Free Republic

The Biden administration has already unrolled its plan to return to the 2015 nuclear deal and has begun holding quiet talks with Iran, an Israeli TV station reported Saturday. Officials for the incoming administration have also updated Israel about the conversations, Channel 12 News said. A separate report by the Israel Hayom daily said Israel, wary of Biden’s promise to return to the deal, is crafting military options to “undermine Iran’s nuclear efforts or, if need be, counter Iranian aggression, which will soon be presented to the government.” The paper also quoted Defense Minister Benny Gantz as saying: “Israel needs...

Why does the jihad terror group keep lying? Because it works. It was, supposedly, yet another IDF atrocity: the Times of Israel reported Saturday that Hamas had “denounced as ‘barbaric’ overnight strikes by the Israel Defense Forces — in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip — that it said damaged a children’s hospital in the Palestinian enclave.” Reality, as always, was different, but as the old saying goes, a lie travels around the world before the truth has finished tying its shoes. The IDF, according to the TOI, “flatly denied hitting the hospital, and said exploding Hamas munitions...

And how they further the dark purpose of the BDS movement. While the pandemic greatly disrupted campus activities in 2020, the student governments of at least three universities managed to focus their efforts to pass BDS resolutions, bills that asked their respective universities to divest from holdings of companies doing business with Israel. At the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, that school’s resolution “called on the university to divest from Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar Inc. and Elbit Systems Ltd. for what the resolution alleges is partaking in human-rights violations in the Palestinian territories. . . .” Additionally,...

While the Biden campaign was announcing a slate of radicals sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood to stack its foreign policy desk if it ever takes over the government, a very different sort of trip was underway in the middle east that clarified how wrong and dangerous they were. In an event that would have been inconceivable under Barack Obama, the Shillman Fellows of Reservists on Duty, an organization founded by Israeli military veterans that tours college campuses to speak about the realities of fighting terrorism, were on their way to Dubai. Dubai, as part of the United Arab Emirates, had...

In his December 13, 2020 column in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, senior Lebanese journalist Hazem Saghiya defends the countries that recently normalized their relations with Israel. These countries, he says, have crucial existential concerns and national needs of their own, and they cannot be expected to sacrifice them for the sake of the Palestinian cause, "to which nobody ascribes much importance any longer." He stressed that, although everyone recognizes the Palestinians' right to an independent state, their cause is no longer consistent with the national interests of other Arab states, and sometimes even contravenes these interests. He adds...

This past year was full of adversity and hopelessness for many around the world. But for we Palestinians, it was even harsher – we were forced to face a deadly pandemic in an apartheid state, amid a collapsing economy, and a general feeling of hopelessness and abandonment... In the second half of the year, a series of Arab states added to our collective misery by announcing their decision to normalise their relations with Israel. By effectively abandoning their supposed commitment to supporting Palestinian self-determination for money, weapons and a few short-term political gains, they sent us a clear message that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia agreed on Monday to let Israeli airliners cross its airspace en route to the United Arab Emirates after talks between Saudi officials and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, a senior Trump administration official said. Kushner and Middle East envoys Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook raised the issue shortly after they arrived in Saudi Arabia ...

The knives were out for me in January 2017 when I arrived in Washington as the White House correspondent for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. You see, I worked for what scolds liked to call Sheldon Adelson's paper -- and that was a no-no. Adelson died Monday night, and I never got a chance to say this. Had he given me marching orders? I heard that question a lot in 2017. In fact, I didn't meet or talk to Adelson until 2018, when I introduced myself at an event ahead of the Jerusalem Embassy opening. The "marching orders" question is one...

Imagine the outcry if a non-Muslim leader said Muslims were not welcome at the site of an ancient Muslim holy place. But no one will take any particular notice of this. On Wednesday, theJerusalem Post reported that “the Palestinian Authority Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, on Tuesday warned of attempts by Jewish groups to establish a presence on the Temple Mount.” Hussein said: “We affirm, time and again, that the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque, with its entire area of 144 dunams [144,000 sq.m.], is Islamic and only for Muslims. There is no place for non-Muslims in any way in...

Can you guess who played a major role? This December 23rd is the fourth anniversary of the infamous United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declares that “the establishment of settlements by Israel in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” The Obama-Biden administration broke with the longstanding practice of both Democratic and Republican administrations to protect Israel from one-sided, anti-Israel United Nations resolutions when it refused to veto Resolution 2334 and abstained instead. Biden was reportedly involved behind the scenes in pushing the resolution forward...

"Goods produced in some areas of the West Bank shall be marked as products of “West Bank” and goods produced in Gaza shall be marked as products of "Gaza." US SECRETARY of State Mike Pompeo and his wife, Susan, visit Psagot Winery in the hills north of Jerusalem, last month. (photo credit: MATTY STERN/US EMBASSY JERUSALEM/FLASH90) The Trump administration granted de facto recognition of West Bank Area C sovereignty when it issued labeling requirement that all goods produced in that region, either of Israeli or Palestinian origin, should be labeled "Made in Israel." On Wednesday, the US Customs and Border...

BEIRUT: Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province. The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli toward the Masyaf area. It said Syrian air defense “confronted...

His latest autobiography goes out of its way to demonize the Jewish state. Great news: Barack Hussein Obama is now not only a Nobel laureate, but he has opened up a big lead among the presidents as the one with by far the most autobiographies. The marvelous narcissist now leads all other presidents who have written autobiographies by two, as he has written three, compared to a number of his peers who are tied at one. However, his latest one, A Promised Land, is more than just an update on the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of the Most Undeservedly Celebrated...

That James Zogby is an anti-Zionist, and anti-Israel agitator goes without saying. Zogby is a longtime leader of various anti-Israel groups — first the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, then the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and currently the Arab American Institute. It is his hypocrisy however, that is most disturbing. As a regular opinion commentator at Egypt’s Al-AhramEnglish, his latest piece (December 20, 2020), “Conservative Christians Remain Silent about Suffering Bethlehem” injects anti-Israel vitriol sugarcoated as a plea to pro-Israel conservative Christians to abandon Israel’s just cause. Of course, as an American of Arab ancestry, one can understand his sympathy for...

Close coordination between Israel and Qatar to facilitate sufficient funding for Hamas to keep Gaza’s economy from collapsing will likely be the key to moving Doha to a normalization deal. Relationships developed between Israel and Qatar to provide sufficient funding to Hamas and avoid an economic collapse and war in the Gaza Strip could be the engine for normalization between Jerusalem and Doha, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Pressed that in November, Qatar rejected any imminent normalization with Israel, sources told the Post confidently that this would likely change during the incoming Biden administration’s term. Ironically, even as Hamas is...

It’s easy to see why the American Left loved Sami al-Arian. Leftists hate Israel, too. Longtime FrontPage readers will remember Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who for years was a darling of the Leftist intelligentsia. IPT News reported Monday that he has resurfaced, but that the stalwart old Jew-hater hasn’t changed: while he has reined in his rhetoric a bit and speaks in a more civilized manner, he is still calling for Israel’s destruction, which would result in the murder of millions of Jews. Back in 1991, during a speech in Chicago, al-Arian screamed: “The Quran...

As he publishes a dramatic memoir covering nearly 40 years of service to the U.S., former CIA chief John Brennan talks about Netanyahu, Biden – and voting Communist John Brennan’s first encounter with Israel left a distinctly unfavorable impression. On a cold winter night in December 1975, the 20-year-old, who had just visited Jordan, arrived at the Allenby Bridge to enter Israel as a tourist. Brennan, an American student at the American University in Cairo, wanted to see the Holy Land and learn about Israel and the region in depth. At passport control he asked an Israeli soldier who was...

Day 307 of the Dictatorship of COVID-19, Day 307 of America and the World Held Hostage... Well there you have it "Playboy's Theme" reminding me of the gretest smear being dropped these days against Patriots, Trump Supporters, Anti-Lockdown, Anti-Vaccine people... Washington DC Under Martial Law Fear Of Revolution No I'm Not Talking About Today I'm Talking About August 28, 1963. Facebook and Twitter weren't there to censor Dr. Martin Luther King but the US Justice Department was running the show. The US Park Service sound system would switch to music if anyone said the wrong thing... God Bless President Donald...

"We were expecting the missile launch," one official said, but there was concern just how close Iran was willing to push the envelope. While 100 miles is well over the horizon and not visible from the aircraft carrier or its escort ships, American spy satellites orbiting high above in space tracked the missile launch from the Islamic Republic. It's not immediately clear if the AN/SPY-1 radar aboard the guided-missile cruiser escorting the aircraft carrier Nimitz tracked the launch. Nimitz has remained in the northern Arabian Sea on the orders of President Trump through the inauguration. Earlier this month, in an...

There’s no doubt that this is the largest Iranian warship to ever sail. But what is it for? Meet the Markan. What Iran Is Doing Iran recently commissioned what is by far their largest ship ever, the Makran, a former oil-tanker-turned-warship. The Islamic Republic calls the Makran a forward operating base ship, intended to extend Iranian reach farther out to sea by acting as a do-it-all launchpad that can keep helicopters and drones fueled and supplied, especially in the shallower littoral waters to the country’s southwest.