Free Republic

President Donald Trump envisions a central role for Turkey in Gaza. At the October 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh peace summit, Trump named Turkey as one of four guarantors of the ceasefire, along with Egypt, Qatar, and the United States. In addition, the Trump administration sees Turkey as an important player in Gaza’s reconstruction and stabilization, including by participating in the proposed International Stabilization Force (ISF) there. This envisioned role for Ankara is the result of a strategic convergence between Washington’s desire to delegate the burden of overseeing the Gaza ceasefire to capable regional actors and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s willingness...

Bit by bit, a Turkish front is forming, more dangerous than Israel’s seven arenas since Oct. 7. Erdogan’s ideology and ambition require Israel to refocus on a higher strategic risk.Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s political and military leadership has claimed that seven different arenas threaten it. It seems that, bit by bit but consistently, an eighth menacing front is forming, one that in many ways is more dangerous than the others.This is the Turkish front. Turkey, which until about 23 years ago was one of Israel’s greatest friends, has become a real enemy since Erdogan rose to power.The main factors...

An Israeli soldier killed himself in a military base in northern Israel, taking the suicide-related death toll to 61 since the beginning of the Gaza war in October 2023, local media said. According to the Haaretz newspaper, a soldier serving compulsory military service sustained critical injuries after shooting himself inside a base and was pronounced dead Tuesday evening in a hospital. A military statement earlier said that a soldier was seriously injured in a shooting at a military base in northern Israel and was taken to the hospital, where he later died, noting that the military police had opened an...

Qatar, Turkey trying to dissuade Hamas from disarming, as Phase II of ceasefire still under discussion. Alternatives proposed would see Hamas give up its weapons to the Palestinian Authority or transferred them to a secure storage under oversight, which could preserve Hamas' influence in Gaza; this is likely to be the main issue discussed at the Trump-Netanyahu meeting in Florida The second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan is still being shaped by the Americans, though nothing has been finalized. Israel and the U.S. jointly drafted the original 20‑point plan, which included a clear agreement that Hamas must be disarmed....

Pope Leo visited Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Saturday, removing his shoes in a sign of respect but not appearing to pray in his first visit as leader of the Catholic Church to a Muslim place of worship during his four-day visit to Turkey. The first U.S. pope bowed slightly before entering the mosque and was led on a tour of the expansive complex, able to hold 10,000 worshippers, by its imam and the mufti of Istanbul. Leo, walking in white socks, smiled during the 20-minute visit and joked with one of his guides, the mosque's lead muezzin - the official...

The potential for a military clash between Turkey and Israel is growing. There are several colliding points, and each one of them has the potential to become a full-scale war, despite mechanisms designed to avoid conflict. The most obvious is the Syrian front. Reports indicate that Turkey plans to help Syria’s transitional government develop a military force of approximately 200,000 personnel (approximately 10–15 divisions). Turkey has assumed the role of protector of Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Jolani, his nom de guerre). Israel, for its part, has assumed the role of protector of the Druze minority in southwestern Syria, an area...

President Donald Trump is facing a pivotal decision that could define the next phase of his Middle East policy: whether to allow Turkish troops into Gaza as part of a U.S.-backed stabilization force. The move, which Ankara is lobbying for, has triggered alarm in Israel and among Arab allies who view Turkey’s ambitions and Islamist ties as a threat to regional stability. According to Middle East Eye, Turkey is preparing a brigade of at least 2,000 soldiers drawn from multiple branches of its military to join the mission once a U.N. Security Council mandate is approved. Israel has flatly rejected...

The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to 301 AD, when Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion, and Armenian monks and pilgrims subsequently settled there. Today, Jerusalem is home to a small Armenian community comprised of descendants of Armenians whose ancestors came to the Holy Land after 301 AD, and descendants of Armenians who survived the Ottoman genocide and immigrated to Palestine in large numbers between 1915 and 1923, before the establishment of the Jewish state. On Tuesday, August 26, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Patrick Bet-David — an American media personality — on his podcast, that...

Turkey on Friday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and dozens of other Israeli officials on “genocide” charges. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said it has issued warrants against 37 people. Besides Netanyahu, warrants target Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and military chief Eyal Zamir, among others. The warrants charge the Israeli officials with “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” committed in Gaza and against the flotilla carrying aid to the enclave, according to the prosecutor’s office. That flotilla was intercepted by Israeli authorities last month. Israel was quick to condemn...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the latest world leader to be humiliated by Donald Trump after he was stopped on the streets of New York to make way for the US President's motorcade. It comes a day after France's Emmanuel Macron was humbled by the city's cops after they stopped him and forced him to wait on the street so that Trump's police escort could get through.... Erdoğan appeared visibly annoyed as he left the UN headquarters ...

Back in February, a Turkish refugee named Hamit Coskun decided to protest Islam by burning a Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in London. Coskun is an atheist who left Turkey in 2022 to flee government persecution. As he stood outside the embassy, a crazed Muslim named Moussa Kadri, attacked him with a knife while shouting "I'm going to kill you." The entire incident was captured on video. [Warning: The Religion of Peace] https://x.com/i/status/1970548029024543034 Months later, the judge in the case has allowed Kadri to go free. That's right, the psycho knife-wielder who tried to kill a guy for insulting his...

The very fighters Beijing cites as justification for its hardline policies in Xinjiang – the Uyghurs of the Turkestan Islamic Party – have now been folded into Syria’s military establishment.Syrian Free Army soldiers and Coalition Forces assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, Task Force Armadillo provide security after departing a CH-47 Chinook during cold and hot load air assault training at Al-Tanf Garrison, Syria, on Feb. 23, 2025. When Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime collapsed in late 2024, Beijing lost a familiar ally in Damascus. For more than a decade, China had backed Assad under the banner of sovereignty and...

Interested in Becoming an Expert on the Truth Behind ‘Genocide’ Claims? It's Almost Free. You can leverage it to push back against the distortion of the term, especially as it’s been hijacked by the politicized narrative of ‘Palestinization.’ The “Genocide” Accusation Against Israel Crumbles Under Scrutiny of Genocide Scholars Group.The recent International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) resolution accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza has rapidly unraveled, exposing both the political motivations behind the accusation and the organization's lack of academic rigor. What was initially presented as a serious, scholarly condemnation has turned into an embarrassing farce, demonstrating that...

Last night was supposed to be the deadline for American diplomats in Venezuela to vacate the country as ordered by dictator Nicolas Maduro. After the United States, along with Canada, several South American nations and the EU moved to declare Maduro’s presidency illegitimate, the tyrant had basically cut off relations with America. The White House refused to obey the order and everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next. But at the last minute, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry sent out a “never mind” announcement and said the decision was on hold for thirty days. But that doesn’t...

Muhammad Ali Jr. was detained by the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, weeks after he was detained at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted out, Friday. Wasserman Schultz’s tweet read, “On way home on DOMESTIC FLIGHT Muhammad Ali Jr. detained AGAIN by @DHSgov. Religiously profiling son of ‘The Greatest’ will not make us safe.”

Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuted Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, and his office is investigating Rudy Giuliani.

FBI agents raided former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton’s DC-area home Friday morning in a high-profile national security probe, The Post can exclusively reveal. Federal agents busted into Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration official told The Post. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” he said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began. The probe — which is said to involve classified documents — was first launched years ago, but the Biden administration shut it down “for...

John Bolton's bombshell memoir contains new instances of alleged misconduct by President Trump – including agreeing to back off criminal probes as 'personal favors' to certain dictators. The book also contains a claim that Trump pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to boost U.S. food purchases, describing it in terms of his own election. Trump regularly touts a deal to pause the China trade war as one of his chief accomplishments. A new book excerpt obtained by the New York Times contains the claim about the criminal probes. Bolton writes that in cases involving China and Turkey, Trump was willing...

'Israeli hostages may be the only people purposely starved in Gaza'. Dan Perry says that there is "clearly hunger in Gaza". You cannot deny that there is hunger in Gaza, according to Dan Perry, former head of the Associated Press Africa, Middle East, and Europe desks. “There clearly is hunger in Gaza,” Perry said last week on the ILTV News Podcast. “Half of Gaza has been flattened, the economy has been destroyed. It's not by any means self-sufficient. It's blockaded from all sides — from the sea and from the air. It's under very severe military assault. I don't think...

Taiwan has a “far more robust” claim to statehood than Palestine does, former British prime minister Boris Johnson said during a conference in Taipei, Taiwan, according to a Tuesday report by British outlet The Telegraph…. “Never in the wildest dreams of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, can he have believed – when he and his colleagues instigated the horror of October 7, 2023 – that only 22 months later the United Kingdom itself would be so craven and pathetic as to fall for Hamas propaganda and to turn against Israel,” Johnson wrote in his column in the UK outlet Daily...