Free Republic

Germany's domestic spy agency urged Berlin on Monday to give it more powers to monitor financial flows amid growing concerns over potential Russian financing of regional far-right parties ahead of European parliamentary elections. While Germany's interior ministry said in February it was working on adapting existing legislation to this effect, the issue has gained fresh urgency following a report that a lawmaker for the far-right Alternative for Germany party had received money from a pro-Russian news portal. "I would hope to have more authority" to monitor financial developments, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency Thomas Haldenwang told a news...

Scuffles in BrusselsSo, I was in Rome recently chasing down information for a book and noticed that, at the time I’d be heading back home, a National Conservatism Conference was being held in Brussels. I decided to stop in to see how NatCon would fare in the “capital” of the European Union. As has been widely reported, under pressure from “antifa” forces, Brussels’ mayor foolishly forced Concert Noble, the initial venue, to cancel. And again, with the Sofitel. Ultimately, we gathered at the Claridge, where the Tunisian Muslim owner was (unsuccessfully) pressured by the mayor, his wife threatened, and warned...

Poland’s new government is moving to limit freedom of speech and actively penalize so-called hate speech, a move that has been associated with stifling dissent and limiting opposition to issues surrounding mass immigration, religion, and LGBT issues in other European countries. ... Deputy Minister Śmiszek announced this week legislative changes to introduce criminal responsibility for what his party considers hate speech against homosexuals. --- "The time has come to ban disgusting, homophobic, discriminatory statements in the public sphere,” declared Śmiszek, who is openly homosexual. Meanwhile, the European Parliament is calling on EU leaders to include incitement to hatred and hate...

France announces it will provide over 30 million euros to UNRWA while ensuring the agency fulfills its mission "in a spirit devoid of incitement to hatred and violence".

One of the nation's major oil companies says it will close 1,000 gas stations. Shell made the announcement in its 2024 Energy Transition Strategy report, saying the measure is “in response to customer needs” and aimed at reallocating those resources towards EV charging stations. Shell said it will close 500 stations in 2024 and the other 500 in 2025. “We believe growth in oil demand is set to slow in the second half of this decade and could start falling in the 2030s because of increasing vehicle efficiency and growth in electric vehicles," the company stated in the report. "Today...

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk slammed U.S. Republicans for blocking a bill containing billions in military assistance for Ukraine. “Dear Republican Senators of America. Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today,” Tusk wrote Thursday morning on X. “Shame on you.” After months of negotiations, Republican senators on Wednesday blocked a $118 billion bipartisan package that includes $60 billion in military assistance for Kyiv. U.S. President Joe Biden has been urging Congress to push through with the funding for Ukraine, which has been stalled in Congress for...

The vote passed with a razor-thin majority of 291 votes in favour to 274 against, with 44 abstentions. The main proposed changes include the abolition of the principle of unanimity in a total of 65 areas of law, as well as transferring competencies from the member states to the European Union. These include the transfer of inclusive competency on the matters of environmental protection and biodiversity, meaning that law pertaining to those matters would be entirely set at the European level. In addition, the shared competencies would be expanded to seven new areas, those being foreign and security policy, border...

@JMPSimor Breaking: European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg grants rule 39 request to stop the flight to Rwanda from leaving. Basis: real risk of inhuman and degrading treatment (Art. 3 ECHR). Please share - government must comply.

JNS.org – Canadian indigenous rights activist Ryan Bellerose recently visited Israel, where he filmed a video in support of the Jewish state in coordination with the Israel education and advocacy group StandWithUs. “Indigenous status means that your people had a coalescence and a genesis on the land,” said Bellerose, who founded the pro-Israel group Calgary United with Israel, in the widely watched video. “Everything that makes Jews Jewish—their spirituality, their traditions, their culture, their language, everything—it stems from Israel.” Bellerose belongs to the Métis community, a native group recognized by the Canadian government as aboriginal. He is also a Zionist...

The IDF Civil Administration on Monday morning dismantled and seized seven portable structures and other building parts that had not yet been assembled in E1, a strategic corridor connecting Jerusalem with Ma'ale Adumim to the east. The structures were set up illegally without permits apparently in the last several days, in the latest Arab land grab attempt in the key region. Jerusalem Belt Forum praised the law enforcement, saying, "we welcome the (Civil) Administration for its enforcement activity this morning." "At the same time, we are witnesses in recent days to a phenomenon in which the Palestinians and the European...

Speakers at a Wednesday evening University of London Student Union (ULSU)-sponsored panel called for the destruction of Israel as a solution to ridding the world of antisemitism, The Algemeiner has learned from a British watchdog group. According to a UK Media Watch report, several panelists issued the calls during an event centered on the theme of antisemitism in the Labour Party and how the current scandal is being used to silence critics of Israel and bring down party leader Jeremy Corbyn. A leaflet handed out at the beginning of the panel, titled “Labour Jews Assert,” stated, “some people…are wielding ‘antisemitism’...

There are some resemblances to a traditional children’s carnival. The children are dressed in beautiful, bright colors. Young girls are bearing flowers in their hair, and the children moving around to loud, fun music, waving flags and singing songs. The one exception at this children’s festival in Gaza is that the songs, musical acts and dances are about guns, bombs and killing Israeli soldiers. It’s the eighth annual Khan Yunis festival and hundreds of young children seated in a stadium watch the show—one in which other children dance around role playing the killing of Israeli citizens, the waving of guns...

A Fake Museum for a Fake Palestine The Palestinian Museum is as empty as its soul. May 20, 2016 Daniel Greenfield    Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. 150 years ago, Mark Twain visited Muslim-occupied Israel and wrote of “unpeopled deserts” and “mounds of barrenness,” of “forlorn” and “untenanted” cities. Palestine is “desolate,” he concluded. “One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings.” The same is true of the Palestinian Museum which opened with much fanfare and one slight problem. While admission is free,...

A school built in Gaza using German funds is educating their students on hatred and violence for Israel and providing children with military training At the end of March, a Hamas-affiliated news agency distributed a video showing a Palestinian teacher indoctrinating school children with hatred for Israel and support for an armed struggle against it. The teacher used the letters of the Arabic alphabet as a didactic tool to teach them "the fundamental Palestinian national principles" even before they learn to read. The video did not specify the name of the school; however, data collected by the Intelligence and Terrorism...

The European Union on Saturday called on Israel to halt the demolition of illegal Palestinian buildings, some of which are EU-funded, and reiterated its opposition to building Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. "In the past weeks there have been a number of developments in Area C of the West Bank, which risk undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state and driving the parties yet further apart," the EU diplomatic service said in a statement. It referred to Israel's decision on January 25 to declare 154 hectares (380 acres) of land near Jericho in Judea as state land, with...

The Subcommittee for Judea and Samaria of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee hosted on Sunday the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Major General Yoav Mordechai, for a discussion of illegal construction in Judea and Samaria. According to information presented to the committee, about 550 illegal structures were built by Arabs in Areas C in the course of 2014, as opposed to 150 illegal structures built by Jews. Bearing in mind that the Arab population in Areas C is smaller than the Jewish one – about 90,000 Arabs compared with about 400,000 Jews – the rate...

Mabye it was because the interview was with the Dubai based Al-Aribiya instead of Western media, and Martin Day, British government spokesman, was more than candid of his governments "anti-Israel political activities" inside the State of Israel: There is this report today in JPost that the rest of the MSM, at the time of this post, has not bothered to cover: "British spokesman Martin Day said in an interview in Dubai with Al-Arabiya television last week that the British government was "taking practical steps towards freezing settlement activities." "For instance," Day said, "we finance projects aimed at halting settlement activities....

Betzalel Smotrich, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, has written a letter to US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro that is worth reading in full: [Emphasis below mine, SB] His Excellency Mr. Daniel B. Shapiro Ambassador of the United States of America to the State of Israel Honorable Sir: Re: The Position of the State Department of the United States regarding the issue of the illegal Arab encampment adjacent to the town of Susiya Last week, a statement was issued by the State Department of the United States (Mr. Kirby) relating to the issue of an illegal Arab encampment near the...

A brazen campaign to erase an ancient Jewish village from the map is being led by European-funded NGOs, a report has revealed, once more casting a spotlight on the leading role played by European state funding in the anti-Israel movement. The illegal Arab settlement of Khirbet Susiya, located next to the Jewish town of Susya in Judea, is currently the target of a demolition order by Israeli authorities, having been illegally constructed on the ruins of an ancient, Talmudic-era Jewish village of the same name. […] Now, it has been revealed that the campaign is being led by European-funded Israeli...

A very unusual case of smuggling took place on Thursday, as huge quantities of gold, steroids and smart phones were found in the car of a European Union (EU) representative in Israel, as he drove into the country from Jordan. Dozens of kilograms of gold, hundreds of smartphones and a full package of steroid drugs were discovered by customs inspectors in the car as it tried to pass through the Allenby Border Crossing from Jordan, reports Channel 2. The EU diplomat was detained and later released, and his driver - an Arab resident of the northern Atarot neighborhood of Jerusalem...