Free Republic

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Fusion TV´s Jorge Ramos that part of the reason Hamas hides rockets in schools and civilian areas is "Gaza is small." "I´m not a military planner but Hamas puts it´s missiles, it´s rockets in civilian areas, part of it is Gaza is pretty small and its densely populated," she said as neglecting the question of whether or not Hamas should have rockets in area to begin with.

President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”. In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement. The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign statesman since taking office. Mr Obama also spoke to President Mubarak of Egypt, Ehud...

The spiritual leader of Lebanon’s Sunnis, the Grand Mufti Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, said the pope’s remarks emanated either from "Ignorance and lack of knowledge or were deliberately intended to distort Islam." Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said “there should be no controversy; the pope has already explained his true intentions. The religious dialogue and the respect for every religion is a necessity, and religion doesn’t justify violence. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said of Benedict XVI: He is a great pope, with great intelligence. Right-wing politician Roberto Calderoli said “I ask myself some crazy member of the Left...

“You should have much success and do not evacuate.” So wrote soldiers of the 51st battalion of the Golani Brigade in a fax sent to the residents of Gush Katif. The letter, signed “Liron and Gal from Car 51,” began the letter with words of thanks for the refreshments area set up by residents to provide soldiers with a place to rest. It went on to urge the residents not to leave their homes. “You give us strength to continue,” the soldiers wrote, by hand, on the official stationary with hearts drawn for emphasis. “We have not met many people...

A new initiative seeks to provide housing for the hundreds of individuals and families who want to move to Gush Katif to strengthen veteran Jewish residents in the face of expulsion. In recent months the communities of Gush Katif have been inundated with requests by people who want to move there. This despite the fact that according to the expulsion/compensation legislation they would not be compensated for the destruction of their property if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan is implemented. While aides to Prime Minister Sharon have confided that the plan largely relies on inducing the willful evacuation by...

<p>The United States, rightly unsparing in its efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda operatives killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, is in no position to criticize Israel for assassinating Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas. Yassin is lionized in certain quarters of the media as a Muslim spiritual leader, but his enduring legacy is the skill he exercised to motivate Muslims to kill Jews by killing themselves.</p>