Free Republic

Amid an active war, Pope Leo XIV has bestowed the Vatican's highest diplomatic honor on the Islamic Republic's envoy. Critics say it validates a regime that murders Christians, kills protesters by the thousands, and fires missiles at Western allies. In a move that has ignited controversy across religious, political, and human rights circles, Pope Leo XIV has decorated Iran's ambassador to the Vatican with the most prestigious diplomatic honor the Holy See can confer. Pope Leo XIV has awarded the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX, the highest active diplomatic distinction of the Vatican, to the ambassador...

Saudi fighter jets carried out airstrikes on Iran-linked Shi’ite militia targets inside Iraq during the Iran war, while retaliatory strikes were also launched from Kuwait into Iraqi territory, Reuters reported citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. Sources cited by Reuters included three Iraqi military and security officials, a Western official and two people briefed on the matter, including one in the United States. According to one Western official and another source familiar with the operations, Saudi air force fighter jets targeted Iran-backed militia positions near the kingdom’s northern border with Iraq. The Western official said some of the Saudi...

Like many leftists living in social media bubbles, New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof is obsessed with Israel. And because he has a risible understanding of the Middle East, he’s also highly susceptible to believing unhinged conspiracies aimed at the country. This week, however, in a pseudo-journalistic piece headlined “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” the columnist excavates conspiracies so unhinged that no marginally reputable media outlet has ever touched them. Even the New York Times relegates it to its op-ed section, since the piece breaks every rule of objective journalism. But even columnists have an obligation...

Full depravity of Hamas during October 7 revealed for the first time: New report details how terrorists performed unimaginable horrors upon Israeli families. Among the mutilated and butchered bodies of young women slaughtered on October 7, it was their colourful, polished nails that many of the morgue staff remember Bright, beautiful, shiny, pink manicures glistening amid the pervasive 'grey and green' of death were often the only reminder of who these girls had been just hours earlier. Because Hamas-led terrorists had not just executed these women. They had 'deliberately and systematically' defiled them, as the most comprehensive account of the...

Almost three years after October 7, a new 300-page report lays out evidence of systematic sexual violence by Hamas. Women were brutalized Watch this episode with no interruptions. More than two and a half years after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, a specially appointed Civil Commission on Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children published on Tuesday the most comprehensive report to date documenting the terror group’s systematic use of sexual violence, rape, and “kinocide” during the assault. Among the key findings of the 300-page report are examples of gang-rape, sexual violence to terrorize families, and even some cases...

And even Kristof himself admits that “it’s impossible to know how common sexual assaults against Palestinians are” -- though that does not stop him from going on about it for almost 4,000 words. It’s a simple proposition: Whatever our views on the Middle East conflict, we should all be able to agree that dogs cannot be trained to rape human beings. Yet this is exactly what a New York Times “opinion” piece posing as an in-depth journalistic investigation, perhaps to avoid any real journalistic accountability, published on Monday claims, based on anonymous testimonies and a report by a well-known anti-Israel...

They know that their amplification of totally insane blood libels plays a role in the attacks on synagogues, the stabbings, and the shootings. And they do it anyway. Do Nicholas Kristof and his employers at the New York Times want to see more attacks on Israeli civilians and on innocent Jews around the world? They sure act like that’s exactly what they want to see. Kristof committed a crime against journalism in his latest attack on Israel. Without bothering to verify a single source, he spread a blood libel guaranteed to be used to justify more attacks on Jews. At...

Israel's Conduct in Gaza Does Not Resemble Genocide. David Bernstein | 5.11.2026. Frankly, I find the charge of genocide against Israel to be obviously absurd, one of those claims that true believers insist upon precisely because the claim is so implausible that promoting it is valuable to show you are a true believer. Hence the pressure by anti-Israel activists for everyone who purports to be "pro-Palestinian" to accept the genocide claim, or be excluded from the club. Nevertheless, because the genocide lie is so common in public discourse over Gaza, I thought it would be useful to write a piece...

President Donald Trump has been compared to many historical figures, by opponents (who claim he’s another Adolf Hitler) and by boosters (who cite Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt). With his blockade of Iran, though, maybe we should start comparing him to Gen. Winfield Scott. In the mid-19th century, Scott was America’s preeminent military mind, the architect of victory in the Mexican War and the “Grand Old Man of the Army.” As the Civil War loomed, he developed a plan to defeat the Confederacy with the smallest number of casualties possible. He called it the Anaconda Plan — and like its...

0:00: There's a fascinating news item that um that was released in Israel just yesterday and it came out on Khan News 0:088 seconds: in Hebrew. Khan News is one of the major mainstream news outlets in Israel. And I want to read this to you. It I only saw 0:1717 seconds: it in Hebrew, so I translated it into English. And I want to read it to you in full and talk about the implications of this and what I think of this news story 0:2525 seconds: because I think it has huge implications if it's true for not...

As Hezbollah’s grip weakens and war fatigue deepens, a growing number of Lebanese are beginning to see peace with Israel not as betrayal but as necessity For Hanin Ghaddar, returning to Lebanon would mean more than just going home. It would signal that something once unthinkable may finally be within reach: a country loosening itself from Iran’s grip and edging, however cautiously, toward peace with Israel. A veteran Lebanese journalist from a Shi’ite family in a village in southern Lebanon, Ghaddar was targeted by Hezbollah and forced to leave her homeland in 2016. And despite growing up with her country...

Dubai: Defying international law governing global waterways, Iran is trying to force shippers to comply with a new protocol for transiting the Strait of Hormuz — or risk attack. According to a document seen by CNN, Tehran has introduced new rules for vessels seeking passage through the strategic waterway, pressing ahead with efforts to formalise control over Hormuz despite repeated US and regional warnings. The document, titled “Vessel Information Declaration,” was issued by Iran’s newly created Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA). It requires vessels transiting Hormuz to submit detailed information, including ownership, crew nationalities, cargo details and voyage plans, before...

More information has become available about what led to Loay Alnaji's surprise guilty plea on Tuesday morning and a potential sentence, but that information leads to additional questions we're still running down answers for. Alnaji, readers will recall, is the pro-Hamas agitator and community college professor who killed a Jewish man, Paul Kessler, when the two were attending dueling protests on November 5, 2023. Alnaji crossed two eight-lane streets to confront Kessler, who was waving an Israeli flag on the corner of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Westlake Boulevard in Ventura County, CA. During that confrontation, Alnaji bashed Kessler's head with...

A California college professor who scuffled with pro-Israel demonstrators has pleaded guilty in the death of a Jewish man who was fatally injured during the clash. According to the New York Post, Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji, 54, admitted on Tuesday to felony involuntary manslaughter and felony battery causing serious bodily injury in connection with the 2023 death of Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old pro-Israel demonstrator from Southern California. The incident unfolded during rival demonstrations in Thousand Oaks, where anti-Israel activists and Israel supporters gathered amid escalating tensions following the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and the following war in Gaza....

The idea behind this is as follows: Jews were massacred and their property stolen by Arabs, therefore Arab Palestinians have a right to it in perpetuity. They believe this is true of Jewish property in Jerusalem and Hebron as well, for example. This is a cornerstone of anti-Zionism, that Jews have no right to life or property. Yet there’s another point to be made here besides the fact that the mayor of New York and a legion of progressive-aligned anti-Semites revealed their unique combination of ignorance and bad faith. There are a couple of problems with the whole concept of...

I begin by singing the same song I have been crooning since President Trump announced the ceasefire and naval blockade in mid-April. The war is over. If this were a novel, we’d be in epilogue territory where we tie up some loose threads in the plot and learn about the fates of various characters.

The advisor to the Supreme Leader of Iran on military affairs, Mohsen Rezaei, accuses the United States of being the only pirate force in the world that owns aircraft carriers. Rezaei added that Iran's ability to confront pirates is no less than our ability to sink warships. Rezaei addressed the Americans and said: "Prepare to face a graveyard for your aircraft carriers and troops, just as the wreckage of your planes remained..."

In late February, the Israeli Knesset passed the NGO Funding Transparency Bill by 40 to 34. It had been a long journey for the bill, which despite, its neutered, state was still a declaration of war by the conservative Likud Party against the shadow NGO empire that was the Soros way. While the bill was no longer able to empower the lifting of tax exempt status for foreign funded NGOs and it only addressed foreign funding of NGOs by government entities, it was a major step for foreign funding transparency. The Soros empire had been built on non-transparency, on hidden...

For decades, Iran survived by staying just below the threshold of direct confrontation. It relied on shadow oil shipments, asymmetric attacks, and strategic disruption. That formula worked against sanctions. It is now colliding with something it was never built to handle: a sustained, enforced blockade.And markets are only beginning to understand what that means.How a Shipping War Turned Into Economic ContainmentThe escalation did not begin with the blockade. It began with Iran attempting to weaponize uncertainty.Early in the conflict, Tehran targeted commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, effectively freezing traffic through one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints....

We’re approaching 60 days of the so-called Iran war, and we’re still getting these loud voices that Donald Trump has failed, that the war’s not going well. It’s completely nonempirical. It’s antithetical to the evidence. Here we are at 60 days, and Iran is losing about $500 million in input per day. It’s running out of storage space in a week or two for its daily output of oil, at which point they either have to stop pumping or they’re going to have—if they don’t stop pumping—their wells will collapse. They either have to stop pumping, or they have to...