israel and the Palestinians to avoid unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and make it more difficult to preserve the viability of a two-state solution." The dust-up comes after Porter was asked at...

Confrontations between Israeli security forces and protesters have been escalating for weeks. The clashes started at the beginning of Ramadan, almost a month ago, when Israeli police put up barriers to stop people sitting in the Damascus Gate plaza, a popular gathering area during Ramadan. The unrest erupted into serious violence over the weekend, and it got worse on Monday. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 331 Palestinians were injured in a crackdown on worshipers at al-Aqsa mosque on Monday alone. Seven people were left in critical condition, according to the medical group.

The usually quiet residential neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem is in turmoil. For the past two weeks, young Palestinians have been holding nightly protests against the imminent eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the neighborhood, to make way for Jewish settlers. Tensions have been building in the city. On Friday, 205 Palestinians and 18 police officers were wounded as clashes erupted after prayer at Jerusalem’s holy Al-Aqsa mosque compound and elsewhere in east Jerusalem. […] The violent skirmishes in recent weeks have added to long-standing legal battles between the residents of Sheikh Jarrah and Israeli...

New official data obtained by The Associated Press shows a spike in Jewish settlement construction in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, along with strong evidence of decades of systematic discrimination illustrated by a huge gap in the number of construction permits granted to Jewish and Palestinian residents. The expansion of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem, which Israel seized along with the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war, threatens to further complicate one of the thorniest issues in the conflict. The refusal to grant permits to Palestinian residents has confined them to...

The European Union formally condemned the demolition of illegal Arab apartment buildings near Israel’s security barrier separating Jerusalem from Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, and demanded Israel halt its enforcement of demolition orders. In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the European Union’s foreign affairs department said the demolitions undermine the “viability of the two-state solution”. “Israeli authorities have proceeded with the demolition of 10 Palestinian buildings, containing some 70 apartments, in Wadi al Hummus, part of Sur Baher neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. The majority of the buildings are located in Area A and B of the West Bank where, according to...

One may mistakenly assume that areas within Jerusalem containing large Arab populations are of less historical significance to Jews and Christians, yet nothing can be further from the truth. When one thinks of Jerusalem and the sites that imbue it with deep religious and historic significance, many come to mind. Among them, the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Mount of Olives, City of David, Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Garden of Gethsemane are known collectively as the Holy Basin. All of these sites are located in east Jerusalem. Less commonly known is that beyond the Holy Basin, east Jerusalem is...

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States has officially shuttered its consulate in Jerusalem, downgrading the status of its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians by folding it into the U.S. Embassy to Israel. For decades, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians. Now, that outreach will be handled by a Palestinian affairs unit, under the command of the embassy. The symbolic shift hands authority over U.S. diplomatic channels with the West Bank and Gaza to ambassador David Friedman, a longtime supporter and fundraiser for the West Bank settler movement and fierce critic of the Palestinian leadership....

A Palestinian court sentenced an American-Palestinian on Monday to life imprisonment for violating a ban on selling land to Israelis, judiciary officials said. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, called in November for dual national Issam Akel to be released, saying his suspected crime was “selling land to a Jew” and his incarceration violated American values. Akel was accused of attempting to sell a property in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem without the permission of his business partners or Palestinian authorities. Palestinian officials have not publicly identified the intended buyer. The Higher Offences Court in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank,...

Australia has decided to formally recognize west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but won’t move its embassy until there’s a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Saturday. Morrison said in a speech that Australia would recognize east Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital only after a settlement has been reached on a two-state solution. The Australian Embassy won’t be moved from Tel Aviv until such a time, he said. While the embassy move is delayed, Morrison said his government would establish a defense and trade office in Jerusalem and would also start looking for an appropriate site...

The U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees expressed concern on Friday over moves by the mayor of Jerusalem to close down its operations in the city. Mayor Nir Barkat said on Thursday he had developed a plan to end the Jerusalem operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which aids Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war of Israel’s founding and to millions of their descendants, and to replace them with Israeli services. UNRWA has faced a financial crisis since the United States in August announced it was cutting aid to the body, calling it an “irredeemably flawed...

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...

A lost city dating to the rule of King David from the Old Testament has been uncovered in Jerusalem. King David is an ancestor of Jesus, according to biblical sources, which say he ruled around BC 1,000. Experts say that recently-found ruins date to the 10th century BC. This ties in with the timeframe for when the bible says King David existed, making the link between the two 'plausible', researchers claim. The finding is likely to fuel the debate surrounding whether Biblical figures such as King David actually existed, however.

In remarks made before New York City’s Temple Emanu-El on Jan. 24, 2018, former President Barack Obama defended his administration’s decision not to veto United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 2334, which asserted that Israeli settlements have “no legal validity,” violate “international law” and are a “major obstacle” to achieving a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obama told the audience that he allowed UNSC 2334 to pass because “the pace of [Israeli] settlement construction skyrocketed making it almost impossible to make any kind of Palestinian state.”To be “a true friend of Israel, it is important to be honest about it, and the politics...