Free Republic

On Wednesday, the UN Security Council held its periodic hearing on the Middle East. In her capacity as president of the Security Council for December, US Ambassador Kelly Craft invited Adele Raemer, a resident of Kibbutz Nirim near Gaza, to address the council. This is the first time an Israeli from the south will speak to the Security Council. In her address, Ms. Raemer asked the council: “Have you ever had to run for your life? When I hear the Red Alert early warning system for incoming rockets, I know that I have between 5-10 seconds to get to someplace...

Iran: the City of Behbahan, is the vanguard of uprising Against the Mullahs Behbahan is an oil-rich city in western Iran and in Khuzestan province. Most of the population is Bakhtiari Lor. The people of this city are renowned for their hospitality, generosity, and courage. Their resistance and the stories of the brave and zealous soldiers confronting Alexander and then Afghans are prominent in history. The city’s 10000 years history with its 70 ancient hills, towers, walls and moats around the city portrays its unique glory and grandeur. The proximity of the Zagros Mountains alongside fields of narcissus has added...

The most potent non-military threat to Israel’s existence is the opposition to Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by the international community, led by the European Union. The EU is the largest single donor to the Palestinians – more than a half-billion euros annually. It funds over two dozen anti-Israel propaganda organizations (NGOs) dedicated to demonizing Israel – over €6 million annually. In addition, these NGOs also receive millions from individual European countries. The EU is the largest contributor to UNRWA, which is dedicated to Israel’s demise. The EU supported US president Barack Obama’s “deal” with...

President Trump is trumpeting a string of big victories in the massive compromise defense policy bill working its way through Congress, as liberal Democrats lament a host of priorities that have been cut from the legislation. The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act gives the president a freer hand on Iran and Saudi Arabia and on ways to fund the southern border wall. The Senate is expected to pass the annual defense policy bill this week, and the White House said Mr. Trump is enthusiastically waiting to sign it into law. In a memo to fellow Republicans just...

Khorramshahr is one of the southern cities of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, neighboring the Persian Gulf and Iraq. Its huge oil reserves and access to the Persian Gulf gives particular strategic, economic, and political importance to this city. Resistance and courage of the people of Khorramshahr have a special place in the history of Iran. Centuries ago, the people of Khorramshahr fought with the Ottoman Empire and are now rebelling against mullah’s regime, one that has cost them many human lives and financial losses. Below is the narrative of one who has witnessed a series of events in the...

In December 2017, angry Iranian citizens began publicly denouncing two blatantly linked injustices: their nation's acute economic deterioration and the clerical dictatorship's hideous corruption. That's right. Two years ago, insistent and widespread protests in Iran's major cities shook the ayatollah regime. Shutting down the internet didn't stop the worldwide circulation of cellphone videos that documented the protests and the social media dissemination of grievances. Regime propagandists described the demonstrations as a wave. But was December 2017 a wave or a rising tide? Since spring 2018, public demonstrations staged by angry Iranians have waxed and waned but always returned. Here's a...

"Jaw-jaw is better than war-war," is attributed, wrongly, say some historians, to Winston Churchill. Still, the words lately came to mind. While last week ended with a hopeful U.S.-Iranian prisoner exchange that was hailed by President Donald Trump -- "Thank you to Iran for a very fair negotiation. See, we can make a deal together" -- a few days earlier, the week produced more ominous news. In a startling front-page story Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is to send 14,000 troops to the Middle East, in addition to the 14,000 we have sent since May. The...

Israel pitched to India this weekend its idea of a new transportation corridor in the Middle East bypassing the most critical oil chokepoint in the world which is very close to Iran, the Strait of Hormuz. During the Mediterranean Dialogues conference in Rome on Saturday, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Intelligence, Israel Katz, met with India’s Minister of External Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, to discuss bilateral trade and presented Israel’s “Tracks for Regional Peace” initiative.

On Saturday, the State Department secured the release of Xiyue Wang, an American graduate student who was being held prisoner in Iran for the past three years. Wang had been conducting research in Iran as part of his doctoral thesis when he was arrested in 2016 and charged with spying for the United States government.  As part of the exchange, the U.S. released Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist who had been arrested and convicted last year for violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. According to The New York Times, U.S. officials are calling Soleimani's release a low price to pay...

The U.S. House approved a Democrat-backed resolution Friday calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- but did so without support from the four far-left freshmen congresswomen known as "the Squad."

The Iranian authorities have acknowledged that the recent wave of uprisings included 29 of Iran’s 31 provinces and has resulted in heavy tolls for the regime. In FOX News reporter’s opinion, the regime has used excessive force to suppress the uprising. This could be translated as the weakening of this regime, “regime is scared”. A sharp and steep gas price hike was the reason many people exhibited their rage and dismay. According to Jim Phillips, Heritage Foundation senior Middle East analyst states: “The regime had to act swiftly and harshly because it has lost most of its credibility amongst its...

The Iranian authorities have acknowledged that the recent wave of uprisings included 29 of Iran’s 31 provinces and has resulted in heavy tolls for the regime. In FOX News reporter’s opinion, the regime has used excessive force to suppress the uprising. This could be translated as the weakening of this regime, “regime is scared”. A sharp and steep gas price hike was the reason many people exhibited their rage and dismay. According to Jim Phillips, Heritage Foundation senior Middle East analyst states: “The regime had to act swiftly and harshly because it has lost most of its credibility amongst its...

Iran is stockpiling short-range ballistic missiles in Iraq that can reach Israel, according to a New York Times report that cited American intelligence and military officials. The hidden rockets are part of a larger effort by Iran to intimidate countries in the region and assert its power, the Times reported. Short-range missiles generally have a range of just over 600 miles, so one fired from just outside of Baghdad could reach Jerusalem. Iran’s effort to build up its arsenal comes as the United States has sent thousands of troops to the region with plans to send more. The arms in...

Iran has been taking advantage of recent political unrest in Iraq by secretly stockpiling short-range missiles inside the country, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The buildup is part of Iran's widening effort to assert dominance in the Middle East and could pose a threat to American troops as well as allies in the region such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, U.S. sources told the Times. Both Iraq and Iran have been gripped by deadly protests in recent months, with more than 1,000 people reported dead as a result of protests in Iran. But public unrest has not seemed to...

Leaked spy cables reveal how Iran came to dominate the political and military spheres in Iraq. Here’s what the hundreds of documents tell us. -excerpt- The leak exposed Iran’s vast influence in Iraq, detailing the painstaking efforts of Iranian spies to co-opt Iraqi leaders and infiltrate every aspect of political life. The trove consists of roughly 700 pages of reports and cables written mainly in 2014 and 2015 by officers in Iran’s version of the C.I.A. who were based in Iraq. -excerpt- Many of the files show that as senior American diplomats met behind closed doors with their Iraqi counterparts...

The city of Marivan is located in Kordestan province. This city and part of Iraq share the same border. The history of Marivan goes back to about 1800 B.C., thus a point of interest for many international tourists. Marivan is considered one of the major cities of Kurdistan province and has a long history of battles with emperors and dictators of its time. Marivan’s ancient forts, its grasslands, and mighty mountains have been home to many legends and warriors. Although the people of Marivan have had their share of ebb and flow at different eras, they have been experiencing their...

Last week the Egyptian court system denied justice to Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christian minority by again postponing judgment on two notorious cases that have been at court for years. The first concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of some 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets of al-Karm village (in Minya governorate) to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” Earlier that day she and her husband had gone to local police and complained that they were being harassed...

Abolfazl Bahrampour, is a prominent Iranian Koran scholar, and author of the widely respected “One Volume Commentary on the Koran,” (in Farsi, Qom, 2007). Interviewed on Iran’s state run television network during its daily “Eastern Sun” program, Tuesday, November 26, 2019, Bahrampour condemned those protesting Iran’s oppressive theocratic regime, en masse, as “Moharabeh”—enemies of Allah, who sew “corruption” of an Islamic societal order. Moharabeh is a standard allegation leveled against Iranian protesters, who are then routinely sentenced to death.  Bahrampour’s fulmination advocated (video) the protesters’ appropriate Koranic punishment—per Koran 5:33. They should be tortured to death (i.e., crucified), not just simply killed....

Three years ago, Donald Trump began a rhetorical offensive targeting the governments of NATO nations that chronically failed to meet their allied defense financial commitments. With bombastic huff, Trump intimated that allies pay their share or America might walk. It's 2019. Few NATO members currently meet the 2% GDP defense commitment. However, several once-laggard NATO nations have increased military spending, and the alliance is stronger for it. The era of blithe freeloading has ended. Cheapskates like Germany pay a price in lost prestige. America not only hasn't walked; it is modernizing its forces. Earlier this year, President Trump began grousing...

When the scandal finally broke, it was on the other side of the Atlantic, in a nation that millions of Americans couldn’t pinpoint on a map. Congress had made its intentions clear in the form of legislation, but the White House secretly ignored that to illegally pursue its own controversial agenda. Meanwhile, it was revealed that shady foreign-born middlemen were pocketing millions of dollars. The president’s approval rating plummeted, and it looked like an early exit. “I had hoped there would not be discovery of an impeachable offense,” the Speaker of the House said at one point. “I didn’t want...