Free Republic

“People have to understand that the backbone of Israel’s support in the United States is the evangelical Christians,” said former Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer last year. “If you look just at numbers, you should be spending a lot more time doing outreach to evangelical Christians than you would do to Jews…” There is no single cause that satisfactorily explains the loss of support for Israel among a younger generation of evangelicals; it is a confluence of factors. One of them is theological. Younger pastors are more amillennial than older ones, there’s less focus by the newer...

For several hours, Israel held its collective breath: The military’s top lawyer had disappeared two days after she resigned amid a legal inquiry into her role in exposing an explosive prisoner abuse scandal. The former military advocate general, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, sparked a frantic police search amid fears for her well-being in a case that consumed the country while striking at the heart of deep divisions over the U.S. ally’s conduct in its war in Gaza. Although she was found safe hours later, she was subsequently arrested Sunday for her role in the leak of a video showing alleged...

A top Hamas leader said Tuesday that the terror group and the Palestinian Authority have come to an agreement regarding the establishment of a temporary committee that will manage the Gaza Strip on behalf of the PA. The committee’s responsibilities will include overseeing the border crossings and the security forces in the Strip, Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera, adding that it will be headed by a PA minister. Abu Marzouk didn’t clarify during the interview whether this decision was approved by the US as well as the PA, meaning it was unclear whether there is any weight to the...

Zoom out: For now, MAGA is being held together by Trump's personality. But open disagreement has broken out over who should, and shouldn't, be accepted under its tent. U.S. support for Israel's operations in Gaza inflamed America First diehards and hardened Israel's MAGA allies. The online divisions have raged during the tenuous ceasefire, including tropes over Jews' supposed disproportionate influence in the U.S. A leaked group chat from New York State Young Republicans included racist comments and messages from a Trump administration nominee declaring he had a "Nazi streak." The revelation sparked debates over who — if anyone — should...

Critics have long said that accusations of famine in Gaza have a gaping hole right in the middle: the staggering amount of emaciated, dead bodies, part and parcel of a famine, are simply nowhere to be found. When the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a United Nations-linked food-security agenda, determined in August that a famine was indeed ongoing in parts of Gaza, those behind the report said that the sheer devastation in Gaza did not allow for an accurate accounting of starvation-related deaths. Instead, they said, they were using another key criterion for famine that generally goes hand in hand...

Yesterday I wrote about the remarkable story of Hamas going full Pallywood as it pretended to recover the body of an Israeli hostage. The remains were delivered to Israel and identified a few hours later as belonging to a deceased hostage named Ofir Tzarfati. His body had been returned to Israel two years earlier, meaning these remains weren't new and did not belong to one of the 13 hostages kidnapped on 10/7 whose bodies have not yet been returned to Israel in keeping with the ceasefire agreement. Hamas has claimed it doesn't know where those bodies are (they could be...

Since Oct 7, support for the attack persists even as expectations of Hamas victory wane. Gazans are more open to negotiated arrangements;` West Bankers favor armed struggle... These are the results of the latest poll conducted by PCPSR-Polling and Survey Research in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between 22-25 October 2025... The Trump Plan...almost 60% of Gazans support the framed plan, while the same percentage of West Bankers oppose it... October 7 and the Gaza War:.. Support for Hamas’s decision to launch the offensive, while declining from its peak, remains a majority at more than 50%, with recent...

A group of sick Palestinian children have been evacuated from Gaza to Ireland to receive medical treatment, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health have confirmed. Seven children arrived in Dublin on Saturday evening, with 29 accompanying family members.It marks the third medical evacuation from Gaza following Government approval in September last year in response to an appeal from the World Health Organization (WHO) to address the health needs of Gazans. Doctors from Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) worked with the WHO to identify sick and injured children who would benefit from treatment in Ireland. The group traveled from Gaza to Jordan...

About an hour long interview with Tommy Robinson...

U.S. President Donald Trump said he stopped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from fighting in Gaza, a war he said would have continued "for years" without his pressure on Netanyahu. “He would have just kept going,” Trump told TIME in a newly published interview. “It could have gone on for years. It would have gone on for years. But I stopped him, and everybody came together when I stopped him.” Trump and Netanyahu have heaped praise on each other publicly. But Trump has also shown signs of frustration with Netanyahu's hardline approach, saying in his recent speech to the Knesset...

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the Gaza peace deal brokered by Donald Trump, the past two years have seen Israel achieve an unprecedented litany of military accomplishments in the Middle East. The level of damage done to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis is difficult to comprehend. The end of the Assad regime and, with American support, the demolition of the Iranian nuclear program – setting it back years at the least – were steps that many once thought impossible. Israel has emerged from the post-October 7 period unquestionably stronger in every way except one: its support around the globe,...

Hamas militants are reestablishing bases inside hospitals and schools, using civilian infrastructure to interrogate Gazans the terror group accuses of collaborating with Israel, according to Palestinian media reports. "Hamas's internal security forces have begun summoning opponents from schools, tents, and hospitals controlled by Hamas members for interrogation," the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) official Arabic mouthpiece, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, reported over the weekend. Hamas is notorious for its use of U.N.-run schools and hospitals as military outposts and arms storage depots, a practice meant to maximize civilian casualties and engender international outrage against Israel. While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) neutralized many of...

Israel has denied it has violated international lawThe International Court of Justice said Wednesday that Israel must allow the United Nations aid agency in Gaza, known as UNRWA, to provide humanitarian assistance to the war-torn territory. The UN General Assembly asked the court last year to give an advisory opinion on Israel's legal obligations after the country effectively banned the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the main provider of aid to Gaza, from operating in the territory. Israel "is under the obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities, including UNRWA," the...

President Trump succeeded in getting phase one of his peace plan enacted. That meant a ceasefire in which all of the 20 living Israeli hostages were returned to Israel in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a partial withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. (Hamas was supposed to return the deceased hostages as well but it seems that is going to take a bit longer to accomplish.) But the big question has been whether or not Trump's team could move on from a successful phase one of the plan to phase two, which everyone agrees is the tougher part....

Kiss rocker Gene Simmons called out Jewish Hollywood celebrities pushing “incendiary” anti-Israel propaganda. “They don’t understand, they’re just idiots,” the “I Love It Loud” singer said. “Hey guys, my name is Haim, born in Haifa,” Simmons said in Hebrew, before switching to English, adding, “I’m one of you guys, so don’t worry about all the Jewish morons who are running around saying all kinds of incendiary things. They don’t understand, they’re just idiots.” “If they spent a day with you, and saw — well, imagine this, you live in Beverly Hills and 35,000 rockets come in that week from Pasadena,...

The Israeli army believes that Hamas has reestablished its hold over Gaza's governing institutions since the cease-fire went into effect on October 10. Despite the population's dire situation and destruction from two years of war, the Israel Defense Forces have seen no significant opposition emerging or anti-Hamas protests. Army sources said local gangs that Israel backed during the last phases of the war, in the hopes they could challenge Hamas rule, have disbanded and/or their members have been eliminated or removed from the scene. Many Hamas operatives have been seen shooting anyone who is seen as opposing the organization or...

As I reflect on this week's headlines, a familiar mix of cautious hope and unshakeable conviction, rooted in God's unchanging Word, stirs within me. For those of us who have traded an ideology of fear for the liberating truth of Christ, such moments resonate deeply. Having spent two decades immersed in national security, chasing shadows of radicalism as a devout Muslim, I now speak from a place of redemption. I've exchanged Sharia's legalism for grace's freedom, learning that true peace isn't found in diplomatic agreements but anchored in the sovereignty of a God who orchestrates history. The news from the...

The national body of Students for Justice in Palestine backed Hamas’s grisly public executions of fellow Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, posting “Death to the Occupation, Death to Collaborators” on Instagram. The call for executions followed the murder of “journalist” Saleh Al-Jafarawi, known to critics as “Mr. FAFO” because he would post complaints about Israeli counterattacks after posting happily about Hamas attacks. Gaza has erupted into internecine violence since the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to agreed-upon ceasefire lines last Friday. Hamas has been executing members of rival armed groups and armed clans. Often, the executions are...

To recap the past week: Hamas films themselves executing over 100 Palestinians. The media is silent. Hamas launches RPGs at Israeli troops, murdering two. The media is silent. Israel responds by striking a Hamas commander. The media says Israel violated the ceasefire.

Interesting discussion. Witkoff and Kushner were being briefed by the CIA on the exact opposite position of Hamas as explained by the leaders of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey.What the CIA was saying to them was exactly the opposite of reality, as Kushner and Witkoff put the peace deal together. Remarkable.