Free Republic

Iran survives by delay, deception, and deterrence games—but the moment may be coming when airpower, not diplomacy, decides how the nuclear standoff ends. The Trump administration has bent over backward to negotiate an end to Iran’s grand plans to develop nuclear weapons—before the June 2025 bombing, afterward, and again during the follow-up diplomacy of spring 2026. Yet Iran is unlikely ever to abandon its pursuit of the bomb voluntarily. With nuclear weapons, Tehran hopes to become the de facto hegemon of the Middle East. Only then could it effectively coerce or deter both Israel and the wealthy Arab Gulf states....

"The group's leadership repeatedly expressed support for the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah." Year after year, Toronto police have allowed Muslim pro-terrorist mobs to invade and harass the Jewish community. Now, PM Mark Carney has declared that there is a “scourge of antisemitism” and plans to combat it with a DEI council. To that end, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, today announced the launch and membership of Canada’s new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion to be chaired by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture. The Council has a clear mission: to combat racism and hate in...

Perhaps Hezbollah finally got a whiff of utter defeat. Either that, or they just got a reprieve courtesy of Iran. If it's the latter, though, they didn't get much. Donald Trump announced this afternoon that Hezbollah has had enough in Lebanon. The group had refused to comply with the ceasefire between Israel and the civilian government in Beirut, continuing to volley missiles at civilian targets. The IDF has captured strategic points in the sub-Litani region and had warned residents in Hezbollah-controlled areas of the capital to evacuate. That's when Hezbollah sued for peace, and Trump intervened:I had a very productive...

June 1-2, 1941, pro-Nazi Iraqis killed, raped and maimed hundreds of Jews.. 'FARHUD', should heighten vigilance against totalitarian evil everywhere and debunk today’s con claiming anti-Zionism is anything other than a modern update of antisemitism... seven years before Israel’s establishment and before there were any Arab refugees. .. bloodbath triggered an exodus of Iraqi Jews amid the expulsion of 850,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands—refugee problem politically correct society ignores. ... ‘mass rape and killing.’ ” Hooligans inflamed by demagogues murdered at least 128 Jews, injured 600 others and raped dozens, possibly hundreds. “Baghdad became a fast-moving hell,” .....

Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters commander warned residents of northern Israel to leave the area if Israel carries out threatened attacks on Beirut, in response to an earlier Israeli military evacuation warning for residents of areas in Beirut. "Given Israel's repeated violations of the ceasefire, if this threat is carried out, we warn residents of northern areas and military settlements in Israel to leave the area if they do not want to be harmed," Ali Abdollahi said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's office submitting his resignation, London-based anti-regime outlet Iran International reported on Sunday. An anonymous official told Iran International that the letter had called out the fact that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had effectively taken over large portions of the government, and that the president and other high-ranking officials had been cut out of vital decision-making. Pezeshkian, the letter emphasized, was unable to run the government or fulfill his responsibilities under the circumstances, and as such, requested to resign. Anonymous sources told Iran International that the primary source...

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has submitted an official letter of resignation to the Office of the Supreme Leader, a source familiar with the matter told Iran International. In the letter sent on Sunday, Pezeshkian stressed that the president and the government have effectively been excluded from major and vital decision-making processes in the country, and that the vacuum created by this situation has enabled hardline factions within the IRGC to take control of affairs, the source said. Pezeshkian added that under such circumstances he is unable to run the government and carry out his legal responsibilities, and for that reason...

Iran has damaged 20 US military sites since the start of the war, satellite images and videos analysed by BBC Verify show, suggesting the attacks are more extensive than publicly acknowledged. Iran has targeted key facilities across eight countries in the Middle East since the end of February, causing millions of dollars of damage to state-of the-art air defence systems, refuelling aircraft and radars. Tehran has targeted both US bases and shared military facilities in retaliation to the US-Israeli strikes across Iran and Lebanon over the past three months. The Pentagon says it has hit more than 13,000 targets in...

Key Points Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries in retaliation for ongoing ceasefire violations, Iran’s state-affiliated news outlet Tasnim said. Tehran will also move to fully block the Strait of Hormuz, Tasnim reported. Oil prices leapt more than 5% higher following Tasnim’s report. ============================================================ Iranian negotiators will stop exchanging messages with the U.S. through intermediaries, and Tehran will move to fully close the Strait of Hormuz, in retaliation for ongoing ceasefire violations, Iran’s state-affiliated news outlet Tasnim said Monday. The report, in a translated post on the social media site Telegram, homed in on Israel’s...

Iran to halt message exchanges with US over Israel's strikes on Lebanon, Iranian media says Iran is halting its indirect talks with U.S. negotiators in protest against Israel's attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian state-linked media reported Monday. Iran's Tasnim news agency, linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that Tehran is cutting off talks due to the "continued crimes of the Zionist regime in Lebanon." The report comes after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted to social media saying Lebanon must be included in the ongoing ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. "The United States and Israel bear...

The world's diplomatic attention is fixed on Pakistan, on ceasefire memoranda, on whether Mojtaba Khamenei will emerge from hiding long enough to initial a document. In that distraction, Israel has done something strategically significant in Lebanon that has received almost no serious analysis (but was highlighted on Arutz Sheva). It has crossed the Litani River. Israeli forces have advanced beyond the Litani, a line that for decades functioned as an unofficial boundary in southern Lebanon. Troops are now pushing northward toward the Zahrani River, roughly ten kilometers away. The IDF has declared the entire area between the two rivers an...

President Trump likes his military and diplomatic victories quick, clean and decisive. (snip) But now, Mr. Trump has hit the stalemate phase of his presidency. The war with Iran is clearly at that stage. When he declared a cease-fire on April 7, Mr. Trump said on social media that the end of combat operations would be conditional on “the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” It wasn’t. Even if commerce now resumes across the strait under a memorandum of understanding still under negotiation, it will still leave the future of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs exactly...

Rodriguez's trip to People’s Congress of Resistance at Howard University sheds light on path to radicalism. A radical left-wing group described as a "conduit" between the Chinese Communist Party and domestic anti-Israel groups raised money for Elias Rodriguez, the 30-year-old Chicago native who allegedly murdered two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., to attend a "resistance" conference in September 2017. There, Rodriguez rubbed shoulders with "comrades" from pro-Hamas groups and other radical organizations, coming away impressed with their "commitment to actually getting things done," according to a video and an online fundraiser unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon. Rodriguez’s attendance at...

Since October 7, one of the most inconvenient facts in the entire debate has become impossible to ignore: Hamas does not merely tolerate Palestinian civilian suffering—it exploits it, it wants it. Many observers who were previously unaware of this (longstanding Arab "Palestinian" leaderships) reality were confronted with it in 2024 when reporting revealed internal communications from Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. According to the reporting, Sinwar viewed mounting Palestinian casualties and destruction not as a strategic failure, but as a strategic success. The more devastating the war became for Gaza, the greater the international pressure on Israel, the greater the diplomatic...

A senior Hamas official told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hamas had sent messages to the mediating countries complaining about Israel’s alleged violations of the ceasefire agreement, while reaffirming its commitment to negotiations and efforts to reach a breakthrough in talks on Gaza. The official claimed that the assassination of Hamas military wing commander Izz ad-Din Haddad disrupted the negotiations, and called on the mediators to pressure Israel to halt what Hamas described as daily ceasefire violations. Hamas expressed hope that consultations with the mediators would help formulate a path forward in the talks, which have been postponed until after Eid al-Adha....

EXCLUSIVE: House panel says it uncovered new funding links between Biden admin and anti-Netanyahu, left-wing groups. “Our government is sending American tax dollars to NGOs that are undermining our ally—our best ally—the State of Israel,” Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told JNS. May 29, 2026. Andrew Bernard. The House Judiciary Committee said that it has uncovered new funding links between the Biden administration and left-wing groups that oppose the Israeli government, as well as groups with ties to terrorist organizations A May 29 committee memorandum, which JNS obtained exclusively and which was addressed to committee members from...

I have written several times about the fundamental corruption of the UNRWA. It is one of two "refugee" aid organizations at the United Nations. It is dedicated to serving Palestinians throughout the Middle East. The other exists to serve every other refugee in the world. That's right. One agency for Palestinians. The other for every other refugee in the world. Think about that and let it sink in. Now, think about the fact that Palestinians are the only "refugees" who have had that status for 80 years. It is absurd. They are not refugees. They weren't even kicked out of...

The federal investigation into staff at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency—the U.N. Gaza relief organization that's been closely linked to Hamas—will soon encompass at least 1,500 UNRWA-linked individuals suspected of terror ties. This unprecedented dragnet—reported here for the first time by the Washington Free Beacon—exposes an aid group brimming with Hamas operatives, and is generating momentum in Congress and the Trump administration for harsher sanctions on the embattled aid group, according to congressional staffers briefed on the matter. The punitive measures up for consideration include stripping UNRWA of its diplomatic immunity under U.S. law, which would open it...

The social media post by President Trump made it sound straightforward. The United States would orchestrate a deal to end the war with Iran and, in exchange, a slew of countries across the Middle East and South Asia would join an agreement, called the Abraham Accords, establishing relations with Israel. In fact, he said, that “should be mandatory.” But half of the countries he named — such as Egypt, Jordan and Turkey — already have relations with Israel. And the other half — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan — have no interest in establishing them anytime soon. As a...

Israel has killed two top Hamas military chiefs in 11 days, demonstrating near-total surveillance, air supremacy, and intelligence capabilities across Gaza and the Middle East.What is so shocking about Israel's achievement of assassinating two Hamas military chiefs, Izz-al-Din al-Hadad, and his successor, Mohammed Ouda, within 11 days of each other, is that no one is even shocked anymore. Depending on the country or area, from drones to fighter jets, to the navy, to satellites, to Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF Unit 504 agents, Israel has its enemies' leaders covered and in its crosshairs practically on demand, including: Iran, the Yemen...