Free Republic

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office praised former President Donald Trump on Wednesday for his record of achievements in protecting Israel and promoting peace between Israel and neighboring Arab states. “Israelis and the prime minister remember very, very well the incredible support which President Trump, while he was in office, gave to this country,” said Israeli government spokesman David Mencer. Mencer was reacting to news that Trump had reposted Netanyahu’s message of support following the attempted assassination on the former U.S. president on Saturday. Netanyahu expressed his relief that Trump had survived, offered best wishes for his...

Iran is capable of producing fissile material for use in a nuclear weapon within "one or two weeks," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday. News of Iran's capabilities follows the recent election of President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has said his goal is to "get Iran out of its isolation," and who favors reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers. Blinken said that "what we've seen in the last weeks and months is an Iran that's actually moving forward" with its nuclear program. The United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal, which...

The Unholy Alliance - as morbid as ever. Vice President Kamala Harris demonstrated once again why she would be a disastrous president if she were to succeed cognitively impaired Joe Biden. She just expressed her sympathy with the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-American agitators in an interview published on July 8th by the left-wing Nation Magazine.“They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza,” said Vice President Harris, referring to the anti-Semitic demonstrators. “There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But...

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez was found guilty Tuesday of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes — including 1-kilogram gold bars — in exchange for using his powerful post to enrich and protect three businessmen and the Egyptian and Qatari governments. The bombshell jury verdict was delivered in Manhattan federal court after about 12½ hours of deliberations spread over three days. It capped a nine-week trial that revealed how the senator leveraged his position as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to cater to the whims of men who showered him and his wife with...

War rooms, parts for UAV assembly, tactical drones, rockets, and machine guns were among the weapons and infrastructure located by the IDF. During raids over the last week on a Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad combat complex embedded in a former UNRWA compound, troops of the Commando Brigade’s combat team, operating under the direction of the 99th Division, located significant terror infrastructure embedded in the facility. Among the weapons and infrastructure located in the UNRWA complex were war rooms used for surveillance operations, parts for UAV assembly, tactical drones, rockets, machine guns, mortars, explosives, and grenades, the IDF added. Terror...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Friday that Israel has no intention of withdrawing from the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi corridor, in a hostage deal, despite media reports to the contrary. In a statement, Netanyahu said (via Government Press Office): The Reuters report, according to which, Israel has discussed the possibility of withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor, is absolute fake news. The Prime Minister insists that Israel remain on the Philadelphi Corridor. He has instructed the negotiating teams accordingly, made this clear to US representatives this week, and updated the Security Cabinet to this effect last night. However,...

Hamas has softened some of its stances in hostage talks, with intelligence assessments indicating the terror group wants a ceasefire in Gaza due to its weakening military position, the Axios outlet reported Thursday, citing Israeli and American officials. An Israeli official involved in the negotiations told Axios that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in turn, has toughened Israel’s demands for a deal as a result of this intelligence, explaining that the premier “is trying to use Hamas’s weakness to get as much as he can out of the negotiations.” “But there is a risk that he will go too far and...

Hamas has now held hostages for over 9 months The principles are: "Any deal will allow Israel to resume fighting until all objectives of the war have been achieved." ...snip... "There will be no smuggling of weapons to Hamas from Egypt to the Gaza border." ...snip... "There will be no return of thousands of armed terrorists to the northern Gaza Strip." ...snip... "Israel will maximize the number of living hostages who will be released from Hamas captivity."

The head of the Shiite Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to expand his war against Israel in a speech on Wednesday, boasting that he allegedly has 100,000 terrorists at his disposal and suggesting war with Cyprus may also be imminent. Hezbollah, one of many Iranian proxy terrorist organizations, has long maintained ties with the Sunni jihadist group Hamas. The group has expanded its attacks on Israel since October 7, when Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented invasion of Israel that resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, the abduction of about 250 people, and widespread torture, rape, and other atrocities....

Six members of the Washington Post's foreign desk previously wrote for Al Jazeera.. The Washington Post is in turmoil—old editor out, new editor in, and a new publisher under siege from a hostile and beleaguered staff. One of the criticisms the paper has weathered as it has bled money and subscribers is that, since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, its coverage of the war in the Middle East has been shoddy, inaccurate, and implacably hostile to Israel. Days after the Israel Defence Forces rescued four hostages from a Palestinian refugee camp, for example, a Post headline blared: "More...

Shortly after Oct. 7, the president of the Ford Foundation, Darren Walker, issued a statement on the foundation’s behalf. Walker, who has been lauded by Laurene Powell Jobs as an "optimist," a "realist," and a "prophet who speaks truth to our world’s most troubling demons," announced that the Ford Foundation would bankroll "immediate humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza and the Middle East." "Administered by our colleagues in the Middle East and North Africa regional office," Walker said, "the resources will go to partners in the region to provide life-saving support and other essential needs to the affected Palestinian civilians in...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iran and Sweden carried out a prisoner swap Saturday that saw Tehran release a European Union diplomat and another man for an Iranian convicted in Stockholm of committing war crimes over his part in 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic. The arrest of Hamid Nouri by Sweden in 2019 as he traveled there as a tourist likely sparked the detentions of the two Swedes, part of a long-running strategy by Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution to use those with ties abroad as chip in negotiations with the West.

The Biden administration is close to finalizing a treaty with Saudi Arabia that would commit the U.S. to help defend the Gulf nation as part of a long-shot deal to encourage diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Israel, U.S. and Saudi officials said. But the success of the diplomatic effort hinges on Israel’s commitment to a separate Palestinian state, and more immediately an end to the war in Gaza, an unlikely proposition amid months of fruitless cease-fire talks and an Israeli weekend raid to retrieve hostages from the heart of the territory. The U.S. aims to present Israeli leaders with an...

Support for Hamas also coincides with the Biden administration's and some European nations' ongoing promotion of creating a Palestinian state right next to Israel. This move would not only open the door for more atrocities against Israelis, but would also put Israel in grave danger because the Palestinian state, even under the supposedly watchful eye of a chaperone, would essentially be ruled by the same murderers and rapists who took part in the October 7 carnage. These European nations — Ireland, Norway, and Spain — have sent a message to the Palestinians that the only way they can get international...

"The powerful elimination worries Hezbollah members. They now understand that the IDF knows much more about them than they know about us," says Professor Amatzia Baram. Approximately 250 rockets were launched on Wednesday towards northern Israel, disrupting the holiday calm with successive alerts. Rockets that exploded in open areas caused fires. In the city of Tiberias, a siren was activated for the first time since October. These launches come after the assassination of senior Hezbollah official Sami Taleb Abdullah, whose rank was equivalent to a brigadier general in the IDF. For the past 20 years, Abdullah had led rocket fire...

Negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar have been trying for months to mediate a ceasefire and free the hostages, more than 100 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza. Hamas wants written guarantees from the United States for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip in order to sign off on a US-backed truce proposal, two Egyptian security sources said. Mediators Qatar and Egypt said Hamas had responded on Tuesday to the phased ceasefire plan for an end to the eight-month war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group, without giving...

American intelligence officials believe that Yahya Sinwar, the powerful leader of Hamas in Gaza who is thought to be the group’s key decision-maker on any potential ceasefire deal, likely believes the group can survive Israel’s attempt to destroy it and feels confident it is well-positioned to approach negotiations from a place of strength, according to US officials familiar with recent assessments. The goal for Hamas is to survive, these sources say — that would be victory for the group. Sinwar likely believes Hamas can hold out while Israel’s global standing deteriorates as the war in Gaza, which has killed thousands...

CNN drew criticism online on Saturday after the cable news network described the Israeli military’s rescue of four hostages Saturday as a hostage “release” rather than a “rescue.” The four hostages had been kidnapped by the terrorist group Hamas from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7. The term “hostage release” was shown in CNN’s chyron with the network’s anchor Victor Blackwell using it himself, before making a correction since Hamas did not intentionally release the hostages. After discussing a scheduled press conference by Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, Blackwell said, “That was postponed because of the release today...

Gaza-based Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar believes that “[W]e have the Israelis right where we want them,” despite massive losses to the terror organization, because of growing international pressure on Israel to stop short of victory. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Sinwar, who is likely hiding in a tunnel in southern Gaza, possibly surrounded by Israeli hostages as human shields, is happy with how the war is going — civilian casualties and all. The Journal noted: For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in...

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Yahya Sinwar has been in direct contact with Hamas leaders in Qatar, saying civilian casualties are "necessary sacrifices." A Wall Street Journal report has revealed messages penned by Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, to various Hamas officials and hostage deal mediators. According to the report, referring to the war, Sinwar recently wrote to Hamas officials negotiating a hostage deal, “We have the Israelis right where we want them.” In a message to Hamas leaders in Qatar, Sinwar presented as an example the civilian casualties during the Algerian war, affirming such...